When Belonging Becomes a Boundary

In Part I, we examined the psychological origins of “us” and “them.” We saw how easily people form groups, how arbitrary an initial boundary can be, and how differences can acquire meaning after that boundary has been established.

But psychological boundaries do not remain inside people’s minds.

They can become social categories, political identities, laws, borders, and institutions.

This raises the second question:

How do group boundaries become social and political institutions?

The examples range from highly assimilated Jews in Western Europe to the creation of more homogeneous nation-states after the collapse of European empires, and from postwar population transfers to the very different contemporary ideal of multicultural coexistence.

The Puzzle of Assimilated Jews

This helps explain one of the great puzzles of European history.

Many Jews in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Western Europe were highly assimilated.

They spoke fluent German or French.

They attended the same schools and universities.

They worked in the same professions.

They served in national armies.

They participated in national culture.

They dressed like their neighbors.

Many considered themselves thoroughly German or French.

If language, culture, education, and civic participation were enough to establish belonging, the boundary should have disappeared.

For antisemites, the criterion could simply change.

Jewishness could be redefined in terms of ancestry.

A person could speak perfect German and still be told that he was not truly German.

A person could convert to Christianity and still be classified as Jewish.

A family could participate fully in German society and still be treated as fundamentally foreign.

The important question was no longer:

Who were your ancestors?

The boundary had become hereditary.

And once the boundary was defined that way, assimilation could no longer eliminate it.

The marker had changed.

The boundary had remained.

The Illusion of Final Assimilation

The experience of assimilated Jews raises a broader question:

Can assimilation ever eliminate “us” and “them”?

Even when two populations become almost indistinguishable culturally, another boundary can emerge.

If religion becomes less important, politics may become more important.

If ethnicity becomes less important, class may become more important.

If class becomes less important, ideology may become more important.

And if one division loses........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)