Once upon a time there was a little village girl, the prettiest that had ever been seen. Her grandmother had made her a little brown hood that became her so well that everywhere she went by the name of Little Brown Riding Hood.

Little Brown Riding Hood, carrying a cake for grandmother, came out of the wood an suddenly saw a big wolf limping on the road.

"Oh, Mister Wolf," she asked, "why are you limping? Have you hurt your foot? Can I help you? People should help each other, you know."

The wolf had not hurt his foot, of course. He pretended to limp so as not to look harmful.

"Oh yes", the wolf whined. "My foot hurts a lot. May I rest on your shoulder so I can walk more easily?"
"Yes, of course," Little Brown Riding Hood replied. "Come on, I'll take you to my grandmother. She can help you. SHe is a wonderful herb doctor."

Little Brown Riding Hood has a need to belong. She needs to feel part of a group. She needs to feel accepted and so to feel secure - unlike Little Blue Riding Hood who can feel secure with her own close family only. Belonging is a need to take care of others, a need for obedience to norms and regulations of the group.

At times I need to be surrounded by people who accept me as an equal, who make me feel welcome.

The need to belong is essential to humans and animals. People need to feel part of a group. People need to feel accepted and supported by their loved one. they need to feel secure. Belonging is also a need to take care of others, a need for obedience to norms and regulations of the group.

Friedrich Nietzsche saw it as a philosophy of life and its necessities: "What is wanted , whether admitted or not, is nothing less than a fundamental remoulding, indeed weakening and abolition of the individual: one never tires of enumerating and indicating all that is evil and inimical, prodigal, costly, extravagant in the form of individual existence has assumed hitherto, one hopes to manage more cheaply, more safely, more equitably, more uniformly if there exist only large bodies and their members.

Is it strange then that the Nazi storm troopers, the Nazi militia, the exemplary personification of Nietzsche's Ubermenschen, wore brown shirts? Nietzsche's Ubermensch - officially referred to as overman - was first translated into English as "superman" by George Bernard Shaw in 1903. Does the American comic strip Superman hero have any affinity with the Nietzschean Ubermensch? Of course not. Superman is a loner, whereas our 'overman' has a strong sense of belonging.

Brown clothing does not always have such negative undertones. The brown tweed jacketsworn by British countryside gentry are a good example: wearing them signifies that one belongs to the coterie of like-minded gentlefolk, who feel secure by obeying the norms and regulations of the group.