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What binds people together (?)


Rippounet

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36 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Tacos. The answer is tacos. All other responses are invalid and anyone who disagrees is a thoroughly weak-minded villain. 

You sneaky conniving wretch.  I just came here to write "sex, drugs, music and pizza" or something of the like and you totally preemptively one-upped me.  I will not forget this.

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49 minutes ago, Triskele said:

I've only read about half of Guns, Germs, and Steel, and I would totally recommend it, but (and it's been a while) it was a little more precisely about why certain regions of people thrive rather than what binds them together, per se, but that is not to discourage you from reading it.

It's great book that includes factual errors which people unfortunately use to discredit it. His main hypothesis is that geographic advantages were the key cause of particular cultural and technological advances that made Europe conquer Africa and the Americas, and not the other way around.

The theory is sometimes called "environmental determinism." Unfortunately, it's often lumped together with the hard-core racists who said that it was the European destiny to conquer non-whites. Instead, he makes the entirely reasonable (and to be honest, probably likely) case that human cultures developed more easily in regions with particular geographic advantages than in areas that did not have these advantages.

Things as simple as having animals and plants that can be domesticated over wide areas, which are very rare and hard to come by.

The focus is more on geography and biology, and to a lesser extent history, but it's useful as part of a broader study on how some humans build the societies that they do while others don't.

It's fairly lengthy, though, but I'd highly recommend it. Don't worry so much about Diamond's speeches, unfortunately he's not a very good speaker. But despite a few errors here and there in his writing (much of which was believed accurate at the time of publication), his central thesis holds up. You'll find a lot of geographers disagreeing with how little mind he gives human agency for the development of human societies, and yet from a biology point of view his thesis makes perfect sense.

Certainly his central idea holds true to what I've found with my own research. Wars are given too much credit and disease too little credit for human development over time, and the way that humans have responded to disasters over time.

However, no matter whether you read the whole book or not, @Rippounet, I thoroughly recommend you read the chapters on writing and language. These sections specifically delve into how language is a unifying factor among people. As far as is known, writing only developed twice in human history, and one of those (central America) is essentially extinct. All other writing systems probably stemmed from the same concept that was later spread throughout the world from somewhere in the fertile crescent.

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@Rippounet Not studies per se, but have you tried reading Edouard Glissant? Like Quand les murs tombent. L'identité nationale hors-la-loi ? (avec Patrick Chamoiseau).

His work is structured around the notion of relationship, it could interest you.

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51 minutes ago, Triskele said:

If he works somewhere on the same campus that I do is it appropriate if I call him my "colleague?"  I'm gonna go with yes.  

ETA:  I think it's interesting to note that Diamond appears to work for the Department of Geography as opposed to, say, Anthropology.  

To the  first part: awesome! :D

To the second part, it's often the case that fundamental changes to human thinking come precisely because someone approaches a problem from a different angle. Diamond works in biology and geography, and he provides a great account of human activity from an objective standpoint. It's not unusual for geography to examine the effects of environment on various animal species, for instance. He is treating humans in much the same way - which I think is appropriate. Thinking we are somehow separate from our environment has been a key human weakness throughout history.

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On 5/30/2018 at 6:52 AM, Errant Bard said:

@Rippounet Not studies per se, but have you tried reading Edouard Glissant? Like Quand les murs tombent. L'identité nationale hors-la-loi ? (avec Patrick Chamoiseau).

His work is structured around the notion of relationship, it could interest you.

Merci!

And thanks to everyone else btw, you've already helped a lot. I started with Anthony Smith in the end and it's great stuff.

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I do not know whether it's available in your region, Rippounet, but PBS (Public Broadcasting Service here in the States) recently aired a program on civilization touching on some of your interests and questions you raised. Perhaps not the depth you are seeking, but interesting. If available in your region, or if you can access it, I would recommend watching it.

http://www.pbs.org/program/first-civilizations/

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  • 3 weeks later...

This could go in the US politics thread, but I'm taking the opportunity to -selfishly- revive my own thread.

