Loyalty to small cultural groups strengthens attachment to the larger civilization

Evidence

Along any single dimension, identity is usually most meaningful at the immediate face-to-face level. Narrower identities, however, do not necessarily conflict with broader ones. A military officer can identify institutionally with his company, regiment, division, and service. Similarly, a person can identify culturally with his or her clan, ethnic group, nationality, religion, and civilization. The increased salience of cultural identity at lower levels may well reinforce its salience at higher levels. As Burke suggested: “The love to the whole is not extinguished by this subordinate partiality. … To be attached to the subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle (the germ, as it were) of public affections.” In a world where culture counts, the platoons are tribes and ethnic groups, the regiments are nations, and the armies are civilizations. The increased extent to which people throughout the world differentiate themselves along cultural lines means that conflicts between cultural groups are increasingly important; civilizations are the broadest cultural entities; hence conflicts between groups from different civilizations become central to global politics. — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 344 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Within the context of the Common Ingroup Identity Model, the development of a common ingroup identity does not necessarily require each group to forsake its less inclusive group identity. As Allport (1954/ 1979) noted, every individual belongs to multiple groups and “concentric loyalties need not clash. To be devoted to a large circle does not imply the destruction of one’s attachment to a smaller circle. The loyalties that clash are almost invariably of identical scope” (p. 44). Similarly, as denoted by the “subgroups within one group” (i.e., a dual identity) representation (see figure 5.1), we believe that it is possible for people to conceive two groups as distinct units within the context of a common superordinate identity (for example, as citizens of a city within a state, parents and children within a family, or marketers and accountants within a company). — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 576 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Ingroup norms and customs turn out not to be the only ways to manage the social world. This new perspective can reshape your view of your ingroup and lead to a less provincial view of outgroups in general (“deprovincialization”). In the European surveys, outgroup friendship related to significantly less “pride” in nationality even after education, age, and political conservatism are controlled (Pettigrew 1997c). — Thomas F. Pettigrew, Intergroup Contact Theory, 55 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Ancestor veneration supplies the social capital nations are built upon. — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist…, 74; Nested cultural identities reinforce rather than displace loyalty to larger wholes — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 344; Trust extends kin-group loyalty outward to the whole society (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Nested cultural identities reinforce rather than displace loyalty to larger wholes #corroborates (0.97) — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 344
• Multiple group loyalties coexist when circles differ in scope #corroborates (0.92) — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 576
• Cross-group friendship weakens national pride and provincialism #complicates (0.82) — Thomas F. Pettigrew, Intergroup Contact Theory, 55