Russ Abbott wrote circa 11-08-24 11:14 AM: > Favoring members of one's own group is not incompatible with letting new > people in. Many religions proselytize, for example. (Also, clubs and > political parties recruit; countries add new citizens; etc.) Still > members (new or longstanding) are often favored over non-members.
Again, though, I think this is an over-simplification. The frequency of interactions between the individuals is much higher than that of the group. (Actually, it's almost nonsensical to talk of group actions. Any group action is a composite, particular pattern -- or organization -- of individual actions. E.g. religions do NOT proselytize, individuals proselytize.) In that dynamic interplay of the group "letting new people in", those potential new people who are not likely to fit turn (and are turned) away. So, even though it may _seem_ like a group lets new people in, it may only let in those people who are judged compatible with the group, the judging of which happens during the construction of the composite group action from the many finer grained individual actions. In other words, the new people who are let in were really _already_ part of the same group. (I doubt that evolution cares whether you're on the parish roster or not ;-) but it may care whether you behave like the people on the parish roster. It seems to me that, to avoid talking nonsense, we must separate self-identification of group identity from selection classes over which evolution might operate.) Some groups probably behave this way to a greater or lesser extent than other groups. I suspect religions that allow a very wide array of beliefs (Unitarians?, Hindi?) are on one end of the spectrum where those that insist on some form of coherence in belief amongst their members (Southern Baptists?) are on the other end. The former allows more decoupling of belief from behavior than the latter. To sum up, it should depend on what we mean by "group" as to whether favoring in-group is incompatible with allowing out-group in. The whole topic seems ill-defined and suspect. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
