Rex Kerr
1 min readFeb 13, 2022

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Despite the very very lengthy article, I think this is the key point, and you don't defend it nearly well enough to be compelling. To me, the hates all look pretty much the same.

Furthermore, countering your claim that individualism matters, note, for instance, antisemitism (which has manifest against Jews from as diverse of places as ancient Egyptians, Muslims, Europeans, and Americans (mostly of European descent)). If there's an outgroup, humans are prepared to hate it. The troubles in Ireland are between people with the same skin color, race, etc. etc.--it's religious and nationalistic. Collectivist cultures have no monopoly on hatred of structure! People in the U.S. really really hated communism throughout much of the second half of the 20th century (c.f. McCarthyism). Certainly not just because of how Kazakhs look.

Now, you might still be able to make a case that there's a somewhat different propensity towards different types of hatred based on individualism. But I'm not at all convinced that you have found the root cause of any differences, given all the counterexamples. There are serious problems with individualism, but that this is one of them needs, ironically for something that is so long, more detailed support. (I don't mean more discussion and speculation...I mean really hard-nosed examination of the evidence.)

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Rex Kerr
Rex Kerr

Written by Rex Kerr

One who rejoices when everything is made as simple as possible, but no simpler. Sayer of things that may be wrong, but not so bad that they're not even wrong.

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