{
  "id": "us-versus-them.split",
  "term": "us versus them",
  "sense": "split",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "published",
  "level": 17,
  "domain": "agency",
  "style": "folk",
  "definition": "A collective self that divides into an in-group and an out-group, reading the reach of the out-group as set against its own walls.",
  "folk_gloss": "a way of seeing the world as a conflict between one's own group and another",
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "collective-self.shared",
      "boundary.limit",
      "in-group.inside",
      "out-group.outside",
      "enemy.against",
      "reach.action",
      "division.process",
      "read.information",
      "set.fix",
      "against.opposition",
      "wall.range-end"
    ],
    "interaction": "Drawing a boundary is not yet a split; the split comes when the other group's reach is read as aimed at one's walls, so each gain across the line reads as a loss.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "a boundary turned into a front",
      "gains read as the other's losses"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "In Henri Tajfel's minimal group experiments of the early 1970s, boys sorted into groups on a trivial basis favoured their own group when sharing out rewards.",
      "domain": "psychology"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "id": "one-nation.whole",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "the inverse move: one nation joins what us versus them sets against each other"
    },
    {
      "id": "enemy.against",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "an enemy is one thing read as against one's walls; us versus them reads a whole group so"
    }
  ],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "them and us",
    "us against them",
    "us and them",
    "us versus them",
    "us vs them"
  ],
  "closed": true,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "claude-opus-5-5:hand-curated",
    "date": "2026-09-29",
    "confidence": 0.85,
    "sources": [
      "schema/power-agency-phase.md"
    ]
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-us-versus-them.split"
}