RE: The problem we are only beginning to reconcile
April 24, 2015 at 2:34 am
(This post was last modified: April 24, 2015 at 2:36 am by Red Economist.)
Some level of conformity is necessary for people to live in a group; we need to share a common language, sets of rules, ideas and ethical standards in order to live together. the "them and us" mentality is a legitimate defense mechanism in so far as we do not know how someone who does not belong to the group will behave.
The issue in both cases is that it can be deeply authoritarian and conformity and the "them and us" mentality can be fixed; they become destructive to their own ends as people become hostile to new information, ideas and people. We have got better at letting go of the insecurities that make us this way, partly through giving up religion as a basis for our system of government.
However, religion persists in secular societies, as does conformity based on the dominant culture (mainly through the mass media and popular culture rather than religion now) and discrimination of the basis of group characteristics (such as race, gender etc) as opposed to individual ones, which are unique for which an individual can be held responsible for as a way of evaluating the extent of their contribution and value to the group.
The issue in both cases is that it can be deeply authoritarian and conformity and the "them and us" mentality can be fixed; they become destructive to their own ends as people become hostile to new information, ideas and people. We have got better at letting go of the insecurities that make us this way, partly through giving up religion as a basis for our system of government.
However, religion persists in secular societies, as does conformity based on the dominant culture (mainly through the mass media and popular culture rather than religion now) and discrimination of the basis of group characteristics (such as race, gender etc) as opposed to individual ones, which are unique for which an individual can be held responsible for as a way of evaluating the extent of their contribution and value to the group.