So a professor from Yale called Amy Chua just published a book that fits perfectly with my previous interrogations. It's called Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations. Here's a Guardian article about it:
https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2018/mar/01/amy-chua-tiger-mom-writer-book-political-tribes

With the most relevant extract (from the article):

Quote

 

Her broad thesis in Political Tribes is that Americans are almost uniquely blind to the importance of group identities. The US has historically been a “super-group”, made up of a diverse population bound by a strong national identity of Americanness.

Chua argues that US foreign policymakers have looked at other countries in the same way. She gives the examples of Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq where the tribal motives of the people whose lives were being thrown into chaos were ignored.

Now the US itself is being pulled apart by tribal divisions and the “super-group” is breaking down. Race has split the poor and class has split white Americans.

She writes: “Today, no group in America feels comfortably dominant. The left believes that rightwing tribalism – bigotry, racism – is tearing the country apart. The right believes that leftwing tribalism – identity politics, political correctness – is tearing the country apart. They are both right.”

 

I'm not sure I'll buy her book because quite frankly, I believe I've bought better ones to read. Her thesis seems pretty self-evident to me, though I'm sure she offers some original perspectives in her development. Also, I'm not sure I believe in her "leftwing tribalism" or at least not in those terms.

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1 hour ago, Rippounet said:

Also, I'm not sure I believe in her "leftwing tribalism" or at least not in those terms.

Oh, I do. 

I much more closely align with the Dems than the R's but I think this blurb you quoted is 100% true - The left believes that rightwing tribalism – bigotry, racism – is tearing the country apart. The right believes that leftwing tribalism – identity politics, political correctness – is tearing the country apart. They are both right.” 

I agree though that the whole premise feels pretty much self-evident to me.  Not sure I need a book to lay it all out for me.

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46 minutes ago, S John said:

Oh, I do. 

I much more closely align with the Dems than the R's but I think this blurb you quoted is 100% true - The left believes that rightwing tribalism – bigotry, racism – is tearing the country apart. The right believes that leftwing tribalism – identity politics, political correctness – is tearing the country apart. They are both right.”

It may be somewhat true in the US, but I wouldn't generalize to the world. It seems to me that in Europe the left is still more about economics than identity politics and political correctness. Though of course, things have been moving in that direction for a couple of decades now.

Anyway I was just reading Chua's recent article in Foreign Affairs. It's behind a paywall, but you can read it for free if you register. Some extracts:
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2018-06-14/tribal-world

Quote

Insight into the potency of group identity has rarely shaped elite American opinion on international affairs. U.S. policymakers tend to view the world in terms of territorial nation-states engaged in political or ideological struggle: capitalism versus communism, democracy versus authoritarianism, “the free world” versus “the axis of evil.” Such thinking often blinds them to the power of more primal group identities—a blindness that has repeatedly led Washington into blunders overseas.

I don't think that's true. She takes some seemingly good examples with Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, and those are obvious blunders, but I really don't think one can say that US policymakers always view the world in ideological terms. Even during the Cold War, the US was very good at exploiting ethnic divisions in some countries, if the person in charge was good.

Her analysis of trumpism is very interesting though:

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For the first time in U.S. history, whites are on the verge of losing their status as the country’s majority. To varying degrees, minorities in the United States have long felt vulnerable and under threat; today, whites also feel that way. A 2011 study showed that more than half of white Americans believe that “whites have replaced blacks as the ‘primary victims of discrimination.’” When groups feel threatened, they retreat into tribalism. They close ranks and become more insular, more defensive, more focused on us versus them. In the case of the shrinking white majority, these reactions have combined into a backlash, raising tensions in an already polarized social climate in which every group—whites, blacks, Latinos, and Asians; Christians, Jews, and Muslims; straight people and gay people; liberals and conservatives; men and women—feels attacked, bullied, persecuted, and discriminated against.

But there’s another reason these new tribalistic pathologies are emerging today. Historically, the United States has never had a market-dominant minority. On the contrary, for most of its history, the country has been dominated economically, politically, and culturally by a relatively unified white majority—a stable, if invidious, state of affairs.

