A motorcycle club can spend an entire week talking about another MC and have very little to show for it within its own organization. Its members may have generated hundreds of comments, shared accusations, challenged reputations and attracted an audience. They might even believe they have won something.

Meanwhile, their own club has received little of that attention, effort or commitment.

It is a contradiction worth examining because the behaviour is often defended in the name of loyalty. Members believe they are standing up for their club, protecting its reputation or demonstrating that another MC will not be allowed to dictate the narrative.

Yet somewhere along the way, the other club becomes the centre of their attention.

The members are discussing its activities, examining its conduct, circulating its name and reacting to its decisions. What began as a response develops into an ongoing preoccupation. The conversation within their own organization becomes increasingly dependent on what somebody else has said or done.

There is a significant difference between protecting an MC and allowing another MC to determine how its members spend their time.

When opposition becomes a club's principal activity, the club being opposed has effectively been given a considerable degree of influence over the opposing club's agenda.

That is an extraordinary amount of influence to surrender voluntarily.

The cost of fighting somebody else's battle

Every motorcycle club operates with limited resources. Some have larger memberships, greater financial capacity or more established infrastructure than others, but none has unlimited time or effort available.

Members have employment, families, personal responsibilities and obligations outside the MC. The time they contribute to their club comes from somewhere else in their lives.

That contribution ought to have value.

When members spend hours following another MC's social media activity, preparing responses, arguing with supporters and repeatedly revisiting the same disagreements, those hours are no longer available for other purposes.

This is an example of what economists call opportunity cost: the value of the alternative use sacrificed when a resource is committed to a particular activity. Economist David R. Henderson explains the principle in The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. The cost of a decision includes what could have been accomplished with the same resources elsewhere.

Within an MC, the principle is straightforward.

An evening spent sustaining an argument could have been spent with brothers, maintaining motorcycles, organizing a ride, supporting a member or taking care of clubhouse responsibilities. Time committed to an online dispute might otherwise have helped develop a prospect, strengthen a relationship or resolve an internal concern.

This does not mean every member must constantly be working for the club. Riding motorcycles, enjoying friendships and spending time together are themselves legitimate reasons to belong.

But when limited club resources are repeatedly directed toward another organization, the loss is borne by the members' own MC.

Consider the member who sacrifices time with his family to fulfil a club obligation. His contribution represents a genuine commitment. If that obligation consists primarily of participating in an unnecessary dispute with another MC, his time is being consumed without necessarily advancing anything meaningful within his own organization.

Club leadership should be particularly conscious of this distinction. Members ought not be expected to give more of their lives to a club that cannot distinguish productive commitments from avoidable distractions.

The same applies to financial resources, organizational attention and leadership capacity. Every meeting dominated by another MC leaves less time for the business of the club itself.

A club cannot build its own future by continually investing its resources in somebody else's present.

When outrage becomes its own reward

Social media complicates the situation because it offers an immediate and highly visible form of apparent success.

A hostile post attracts comments. Supporters share it. Other people join the discussion. Those being criticized respond, giving the original participants more material to circulate.

The resulting engagement can create the impression that something significant has been accomplished.

There is research supporting the broader mechanism, although it should not be mistaken for motorcycle-club-specific evidence.

A 2021 study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences examined more than 2.7 million social media posts from American political and news accounts. Researchers Steve Rathje, Jay Van Bavel and Sander van der Linden found that posts referring to opposing groups were shared approximately twice as often as posts referring to the writers' own groups.

The study concerned political communication, not MC culture. Its relevance here is the distinction between attracting engagement through opposition and producing a constructive result.

A separate 2021 study published in Science Advances found that positive social feedback for expressions of moral outrage increased the likelihood of future outrage. The researchers examined the behaviour of more than 7,000 Twitter users and conducted controlled behavioural experiments.

In ordinary language, people can learn to repeat the behaviour that gets them attention.

That dynamic helps explain how a disagreement can become a recurring feature of a social media presence. Every hostile response creates another opportunity for attention. The discussion continues because the discussion itself has become rewarding.

For motorcycle clubs, there is an additional concern.

Members may begin treating online hostility as evidence of commitment to their own MC. The individual producing the most aggressive commentary appears dedicated, while the member quietly fulfilling club responsibilities receives comparatively little public recognition.

The club risks confusing visibility with value.

A hundred supportive comments may satisfy an individual member, but they do not automatically improve the club's finances, membership, relationships or organizational strength.

The other MC may be criticized, but it also remains the subject of conversation. Its name circulates, its activities attract attention and its existence becomes increasingly relevant to the opposing group's public identity.

Even when the attention is negative, the opposing club has helped make another organization central to its own communications.

That is a peculiar way to demonstrate independence.

Opposition is not an identity

There is a more fundamental question beneath the wasted time and online arguments.

What does the club actually stand for?

A useful expression of this distinction appears in Laurie Halse Anderson's 1999 novel Speak: “You have to know what you stand for, not just what you stand against.”

The observation extends well beyond its original literary context.

An organization can define itself through opposition. Its members may agree about which clubs they dislike, whose practices they reject and which relationships they will not accept.

