Assimilation can intensify rather than reduce group hatred as boundaries blur

Evidence

In the third stage identity has grown beyond its simple tribal origins, and the bond of blood is supplemented and ultimately supplanted by two new and interrelated factors—culture and religion. The hated outsider is still outside and is still hated, but there are procedures by which he may cross the barrier and be accepted as an insider provided he is willing to accept a certain level—differently defined in different societies—of assimilation. During this process hatred survives and may indeed acquire a new intensity, directed against the remaining outsider, seen as a rival and a threat, and against the new and still not fully assimilated insider, seen as his agent or ally. In certain societies the level of suspicion and hatred may actually increase with the progress of assimilation. Spain after the Reconquest and Germany under the Nazis are two examples. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1049

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The counterintuitive claim that more assimilation can generate more hatred — targeting both the outsider and the newly admitted insider — is the kind of dense, counterintuitive insight that rewards re-reading.
• XREF: Connects to the concept of the ‘half-caste’ or liminal figure dynamics in colonial and post-colonial literature, and to Zygmunt Bauman’s work on ambivalence and the stranger. — connects to: the MOC “The Enemy-Making Machine: Ours, True, and the Identity That Defends Both”