But in recent years, something has changed. Owing in part to record levels of economic inequality and to stark declines in geographic and social mobility, white Americans are now more intensely split along class lines than they have been in generations. As a result, the United States may be seeing the emergence of its own version of a market-dominant minority: the much-discussed group often referred to as “coastal elites.” To be sure, “coastal elites” is a misleading term—a caricature, in some ways. The group’s members are neither all coastal nor all elite, at least in the sense of being wealthy. Still, with some important caveats, American coastal elites bear a strong resemblance to the market-dominant minorities of the developing world. Wealth in the United States is concentrated in the hands of a relatively small number of people, most of whom live on the coasts. This minority dominates key sectors of the economy, including Wall Street, the media, and Silicon Valley. Although coastal elites do not belong to any one ethnicity, they are culturally distinct, often sharing cosmopolitan values such as secularism, multiculturalism, toleration of sexual minorities, and pro-immigrant and progressive politics. Like other market-dominant minorities, U.S. coastal elites are extremely insular, interacting and intermarrying primarily among themselves, living in the same communities, and attending the same schools. Moreover, they are viewed by many middle Americans as indifferent or even hostile to the country’s interests.

The answer lies in tribalism. For some, Trump’s appeal is racial: as a candidate and as president, Trump has made many statements that either explicitly or in a coded fashion appeal to some white voters’ racial biases. But that’s not the whole picture. In terms of taste, sensibilities, and values, Trump is actually similar to some members of the white working class. The tribal instinct is all about identification, and many voters in Trump’s base identify with him at a gut level. They identify with the way he talks and the way he dresses. They identify with the way he shoots from the hip—even (perhaps especially) when he gets caught making mistakes, exaggerating, or lying. And they identify with the way he comes under attack by liberal commentators—coastal elites, for the most part—for not being politically correct, for not being feminist enough, for not reading enough books, and for gorging on fast food.

What happened in the 2016 U.S. presidential election is exactly what I would have predicted would happen in a developing country holding elections in the presence of a deeply resented market-dominant minority: the rise of a populist movement in which demagogic voices called on “real” Americans to, in Donald Trump’s words, “take our country back.” Of course, unlike most backlashes against market-dominant minorities in the developing world, Trump’s populism is not anti-rich. On the contrary, Trump himself is a self-proclaimed billionaire, leading many to wonder how he could have “conned” his antiestablishment base into supporting a member of the superrich whose policies will make the superrich even richer.

 

 

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On 5/29/2018 at 11:19 PM, Triskjavikson said:

If he works somewhere on the same campus that I do is it appropriate if I call him my "colleague?"  I'm gonna go with yes.  

ETA:  I think it's interesting to note that Diamond appears to work for the Department of Geography as opposed to, say, Anthropology.  

You work at UCLA? What do you do there, other than of course teaching monkeys gun play?

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So last night I listened to Chua's lecture taken from her book while building some model tanks (40k wyverns, for anyone interested):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYADf21tkk0

It was way better than I expected. While Chua doesn't really say anything original, her overall thesis is surprisingly coherent and stimulating. I have to say though, that the Q&A session was particularly interesting (the people in the audience were good), almost more so than the lecture itself.
I don't agree with her on everything (far from it), but she helps have tons of good ideas, which is what academics should do.

A great moment was around the 00:27:27 mark, when she starts talking about the 2016 election. And at 00:29:00 she says that tribalism leads to authoritarianism and an elite backlash against democracy. She blames the lack of upward mobility and opportunity for the rise of tribalism and the breakdown of national unity and identity.

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  • 4 weeks later...
On ‎7‎/‎1‎/‎2018 at 3:22 PM, Chaircat Meow said:

Try this.

Roger Scruton, possibly the foremost conservative philosopher in the western world, speech in Hungary on the importance of national loyalty to democracy, the secular rule of law and 'togetherness,' and how it differs from nationalism. 

