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He takes a card and shades one half of it in dark
So he can demonstrate to you just what he means.
He says, "There's black and there is white,
And there is wrong, and there is right,
And there is nothing, nothing in between."
That's what Mr. A said.
Describe With Us Or Against Us here.
Why should I? If you were on my side, you'd know exactly what I mean already. So what if you aren't with the enemy. You don't stand with me, and that means you're no better than they are!
In a nutshell, it's a form of extremism that does acknowledge that there is a gray area between black and white, but that everything that isn't white still is as bad as black. A Sub Trope of False Dichotomy.
Truth In Television, as anyone who has gone to a political or religious Message Board can attest. The Other Wiki can attest, too .
In fiction, a Writer On Board will hammer this point home through the use of Strawman Politicals to show that not being on the side of right is bad, no matter what other side you take. The only hope of these people is to turn to the side of right as fast as possible.
Note, this trope is not about whether any particular side is right or wrong, even the middle side. It's just about the views of people that the only right answer is their side, and nothing else.
Examples:
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Comic Books
- In Chick Tracts, anyone who does not agree with Jack Chick's particular breed of fundamentalist Protestant Christianity is doomed to burn in hell.
- When Steve Ditko took a heavy turn into Objectivism, his heroes started to preach his viewpoint. That "Mr. A" Alan Moore sings about? That was one of Ditko's, who claimed that man can either be good or evil with no in-between.
Film
- Parodied in Monty Pythons Life Of Brian, where the splinter groups against the Romans hated each other as much as the Romans. This was spoofing the splinter groups in British Parliament at the time.
- It was also making fun of the divisions among the different groups of Jewish resistance groups in the British Mandate of Palestine, before the establishment of the state of Israel.
- Historians interestingly found that the splinter groups may have been real in the time of Christ as well.
- The page quote in Star Wars III.
- If you think about it, it might just be a poorly written line instead of hypocritical. If Obi-wan had just said "Only a Sith deals in such absolutes", it would have changed the entire meaning and given him far more credibility.
- In Ben Hur, this mentality is what drove Messala to sentence Judah Ben-Hur to slavery. Messala wanted his friend Ben-Hur to turn in the Jews who were speaking against him and the Roman occupation. Ben-Hur refuses, so Messala tells him, "You're either with me or you're against me." Ben-Hur replies, "If those are my choices, then I am against you."
- Gomorra (2008). Toto, a 13 year old member of a Mafia clan fighting a gang war against a breakaway group, is told this when he hesitates to set up the mother of his childhood friend (who's joined the breakaway faction) to be murdered.
Literature
Live Action TV
- The basis of Stephen Colbert's life philosophy. "You're either with us or you're against us. It is either Coke or Pepsi. You're either gay or you fight it." Finally he states he divides the supermarket into "cheese" and "not cheese". He also tends to badger people, including guests, who do not fall into one of his two categories, with "Pick a side—we're at war."
Manga
- One Piece, but not if you are a main character: your Bad Ass status allows you to be supportive or enemy of the World Government with abandon. Neutral countries, on the other hand, have to accept Government leadership, or their whole population will be deported and enslaved. Because the alternative is pirates, so...
Myth And Legend
- The Bible: God Himself insists that You are are either With Him or Against Him.
- Example: Luke 11:23 ' "He that is not with me is against me: and he that gathereth not with me scattereth." But in Luke 9:50 "Jesus said to him, "Do not hinder him; for he who is not against you is for you." Luke recounts both these which are attested in Mark and Matthew separately. One resolution of the problem is that Jesus thought anyone should be allowed to perform good work in his name so be inclusive, but on ideology you should be exclusive.
Real Life
- Frequently Truth In Television. Either you completely believe in our extreme views, or you're an evil Strawman Political!
- This is one of the central ideas of the Objectivism philosophy (upon which The Sword of Truth, see above, draws heavily). "A is A" and all that—see the quote above. Ayn Rand, the
cult's philosophy's founder, was a lot like this in real life—if you disagreed with her even slightly, you were out of her little collective. As she stated: 'When a man declares: "There are no blacks and whites [in morality]" he is making a psychological confession, and what he means is: "I am unwilling to be wholly good—and please don't regard me as wholly evil!"'
- Some laws have it as a required concept that this is sometimes if not always the case. If you welcome a distressed family member into your home, feed them, try to help them calm down, and then later find out that they are on the run from the cops, you have two choices. Report them to the cops, or be legally considered an accessory after the fact to whatever crime they have committed.
- A very slight extension of this extends to states who harbor elements like Al Qaeda. President George Bush Jr. used the Trope name in a speach speaking to other nations, stating that if they willingly harbored the enemy, they would be considered the enemy.
- George W Bush famously said, "You are with us, or you are with the terrorists."
Tabletop Games
Theater
- The Crucible: "A person is either with this court or against it"
Western Animation
- A few of the more Anvilicious episodes of Captain Planet were like this.
- Gaston in Beauty And The Beast, when he's roused the villagers into a Torches And Pitchforks mob against the Beast while Belle is trying to talk some reason into them ("If you're not with us, you're against us!").
- Zapp Brannigan in Futurama views the Neutral Race this way. "With enemies you know where they stand, but with Neutrals, who knows?" Therefore he decides to crash the Planet Express ship into their capital. "Another heroic battle in the war between Good and Neutral!"
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