Introduction

This portion of a song from "South Pacific" expresses the widely held notion that hate and fear are only learned behaviors. This may not be entirely so. Hate and fear are so ubiquitous in all societies that it would seem unlikely to be just a learned behavior.

Racism is really a subset of mankind's seemingly insatiable need to form exclusive groups based on common interests, geographical/or cultural isolation or physical characteristics. The result of this segregation from others is what we shall call "Group Think".

Group Think is characterized by a feeling of comfort when with those within your group and discomfort when associating with those not in the group. This can lead to associating negative characteristics to anyone who is not part of your group and hence create attitudes such as racism. 

Theory of Groups - "Us vs. Them"

Mankind is a social animal. Groups seem to form almost spontaneously in any social setting. Their pervasiveness is seen from the fact that they occur in all societies, from the advanced to primitive. They each set up rules for their members behavior to help distinguish themselves from those who are not part of the group and frequently include some type of initiation procedure to bring in new members. Of course, groups that consist of members with a particular heritable lineage are closed to others. Our human need to form groups of various kinds crosses all cultural, ethnic, religious, and national boundaries. When a group becomes large and successful, the usual result is to splinter and form more groups as religions, nations or businesses seem to do with great regularity. All groups, by their nature, imply to the members that they are somehow special in particular ways and in many ways better, than their fellow travelers on this earth. This can lead to a mentality of "We" vs. "Them" and a feeling of commonality with your group members vs. a feeling of discord with those who are not. These feelings can lead to isolation, which means dealing only with those in the group and avoiding or shunning outsiders. These feelings, carried to their extreme, cause groups to become genetically distinct since intermarriage is discouraged and over time physical differences between groups will emerge.

Benign types of groups

Groups can be readily classified into two kinds. Those that are based on characteristics that anyone can aspire to and those that are based on a particular heredity or ethnic background that excludes others from joining. The first can be considered benign since, if anyone can join, it is unlikely to create a feeling of superiority over others not in the group. Benign groups are based on identity differences, how we socialize with each other, belief systems or common interests. Groups such as religious affiliations are benign since they generally preach tolerance. Social groups such as the Lions Club, Boy Scouts or a bridge club all are based on a set of common interests. Political affiliations are generally benign even if adherents can believe the other group is wrong headed. If a political group starts to believe that they are more akin to an ethnic group, problems of Group Think can arise. Likewise, groups based on cultural origins are benign if they don't exclude others from their midst. Groups such as old order Mennonites (commonly called Amish) or Chasidic Jews are insular societies with their own set of rules and laws that exclude outsiders. Nevertheless, these groups do live among, interact and associate with others around them even if in only minimal ways. Cultural groups can be wide ranging in scope. Those of Chinese descent are scattered all over the world and yet have a set of common cultural beliefs as well as a common written language. On a smaller scale, a tribal society can be accepting of others who are not part of their group and as such not cause problems with Group Think.

Potentially troublesome types of groups

When a group decides that it must exclude others from its midst or develops fears about associating with other groups, a difficult situation could arise. Potentially problematic groups distinguish "Them from Us" by factors outside one's control such as genetics or heritage. These can be listed by two types, ethnic and racial.

Ethnic groupings have been creating violence throughout history. Although we may associate wars with national or political issues, a deeper investigation reveals that ethnic groupings cause much of the strife throughout history. Many conflicts around the world have been about one group wanting to subjugate another, each believing that only they held the truth (God is on our side). Even those conflicts seemingly based on economics have an underlying tone of superiority of one group over another. It is doubtful that a population can be stirred up to kill and die for merely economic gain. While a conflict's roots may be about any of the factors mentioned, to get people to kill over a cause requires a degree of fear or hatred and Group Thinkmust come into play. Examples are almost too numerous to mention. Nazi Germany, Rwanda, Ethiopia, and the former Yugoslavia are just from the last 50 years. Even seemingly religious conflicts such as Sunni vs. Shiite Moslems or the Protestants vs. Catholics in N. Ireland are really based on ethnic distinctions rather than religion. It should be evident that these warring groups all pray to the same God and that the problems between them stem from Group Think rather than particular religious differences. It seems a constant in these conflicts that historical wrong doing of one group to another that may have happened generations or even a millennia ago are as real to the combatants as an event that happened yesterday. These groups will hang their mistrust and hatred on events that actually have little meaning today if viewed by an outsider. When this Group Think goes to its extreme, it leads to hate rhetoric and genocidal behavior.

Racial hatred and prejudice are one obvious example of extremism. Since racial differences are usually quite obvious by gross features of the other group, it is deceptively easy to fall into the Group Think mode and believe that they are different and, by extension, somehow inferior than us. These ideas will inevitably lead to isolation of the two groups and thereby creating cultural differences over time. These differences serve to reinforce the attitudes of each group since what is a normal or common practice by one can easily be taboo in the other. An example would be that in Japan, it is common for men to adjust their pants and underwear in public. Of course, that behavior in the U.S. can get you arrested. A recent civil case in New York City involved a woman visiting from Denmark who left her infant child in a stroller outside a restaurant and went inside to eat while viewing the carriage through the window. This caused several passersby to become alarmed and eventually call the police who arrested the mother. The practice is common in Denmark where parents will frequently leave strollers in full view of a window while they shop. When these cultural differences start being attributed to race, a self perpetuating hatred can occur.

Origins of "Group Think" 

As previously mentioned, the desire to form groups is pervasive throughout world history. It is proposed that anything that is so universal to the human experience cannot be merely learned behavior, rather, it must also be part of our genetic makeup to instinctively need to form groups. We need to explore why this should be so.

For something to be genetic it needs to have an evolutionary reason behind it. That means that forming groups must be an aspect of survival from our earliest times on this planet as hominoids. Those early humans that could successfully form cooperative working groups could succeed in their environment better than those who did not. By natural selection,only those that formed cooperative groups could survive.

Its easy to imagine why this should be so. Competition for resources (land, hunting grounds, water) would have favored those who could form cooperative groups. In the times when we were hunter-gatherers, we probably wandered around in tribes, much as primitive forest dwellers do today. To survive, each tribe needed to stay together and act together. This would be needed even before language could adequately develop.

To succeed, the group needed to distinguish between members and non-members. A person who was alone happening upon another tribe would likely be seen as a threat and possibly be killed. Without adequate language, a separate way was needed to induce a survival response - who is your group and who is not? An emotion was needed. This emotion was a Fear Response. This fear could be part of the "Fight or Flight" response we recognize today. It is well known that all babies develop a spontaneous fear of strangers around the age of two. As such, it must be genetically driven. This kind of fear carries over into adulthood. Differences in appearance, dress, mannerisms and shared experiences formed the basis for who are "Them or Us". Fear of others who are not like "Us" is therefore a legacy of our primitive past.

Therefore - we innately fear anyone who either does not look, act or sound as we do.