Those positions may establish boundaries, but they provide an incomplete foundation for an organization's identity.

The measure of a man is not what he stands against, but what he stands for.

Applied to motorcycle-club culture, that principle challenges an uncomfortable assumption: demonstrating hostility toward another MC does not, by itself, demonstrate devotion to your own.

A member's character is more convincingly reflected in his conduct, commitments and treatment of the people who depend on him.

He contributes to his club because he believes in it. He honours his obligations because he gave his word. He supports his brothers because the relationship means something. He respects the responsibilities attached to the patch he wears.

None of those commitments requires another MC to exist.

The same principle applies collectively.

A club with a meaningful identity has reasons for being together that survive disagreements with outsiders. Its members have a shared understanding of their own history, values, direction and expectations.

They have something to maintain and something worth developing.

If the principal thing holding a group together is opposition to another organization, its identity becomes dependent on that organization remaining relevant.

An MC whose internal conversation revolves around its perceived rivals may gradually become better at describing everything it opposes than explaining what its own members are working toward.

That should concern anyone who takes the independence of their club seriously.

Defending your club without surrendering its direction

Criticism is not inherently wrong. Neither is taking a firm position when circumstances require one.

Motorcycle clubs have legitimate interests in protecting their members, addressing misinformation, maintaining boundaries and responding to conduct that directly affects them.

There are circumstances where silence may create additional problems. Matters involving safety, threats, interference or demonstrably false allegations can require an appropriate response.

There is also room for principled disagreement about aspects of MC culture. Clubs do not have to agree about every practice, relationship or interpretation of tradition.

The distinction lies in the purpose and proportionality of the response.

A response intended to protect members, correct a significant falsehood or resolve a legitimate issue has an identifiable objective. It can be evaluated against that objective.

An endless exchange of insults has no comparable measure of completion. There is always another comment, another accusation and another opportunity to continue.

A mature organization must be capable of deciding when enough has been said.

It must also be capable of recognizing that another club's conduct does not automatically require its participation.

Not every disagreement belongs to everybody. Not every social media controversy represents a matter of club business. Another MC's internal affairs do not become your responsibility simply because its activities attract attention.

There is nothing independent about allowing somebody else's behaviour to determine your own priorities.

Indeed, the ability to maintain one's direction despite provocation can be a much more convincing demonstration of organizational discipline than repeatedly responding.

The objective should be to preserve the club's ability to pursue its own interests and fulfil its responsibilities.

That requires judgment from leadership and individual members alike.

The patch on your back deserves your attention

For all the importance attached to colours, reputation and tradition, an MC ultimately depends on the people who make it function.

Members maintain the organization through their time, participation, relationships and willingness to accept responsibilities. Their contributions give substance to the identity represented by the patch.

This is where the argument becomes personal.

A member who repeatedly devotes himself to discussing another MC should examine the actual distribution of his efforts.

Consider the past month: the time spent criticizing outsiders compared with the time spent supporting brothers, participating in club activities, maintaining relationships or helping accomplish something within the club itself.

The answer may be uncomfortable.

So should the realization that criticizing another organization is often easier than doing the work required to improve one's own.

It takes relatively little commitment to publish an angry opinion. Developing a dependable member, organizing an activity, resolving internal disagreements or maintaining a clubhouse requires sustained effort.

Those contributions are less visible online. They seldom produce the immediate gratification of a hostile post receiving hundreds of reactions.

They are, however, the work through which a club becomes stronger.

An MC can express its independence through the standards it maintains and the choices it makes. Members can demonstrate loyalty through the contributions they provide rather than the hostility they direct toward others.

There is no requirement to become friends with every other club, abandon legitimate differences or compromise one's own identity.

There is simply a requirement to recognize where the club's interests lie.

A member who gives his time to an unnecessary dispute may believe he is defending the patch on his back. Yet that same patch represents an organization that needs his participation, his judgment and his commitment.

His own brothers have a greater claim on those resources than an MC he dislikes.

For leadership, the obligation is equally important. Encouraging members to participate in perpetual conflict can provide a temporary sense of unity, but it does little to develop the capabilities and relationships on which an organization depends.

Leadership has a responsibility to give members something meaningful to contribute to.

There will always be other clubs. Some will be respected, some will be disliked and others will remain largely irrelevant to the everyday lives of members.

Their existence need not determine the direction of your own MC.

A club that has its own purpose, maintains its commitments and invests in its people has work to do regardless of what anybody else is saying.

And if the other MC disappeared tomorrow, there should still be a reason for your brothers to put on their colours, get on their motorcycles and ride together.

 

Sources referenced

1. Anderson, Laurie Halse. Speak. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999. Quotation recorded by the Chicago Public Library.

2. Henderson, David R. “Opportunity Cost.” The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics, Library of Economics and Liberty.

3. Rathje, Steve, Jay J. Van Bavel and Sander van der Linden. “Out-group animosity drives engagement on social media.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, June 2021.

4. Brady, William J., Killian McLoughlin, Tuan N. Doan and Molly J. Crockett. “How social learning amplifies moral outrage expression in online social networks.” Science Advances, August 2021.