reply to anonymous

I assume that you are anonymous. I don't think you fully understood my use of "primitive." This has nothing to do with cognitive abilities or what we think of as "executive functions" intellectually. If you read my statement carefully you will notice that I refer mostly to "psychologically primitive" thinking. This is a reference to childhood development and childhood emotional functioning. The fact is that we all retain "primitive" levels of emotional and intellectual functioning and that these processes can be mobilized when people are under stress, fear, or other strong base emotional states. The problem is that unitary thinking (that is black or white thinking) is a serious problem that betrays the need to protect oneself from perceived dangers - often dangers are perceived in this way when a real danger then becomes exaggerated/generalized. This process then results in a host of psychological maneuvers to justify your own actions - often by demonizing the actions of others (as you have in your answer by the way) and excusing your own. This is the kind of thinking that then leads to justifying your own atrocities while condemning the same atrocities committed by others (which you also did in your answer by the way). The argument I am making is that there are psychological antecedents that lead one to interpret reality in this way and that those antecedents are located in very "psychologically primitive" modes of thought. We see this all the time in therapy patients. The fact is that the fears that are generated by our "primitive"/underdeveloped brains as infants can linger and guide later cognitive and emotional functioning (this is not news but it constantly needs to be reminded).

So I believe you missed the basic point I am trying to make. By the way, the extension of my thinking about this issue will include several more points (I just have not put them all together in my mind yet)... But among them will be that there are plenty of liberals who also are guided by this basic process but it manifests differently for a variety of reasons. One of the central things that I believe makes a difference is this all or nothing thinking that I have referred to. I believe that it is not at all coincidence that the most fundamentalist people in the world also follow the most radical political ideologies (fundamentalist christians, hasidic jews with the republican party for example -- radical muslims and the taliban...) The this is actually the same type of thinking that I have explained in my blog. I do not see flexibility of thought there. I see unitary thought that has only one answer to very complex problems. This to me is a serious distortion of reality based in the same emotionally primitive thinking one finds in early childhood. The world is not safe, I need to be protected, and God/the leader will protect me