I defacto agree. I am like this. I care more about those I care more about. Genetics hasn’t had so much to do with it, beyond my family that is, but in various ways I got close to certain people beyond the family, I and I care about their needs more than I do others.
- In the background to this, I might have more abstract goals. IOW I will tend to root for and even strive for decent treatment of people in a general way, even though I could, I suppose, spend that time focusing just on my near and dear. I haven’t had some activist or especially active political life, but still in discussions and in organizations where I have worked and even online, I put some effort into generalized fairness or decent treatement, when I could just and always focus on my people, so to speak.
Abuses of power bother me, even if I may not be on the bad end of them. (abuses of those without much power can also bother me, but these tend to be punished by power, and further they just bother me less.)
- I think as part of this latter, I am always wary of being told who my people are and when we are at odds with other people. IOW while I share your priorities, I want to immediately notice how the powerful tend to use this. On a simple level when they tell me our nation should go to war, but it can include all sorts of less dramatic creations of us/them battles. I tend to think the whole Republican vs. Democrat is a lovely good cop bad cop thing with this kind of manipulation.
So I am saying that while I prioritize my closest, I am also hyperaware of how this gets used, and even if it does not get used against me on some particular issue - I may put some energy in there because I hate con games of all kinds, especially when it is real superplayers who just want more. The guys with a fixed card thingie on a cardboard box on the corner might bug me, but they’ll be lucky to pay the bills off that one.
Of course, the powers that be can also tell me that I am evil if I engage in prioritizing those I love most. And I am wary of this also. When people with incredible power come to tell me I need to do X, so that everything is good or fair, I am also skeptical. Their I, me, mine is likely lurking in there is my default reaction.
I think this is complicated. I think we have to call out abuse of power, regardless. I could argue that i the long term this might benefit my in group, but, I think there is some game theory stuff in there also right off the bat. If my in group calls bullshit on power abuse, then pershaps other in groups will do this when I am under the thumb.
Another way to put this is I think big power gets a lot of mileage on making me think I have to choose between my ingroup and other groups for the benefit of bit power. They want Zero Sum game thinking.
This is complicated by more lefty types of abuse of power, where it seems like we are helping all in groups, but actually what is happening is a spreading of surveillance, control, rules and centralization of power in other abusives ways.
I got no simple answers.
I jsut want to say that propaganda can really abuse to all our detriment how and when we decide now is a time I must focus on my group and ignore the needs of the other groups.
And then in reaction to myself I need to add, this can play the other way, where supposedly loving ideas about inclusion, can actually be about power consolidating itself. And it ain’t easy to know the difference.
I do want to say that it isn’t just us/them or even us/thems.
I see the world as more like us/us/us/…(etc)/THEM