Changing Language

I was fascinated recently to learn that 'other' is now being used—by sociologists, psychologists and so on—as a verb, and we also now have the word 'otherness'. 'Othering', it turns out, is a really useful verb. It describes how we tend to talk about, and actively relate to, anyone who we feel is 'not in our group'. It doesn't only have to include (for example) 'foreigners'—it's absolutely anyone who we feel is 'different' from ourselves. According to the post "Othering 101: What is Othering" on the psychology blog There are no Others:

"By “othering”, we mean any action by which an individual or group becomes mentally classified in somebody’s mind as “not one of us”. Rather than always remembering that every person is a complex bundle of emotions, ideas, motivations, reflexes, priorities, and many other subtle aspects, it’s sometimes easier to dismiss them as being in some way less human, and less worthy of respect and dignity, than we are."

This article goes on to suggest that maybe 'othering' came about as an evolutionary development to protect 'our tribe' i.e. 'our genes'. The same article links to various experiments, such as the 'Jane Elliott and the Brown Eyes, Blue Eyes Exercise' explained at http://h2g2.com/edited_entry/A1132480 .

'Othering' isn't a mainstream verb—yet. But I think it probably will be pretty soon. It covers how we talk about, for instance, 'the weird people down the street who refuse to get a car', 'the kids over the road who make all that noise', 'red-heads', 'old people', 'the blokes who support Rovers instead of Burnley' ... etc. 

There were lots of instances of 'othering' during the recent Brexit debates: we saw how again and again the EU was talked about as being 'them' and 'they' with contrasting references to 'we', 'us' and 'our'— "...we don't want them running our country anymore..." "...we want to take back control of our country..." were typical expressions of opinion; but on the mainstream media UK residents heard very little of the inclusive one-group "...we Europeans..." or "... we EU member-states..." or "... our elected MEPs tell the Eurocrats in Brussels what to do...".