Tribalism seems to be an inate part of human character.
Not to say it’s a good thing, just that we all have a tendency at a level which is not rational to find comfort and safety in the similar and familiar whilst distrusting and be uncomfortable with the dissimilar and unfamiliar.
You see this shit at all levels of human groups, not just “nations” and “races” but even “small town hostility towards strangers”.
IMHO, NOT being a Racist (genuinelly so, not the performative shit of some people who think they’re not Racist because, say, they support specific races which are a minority where they live because in their social circle that’s what you’re supposed to do and yet at the same time implicitly distrust people from other specific races for which there is no social approval - for example, “supporting Jews” whilst thinking that “Muslims are violent”) is actually an active thing were one has to spot one’s own internal tendency to make prejudicial assumptions based on people’s appearance (both positive and negative assumptions - people’s race neither makes them inherently better nor inherently worse) and stop oneself from making such assumptions or at least from acting on them.
They are more concerned if they will become pariahs in their own group. They aren’t really asking what the right thing to do is, they are asking “will this get me in trouble?”
Even the old testament has plenty in this. For example:
Exodus 22:21. “Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt."
My point being they don’t even know what the book they claim to praise so much even says.
That doesn’t count because I’ve never been to Egypt
The coptic Christians also skating by on a technicality
To the rest of us, this tells us that xenophobia and animosity against immigrants have been social problems for a very long time.
Tribalism seems to be an inate part of human character.
Not to say it’s a good thing, just that we all have a tendency at a level which is not rational to find comfort and safety in the similar and familiar whilst distrusting and be uncomfortable with the dissimilar and unfamiliar.
You see this shit at all levels of human groups, not just “nations” and “races” but even “small town hostility towards strangers”.
IMHO, NOT being a Racist (genuinelly so, not the performative shit of some people who think they’re not Racist because, say, they support specific races which are a minority where they live because in their social circle that’s what you’re supposed to do and yet at the same time implicitly distrust people from other specific races for which there is no social approval - for example, “supporting Jews” whilst thinking that “Muslims are violent”) is actually an active thing were one has to spot one’s own internal tendency to make prejudicial assumptions based on people’s appearance (both positive and negative assumptions - people’s race neither makes them inherently better nor inherently worse) and stop oneself from making such assumptions or at least from acting on them.
They are more concerned if they will become pariahs in their own group. They aren’t really asking what the right thing to do is, they are asking “will this get me in trouble?”
Beni: It is better to be at the right hand of the Devil than in his path. As long as I serve him, I am immune.