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Moral Rigidity Evolved to Strengthen Bonds Within Groups
Moral rigidity and its intimate link to in-group boundaries may have evolved so as to make us behave, and be seen, as trustworthy yet cautious team members in social environments mired by intergroup competition.
Extremist Groups Require the Greatest Trust Among Members
Good signals are those which clearly differentiate membership in one group versus another; even stronger are those which are also costly to express, and therefore hard to fake.
Religious systems that lose their adaptability become dangerous to the societies in which they exist, and to themselves, because they absolutize the relative.
In the Eye of the Beholder: Parochial Altruism, Radicalization, and Extremism
Radicalization is an inherently relational concept. One can only be radical in relation to someone who is not. Similarly, one cannot be extreme without an accepted center norm. But the center is not a fixed state. It shifts and changes across time, place, circumstance, and culture.