Belonging

[fwgx]

People naturally tend to associate themselves with certain factions or groups, pop/rock/folk music for example. Then at a wider level we group ourselves by country, in football we get behind our team, England, Scotland, Ireland etc (This is an English person speaking so sorry if I don't include your team ). Then for athletics we get behind Great Britain so the boarders that are present in football are loosened and we activley support Scotish and Irish athletes because it benifits us in some way. This can then be broardened into the political spectrum as has been clear in the past few years and throughout the Cold War especially where pepole are on one side or the other based on what country they were born in. People wil then put a higher value on the death of a fellow countryman or someone on 'your side' than dozens of deaths to 'them' because we don't feel connected to them in any way. This can then exand to continents and probably hemisphears, certainly western vs eastern culture.

I was wondering where the line should be drawn, we put less worth on the life of a chimp to a human life and even less to a rabbit or a rat, should we extend even further our notion of group belonging to these animals? So it can be us in the mamals group vs the fish? If we thought that way the death of a chimp would be just as important as the death of a human no matter what country the human or chimp was from. We could even go further than just mamals, how about vertebrates? Us vs the insects and jellyfish!

Will the way we think about groupings and belongingess be one of the major obsticles in our future, possibly causing WWIII and will changing our way of thinking prevent this? How far do you think we'll have to go to progress as a consious species or do you think the way things are at the moment to be a good thing promoting progress in a non dangerous way?