Interesting but:

Quote

Ordinary national loyalty, by contrast, is the by-product of settlement. It comes about because people have ways of resolving their disputes, ways of getting together, ways of cooperating, ways of celebrating and worshipping that seal the bond between them without ever making that bond explicit as a doctrine. This is surely how ordinary people live, and it is at the root of all that is best in human society, namely that we are attached to what goes on around us, grow together with it, and learn the ways of peaceful association as our ways, which are right because they are ours and because they unite us with those who came before us and those for whom we will in turn make way.

That's a pretty narrow way of perceiving what is "at the root of all that is best in human society."

Also he gives way too much attention to Europe in the decrease of national sentiment. I would say Europe as it is is just as much of a consequence as a cause. The original source being the neo-liberal ideology. See Bourdieu's thoughts on it:
https://mondediplo.com/1998/12/08bourdieu

I'd say Scruton's attempt at glorifying national loyalty while rejecting nationalism is rather messy and weak. His criticism of the French revolution is very ironic and his separation of the two is unconvincing. 

I recently stumbled upon this very interesting article by French philosopher Dufour. Unfortunately it's in French:
https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2001/02/DUFOUR/7827

In a nuttshell, Dufour argues that neoliberalism attacks all collective imaginings like God, the people, the nation, the proletariat... And that without such imaginings to define oneself, most individuals are unable to acquire much agency, which is a source of alienation. He writes that this is the source of many phenomena. Depression, drug addiction (legal and not), the rise of gangs/sects, mass shootings and terrorism, the love for technology. He paints a picture of the postmodern man as profoundly disconnected from the grand narratives, and thus from points of references.


And back to Bourdieu, who sees the neoliberal workplace as fundamentally alienating:

Quote

 

Finally, this competition is extended to individuals themselves, through the individualisation of the wage relationship: establishment of individual performance objectives, individual performance evaluations, permanent evaluation, individual salary increases or granting of bonuses as a function of competence and of individual merit; individualised career paths; strategies of “delegating responsibility” tending to ensure the self-exploitation of staff who, simple wage labourers in relations of strong hierarchical dependence, are at the same time held responsible for their sales, their products, their branch, their store, etc. as though they were independent contractors. This pressure toward “self-control” extends workers’ “involvement” according to the techniques of “participative management” considerably beyond management level. All of these are techniques of rational domination that impose over-involvement in work (and not only among management) and work under emergency or high-stress conditions. And they converge to weaken or abolish collective standards or solidarities (3).

In this way, a Darwinian world emerges - it is the struggle of all against all at all levels of the hierarchy, which finds support through everyone clinging to their job and organisation under conditions of insecurity, suffering, and stress.

 

This he has to say about the people preaching neoliberalism:

Quote

they sanctify the power of markets in the name of economic efficiency, which requires the elimination of administrative or political barriers capable of inconveniencing the owners of capital in their individual quest for the maximisation of individual profit, which has been turned into a model of rationality. They want independent central banks. And they preach the subordination of nation-states to the requirements of economic freedom for the masters of the economy, with the suppression of any regulation of any market, beginning with the labour market, the prohibition of deficits and inflation, the general privatisation of public services, and the reduction of public and social expenses.

Thus, I'm not convinced that Europe is the enemy of the nation-state. Rather, I'd be tempted to say that there exists a form of European national loyalty, which is under the dual attack of global economic forces and the resurgence of nationalism. Contrary to what Scruton says, there was altogether wide agreement on the EU Constitution throughout Europe when it was proposed ; IIRC only France and the Netherlands rejected it. And I think France at least rejected it because it seemed too much of an economic document.  

I personally don't see why a national loyalty and a European loyalty are not perfectly compatible. But building on what Scruton says, a Europe of regions would be even better than a Europe of nations. Most nations are already composites and not all of them are perfectly functional (see the recent crises in Belgium or Spain). There is nothing fundamentally unalterable about the national loyalty. In fact, I would say Scruton takes the nation for granted, when all nations have been constructions at some point or another in history. While it is true that having such "imagined communities" is a positive thing for people, I wouldn't praise one at the detriment of another. This runs the risk of defining belonging in much too narrow terms. Which I think we are seeing with strong ethno-nationalist movements.

