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.
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