Comment by bitwize
11 years ago
And we will always think in terms of "us vs. them" because we're monkeys, and we've evolved highly intelligent brains to, among other things, protect our bananas from the monkey tribe next door.
But we are getting better at overruling our monkey instincts with reason and compassion. So that's a good sign.
My belief is that it's primarily about access to one resource. Wombs. Everything else is ancillary.
What makes a racist more irate than anything? Seeing one of "Them" with one of "Our" women.
Denying good housing, education and employment to the "other" group will make them less able to compete for females from "our" group.
There are versions of this on display in the animal kingdom as well. Male lions are known to kill cubs sired by other males so that they can replace them with their own offspring. In the Gombe Chimpanzee War, females were kidnapped, raped and killed as a method of destroying the "other" group.
I also agree, humanity has come a long way and is getting better.