I think it boils down to the fact that the best in human society is more than just being willing to sacrifice yourself for your nation. Humans use so many more reference points than the nation on a daily basis...

 

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The analysis is basically the same as what Marx wrote about the "paleo-liberal" mid-19th century: All (traditional) relations are dissolved in favor of business relations (to paraphrase somewhat bluntly).

I agree that the nationalism vs. anti-nationalism debate misses more important causes. But nevertheless, it cannot be ignored. I think "European national loyalty" is mostly a fiction. Preached for decades now but rather irrelevant in practice. Who would cheer for a pan-European soccer team...? Furthermore, what could be focal points of common European identity cannot be stressed (or have become irrelevant anyway) because of secularization, general ignorance of history and culture and of falling into the mortal sins of anti-islam, anti-Americanism/Internationalism, implied European supremacy or whatever.

One should keep in mind what historically the main alternatives to the nation are: The Tribe and the Empire. Those two are more peaceful or more civilized per se. Now we basically have all three. We have (quasi-)Empires like the US or wannabe-Empires like the EU, we have had nations for a sufficient number of generations that most people take them for granted (even if they are historically rather recent) and we of course still have tribes (what you call regions) like the Flemish or the Catalans (and certainly smaller subtribes of all kinds). While it is true that nationalism was one factor leading to the World Wars in the first half of the 20th century it was by no means the only factor and other times with only empires or tribes fighting were not necessarily more peaceful. Nowadays, for me nationalism seems a straw for the "frustrated masses" and the charge of nationalism is a cheap strawman that is used to avoid the more important issues of economic and political powerlessness many people feel, although they struggle to pinpoint the causes for it. Basically, the EU elites blaming everything on nationalism is the flipside of the "smallfolk" blaming everything on the EU elites.

I have not read this text but from what I know of Scruton I am pretty sure he would also be in favor of more regionalism in many ways (it might be a pose but he personally cultivates a very rural regional lifestyle), but probably thinks that the nation state is still necessary (defense etc.).

Most nations were not asked about the EU constitution. Their parliaments decided.  This is what pisses people of and makes them hate Europe. I was mostly too young but I hardly remember any strong feelings about the more "minimal" EU (or predecessors) in the 1980s. But it has grown immensely like all bureaucracies tend to, it very often favors big business, sometimes because of very trivial reasons because a small business cannot afford a specialized employee or EU lawyer or whatever one needs to comply with the flood of regulations. It also seems unreformable. I don't see any solutions. I don't think that the EU should be dissolved but I tend to "slimming down" and restricting its power instead of the opposite course which is of course favored by almost all established politicians of the larger continental European nations. Although with Italy and middle-Eastern Europe already converted to the anti-EU-side, who knows what will happen.

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4 hours ago, Jo498 said:

Furthermore, what could be focal points of common European identity cannot be stressed (or have become irrelevant anyway) because of secularization, general ignorance of history and culture and of falling into the mortal sins of anti-islam, anti-Americanism/Internationalism, implied European supremacy or whatever.

Just like most national identities then... 

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But the European Identity is supposed to be "better", more peaceful than the more local ones, isn't it?

I think that there is a lot of doublespeak here (not by you, but by the press and European politicians). It's like terrorist vs. freedom fighter. Tribal identities are "good" if one has some vague claim to a be an (oppressed) minority (e.g. Catalan, Basque, Kurd etc.), "bad" if they concern an established or even powerful nation. Sure, with many cases on the Balkans or in the former SU this distinction gets very muddy. (There is probably a level of violence beyond which oppression does not give any bonus points, i.e. when the freedom fighter turns into a terrorist in the perception of the somewhat neutral observer.)

