You're either with us, or against us

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The phrase "you're either with us, or against us" and similar variations are used to depict situations as being polarized and to force witnesses, bystanders, or others unaligned with some form of pre-existing conflict to either become allies of the speaking party or lose favor. The implied consequence of not joining the team effort is to be deemed an enemy. Since 2001 it has most commonly been attributed to former US President George W. Bush, who famously used the phrase after 9/11 at the launch of his anti-terrorism campaign.[1]

Background

The statement generally is a descriptive statement identifying the beliefs of the speaker(s), and thus state a basic assumption, not a logical conclusion. It may also be interpreted as a speech act. It is sometimes interpreted as a splitting or a false dilemma, which is an informal fallacy.

Some see the statement as a way of persuading others to choose sides in a conflict which does not afford the luxury of neutrality.[2] Only when there is absolutely no middle ground or additional alternatives does the phrase hold validity as a logical conclusion. The phrases are a form of argumentation.[3]

Use of the phrase

Historical quotations

  • The Synoptic Gospels attribute the following quote to Jesus of Nazareth: "Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters" (Matthew 12:30), as well as its contrapositive, "Whoever is not against us is for us" (Luke 9:50; Mark 9:40).[4]
  • Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, in a speech discussing the Chief Committee for Political Education, told the assembled delegates that "It is with absolute frankness that we speak of this struggle of the proletariat; each man must choose between joining our side or the other side. Any attempt to avoid taking sides in this issue must end in fiasco."[5]
  • George Orwell wrote in his 1942 essay "Pacifism and the War", "If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, ‘he that is not with me is against me’. The idea that you can somehow remain aloof from and superior to the struggle, while living on food which British sailors have to risk their lives to bring you, is a bourgeois illusion bred of money and security."
  • Benito Mussolini declared in speeches across fascist Italy: "O con noi o contro di noi"—You're either with us or against us.[6]
  • János Kádár, in an effort to unite Hungary after the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, announced in December 1961, "those who are not against us are with us."
  • Common form of Cold War terminology. On 30 September 1970, the Milwaukee Journal quoted a police official of the Greek military junta of 1967–74 as saying to his political prisoners: "You make yourself ridiculous [sic] by thinking you can do anything. The word is divided in two. The Russians and the Americans, no one else. What are we? Americans. Behind me there is the government, behind the government is NATO, behind NATO is the US. You can't fight us, we are Americans."[7]
  • Hillary Clinton said on September 13, 2001: "Every nation has to either be with us, or against us. Those who harbor terrorists, or who finance them, are going to pay a price."[8]
  • President George W. Bush, in an address to a joint session of Congress on September 20, 2001 said, "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."[9]
  • Vic Toews Canadian Public Safety Minister said on February 13, 2012: ".. either stand with us or with the child pornographers" in response to questions from Quebec MP Francis Scarpaleggia (Lac-Saint-Louis) regarding extensive Privacy Commission concerns about 'warrant-less access' to all Canadian Internet and Cell phone accounts under the proposed legislation contained in bill C-30 "Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act" introduced the following day (February 14, 2012) in the House of Commons of Canada.[10][11][12]
  • Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in a speech after a suicide bomb explosion in Istanbul on January 12, 2016, said: "Pick a side. You are either on the side of the Turkish government, or you’re on the side of the terrorists." [13]

In literature and popular culture

  • In the movie Beauty and the Beast, Gaston tells fellow citizens of his village that "If you're not with us, you're against us," and thereafter locks up Belle and her father so he can hunt the Beast.
  • In the movie The Matrix, when Morpheus introduces the matrix to Neo using training program, he tells him, regarding to agents, that "If you are not one of us, you are one of them."
  • Towards the end of Joseph Heller's Catch-22, Colonels Korn and Cathcart equate fighting for their country with fighting for the benefit of the two of them. Korn tells the protagonist Yossarian: "You're either for us or against your country. It's as simple as that." A reviewer of Catch-22 found this "flawless" logical indulgence by the commanding colonels to be comparable to Heller's parody of Charles Erwin Wilson's statement, often paraphrased as, "What's good for General Motors is good for the country".[14]
  • In the movie Ben-Hur, the protagonist meets with his childhood friend Messala. He has barely said hello to Ben-Hur when he is dunning him for the names of those Jews who are speaking out against the Roman occupation. Ben-Hur refuses to act as informer, and Messala utters, "You're either with me or against me".
  • In Act III of Arthur Miller's The Crucible, Deputy Governor John Danforth states, "But you must understand, sir, that a person is either with this court or he must be counted against it, there is no road between."
  • A professional wrestling faction in WWE, called The Nexus, used the slogan "You're either Nexus, or you're against us".
  • Stephen Colbert has parodied the sentence on several occasions, for instance with "Either you are for the war [in Iraq] or you hate America" and "George W. Bush: great president or the greatest president?", after which he usually adds "It's that simple!"[15]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Bush: 'You Are Either With Us, Or With the Terrorists' - 2001-09-21, Voice of America
  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ New Revised Standard Version
  5. ↑ [1] Speech Delivered At An All-Russia Conference Of Political Education Workers Of Gubernia and Uyezd Education Departments November 3, 1920
  6. ↑ Frasi e Motti
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ FreedomAgenda.com Quotes and Facts on Iraq
  9. ↑ WhiteHouse.gov Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People.
  10. ↑ [2] Hansard, No. 79 of the 41st Parliament (1st Session) of Canada
  11. ↑ [3] Canadian Broadcasting Corp - surveillance critics siding with child porn: Toews
  12. ↑ [4] Bill C30
  13. ↑ http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2016/jan/12/istanbul-explosion-several-reported-killed-in-tourist-area-live-updates
  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

Further reading

  • Ajami, Fouad. "With Us or Against Us," New York Times Book Review 156.53817 (1/7/2007): 14-15.
  • Bethune, Brian. "Are You With Us or Against Us?" in Maclean's 119.45 (11/13/2006): 21.
  • "For us, or against us?" in Economist 376.8444 (9/17/2005): 44.
  • Seymour, Richard. "With us or against us--Iran talks tough," Middle East 364 (Feb2006): 18-19.
  • Singh, Anita Inder. "With Us or Against Us," World Today 61.8/9 (Aug/Sep2005): 25.
  • "With us or against us," Economist 385.8555 (11/17/2007): 42.
  • "You're Either With Us or Against Us," Maclean's 121.6 (3/10/2008): 23-29.
  • Bially Mattern, Janice. "Why Soft Power Isn't So Soft: Representational Force and the Sociolinguistic Construction of Attraction in World Politics." Millennium-Journal of International Studies 33, no. 3 (2005): 583-612.

External links

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