Wow, Janie, that is profound and of genuine insight into the pattern, I think. Carol, I agree with your description in part; the crystallization into group-hatreds, such as the hatred after 9-11 in the US against all Muslims (which was how it was expressed by some no matter that it was an insane way to characterize it) or the institutionalized hatred of some Muslims against all Americans (at least as taught by some mullahs I have heard) or the encysted distrust of "Palestinians" by some Israelis and vice versa are another stage of the problem.

I agree that "clash of civilizations" is a bad label, inaccurate because this kind of crystallized hatred is the opposite of civilized conduct. I think that the path to defusing the apparent clash might lie in the art of liberating individuals from identification with their various group-thinks, allowing them to step back and review as individuals in their own right. Individuals do not, as a rule, resort to fast rules of hatred unless they have been mobbed into it (as in the training of soldiers sometimes) or abused into it (as in those who hate a government that has killed their children, for example).

How do you free an individual from allegiance to group-think?


A