I.  Introduction:  I want to begin my discussion of this topic of "Peace, Tolerance, and a Hierarchy of Loyalities" by
     carefully examining their opposites:  war, intolerance, and tribalism.  I believe that a clear understanding of the nature
    of these negative things will provide us with a sound foundation for better understanding what is needed to move
    toward peace, tolerance, and a hierarchy of loyalties.

II.  War = large-scale violent conflict between organized groups to gain political control over some particular territory.
  A.  Not all conflict is war.
     1.  Some conflict may be desirable in order to progress toward a better society.
     2.  Peace is not the same as stagnation & preservation of the status quo.
     3.  Note that war is group vs. group, not individual vs. individual. Thus tribalism is a crucial issue to investigate to
         understand why individuals are willing to fight  and die for their group.
     4.  The aim of warfare is political power, that is, the making & enforcing of laws and policies for the whole group, 
          including war against other groups.
  B.  Peace requires a social system that allows for nonviolent change in determining  who will acquire and continue to 
        have political power.
     1.  Change the word "violent" in our definition of "war" to "nonviolent" and we get: X (something; what is it?) = 
          large-scale nonviolent conflict between organized groups to gain political control over some particular territory. 
     2.  Note that this definition of "X" is in fact a good definition of  politics within a democratic system. 
          a.  The abortion issue in the U.S. is a good example of conflict being worked   out nonviolently in a democratic 
               system.
          b.  We use political & judicial processes rather than violence and weapons.
          c.  We use ballots rather than bullets to decide what the social policies will be.
     3.  A democratic system requires not only repeated voting but also free flow of information, informed voters, and 
          restraint on the part of the temporary winners.
     4.  Empirical evidence indicates that democracies are more stable governments & are also less likely to go to war 
          against other democracies.
     5.  Democracies require tolerance for different viewpoints on policy.
 

III.  Intolerance = the disposition to insist on one's own views & practices, that is, to deny that others have rights to 
       believe or act differently from the way I do.
   A.  Thus the foundation of intolerance is narrow-minded dogmatism, the notion that I and my group infallibly have the 
         truth and know infallibly what is the right thing to do, that is, what is good.
     1.  Dogmatism often springs from ignorance, from being unaware of a wider world.
       a. It follows that education (not indoctrination) is a remedy for dogmatism.
       b.  But dogmatism is also sometimes a defense against insecurity and fear.  In this case education may increase the 
             insecurity & will be viewed as dangerous.
     2.  Thus dogmatists often try to restrict education for themselves and their children.
       a.  Ignorance is promoted as necessary to protect "our" beliefs and practices.
       b.  Note how religious fundamentalists, regardless of which religion, try to stop the spread of knowledge (science) & 
           awareness of other views (philosophy).
  B.  But don't overlook the problem of intolerance on the part of the knowledgeable.
     1.  People who know much about many things (experts) tend to assume that they know much about everything.
     2.  How  Esperanto is mocked by the educated who "know better."
     3.  The perenniel problems of innovators such as Socrates, Copernicus, Spinoza, the Wright brothers, Darwin, 
         Einstein.  The elite can be intolerant too.
     4.  This is a danger for Unitarians in the area of religion.  That is why we must be committed to truth & goodness in 
          general & not to any particular truth or view of the good, even our seven wonderful principles worked out by the 
         UUA.
  C.  We should adopt American pragmatist C. S. Peirce's philosophy of fallibilism, that any view can turn out to be in 
         need of correction.
     1.  For Peirce, final truth is that which all people who scientifically investigate will ultimately come to believe.
         a.  Changing tentatively accepted truth is what people who have scientifically investigated now, for this moment, 
              have come to believe.
     2.  Applying this same kind of thinking to the area of ethics & following the ideas of Scottish empiricist David Hume, 
          final good is what all people who are informed & consider the matter impartially will ultimately come to approve.
a.  Changing tentatively accepted goodness is what people who are informed & consider the matter impartially now, for
     this moment, have come to approve.
  D.  If we make this kind of commitment to fallibilism and to finding corrections for our own beliefs which may be false
       or too limited and for our own practices which may need improvement, we will have an appropriate 
       motivational base for tolerance.
 