Only identity emotions for (western) Europe as some whole are supposed to be an exception. Europe or rather the EU and its institutions is powerful, somewhat established, certainly not suppressed but not as "bad" as Spanish, Polish, British identities that reek of 19th cent. nationalism (although the Poles would certainly have a claim to having been somewhat suppressed (non-existent as a Nation) for centuries and never enjoyed being a colonial power). It seems open if Catalan or Scottish identity politics are acceptable or too "anti-European".

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One point about a European identity though, is that it can be a secondary super identity. This means that it can provide a shelter for smaller identities, such as the Scots, that are submerged in a larger nation.

A Scottish person might consider themselves to some extent Scottish and European, with the EU to some extent protecting them from the London UK government. Scotland is after all more pro Europe than England. Other European identity groupings sometimes seem to feel the same way (the Ladins in NE Italy, for example, or even the Catholics in Northern Ireland).

 

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  • 6 months later...

Resurrection of my pet thread about nationalism and all that with an interesting article in Foreign Affairs. It's behind a paywall but I'll copy-paste the interesting bits:

Quote

 

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2019-02-12/your-brain-nationalism

The human mind’s propensity for us-versus-them thinking runs deep. Numerous careful studies have shown that the brain makes such distinctions automatically and with mind-boggling speed. Stick a volunteer in a brain scanner and quickly flash pictures of faces. Among typical white subjects in the scanner, the sight of a black man’s face activates the amygdala, a brain region central to emotions of fear and aggression, in under one-tenth of a second. In most cases, the prefrontal cortex, a region crucial for impulse control and emotional regulation, springs into action a second or two later and silences the amygdala: “Don’t think that way, that’s not who I am.” Still, the initial reaction is usually one of fear, even among those who know better.

[...]

Put simply, neurobiology, endocrinology, and developmental psychology all paint a grim picture of our lives as social beings. When it comes to group belonging, humans don’t seem too far from the families of chimps killing each other in the forests of Uganda: people’s most fundamental allegiance is to the familiar. Anything or anyone else is likely to be met, at least initially, with a measure of skepticism, fear, or hostility. In practice, humans can second-guess and tame their aggressive tendencies toward the Other. Yet doing so is usually a secondary, corrective step.

For all this pessimism, there is a crucial difference between humans and those warring chimps. The human tendency toward in-group bias runs deep, but it is relatively value-neutral. Although human biology makes the rapid, implicit formation of us-them dichotomies virtually inevitable, who counts as an outsider is not fixed. In fact, it can change in an instant.

For one, humans belong to multiple, overlapping in-groups at once, each with its own catalog of outsiders—those of a different religion, ethnicity, or race; those who root for a different sports team; those who work for a rival company; or simply those have a different preference for, say, Coke or Pepsi. Crucially, the salience of these various group identities changes all the time. Walk down a dark street at night, see one of “them” approaching, and your amygdala screams its head off. But sit next to that person in a sports stadium, chanting in unison in support of the same team, and your amygdala stays asleep. Similarly, researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara, have shown that subjects tend to quickly and automatically categorize pictures of people by race. Yet if the researchers showed their subjects photos of both black and white people wearing two different colored uniforms, the subjects automatically began to categorize the people by their uniforms instead, paying far less attention to race. Much of humans’ tendency toward in-group/out-group thinking, in other words, is not permanently tied to specific human attributes, such as race. Instead, this cognitive architecture evolved to detect any potential cues about social coalitions and alliances—to increase one’s chance of survival by telling friend from foe. The specific features that humans focus on to make this determination vary depending on the social context and can be easily manipulated.

Even when group boundaries remain fixed, the traits people implicitly associate with “them” can change—think, for instance, about how U.S. perceptions of different immigrant groups have shifted over time. Whether a dividing line is even drawn at all varies from place to place. I grew up in a neighborhood in New York with deep ethnic tensions, only to discover later that Middle America barely distinguishes between my old neighborhood’s “us” and “them.” In fact, some actors spend their entire careers alternating between portraying characters of one group and then the other.

This fluidity and situational dependence is uniquely human.

 

Long story short: we are aggressive as chimps, but we are free to decide what groups we feel we belong to, and thus overcome this aggresiveness.

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