IV.  Tribalism = the view that I have special obligations to members my small group but that I do not have any similar 
       obligations to others outside my group.
  A.  In recent times the most prominent kind of tribalism is nationalism, so I will focus my remarks on it.  But the term 
       "nationalism" has three distinct meanings.
     1.  All three of these meaning of "nationalism" are closely related to modern war.
     2.  The 1st two definitions of "nationalism" refer to group identification with one's "nation" & the readiness of 
          individuals to fight for their nation.
        a.  One's nation may refer to one's ethnic group, regardless of whether this group has its own nation-state or 
             government, for example, Kurds, Basques, the Sioux, Quebeçois, Cherokees, and Serbs.  Nationalism as 
             identification with one's ethnic group is especially important in wars within nation-states, as in Turkey, Bosnia, 
             Yugoslavia, Russia, etc.
        b.  One's nation may refer to one's nation-state in which case "nationalism" is equivalent to "patriotism."  Nationalism
             in this sense is especially important in wars between nation-states, as between India and Pakistan or between the 
            U.S. and Russia or between Iran and Iraq.
        c. One sees these two senses of "nationalism" combined when in the U.S. one is described as "Italian-American" or 
           "Irish-American" or "African-American."  The 1st part of the term refers to the ethnic group & the 2nd part to the 
            U.S.
        d.  This combining of terms is important to understanding how the U.S. is a multi-cultural or pluralistic society.  Of 
             course, more and more nation-states (countries) are taking on this multi-national (ethnic) character.
     3.  The third definition of "nationalism," what I call "doctrinal nationalism," is quite different from the first two because
           it does not refer to the psychological phenomenon of identification but rather to a doctrine or or belief or ideology
          It is the view that each ethnic group should have its own ethnically-pure nation-state, that is, that ethnic groups
          should be kept separate from each other and that each should have control of the government in its own ethnic 
          community.
        a.  This view is tribalism with a vengeance.  We must keep ethnic groups apart because they cannot treat each other
             as equals or members of a larger group.
        b.  This doctrinal nationalism became popular in the 19th century as the basis for the unification of Italy and 
             Germany, so the Italians and Germans could compete more successfully against the British and French in the 
             newly developing international community.
        c.  Doctrinal nationalism also became popular with ethnic minorities who felt that they could not escape being 
            discriminated against without their own nation-state.  At the end of World War I this doctrinal nationalism became
            the basis for creating independent countries such as Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Czechoslovakia.
            This was the basis for Zionism at that time.
        d.  Doctrinal nationalism is at the root of much warfare throughout the world.  Each ethnic group feels that it must 
             have its own separate nation-state and that persons not of that ethnic group have no right to equal treatment in 
             that nation-state.
        e.  The U.S. has been trying to promote the notion of pluralistic societies and to battle against doctrinal nationalism.
             The outstanding example of this is the Dayton Peace Accords (1995) designed to preserve a multi-ethnic Bosnia
             Herzegovina rather than having that country carved up between Croats in Croatia and Serbs in Serbia.  Another
             example is trying to keep Kosovo as part of Yugoslavia while at the same time keeping the Serbs from driving 
             the Kosovars out of that territory. 
   B.  The U.S. is trying to convince the world that multi-cultural nation-states are viable alternative to nation-states that 
         are based strictly on ethnicity.
      1.  The basic notion here is that there can be a hierarchy of loyalties, that one can feel identification with one's ethnic
           group while at the same time having a higher loyalty to one's nation-state.
      2.  The key question is whether the U.S./Canadian/Australian experience is so different from that of older countries 
           that doctrinal nationalism can be replaced by multi-ethnic pluralism in long-populated places like Europe and Asia.
   C.  Another way of moving away from all tribalism is to go beyond all three kinds of nationalism to a globalism or 
         humatriotism where we are loyal to a democratic world federation.  We are all members of one planetary 
         community even though  we are members of different ethnic groups and of different nation-states.

V.  Now we have reached the kind of hierarchy of loyalties which can lead us beyond  war & intolerance & tribalism to
      a world of peace & tolerance & a universal planetary community.