ABSTRACT
The process of learning is based on making distinctions and making judgements. Learning comes from understanding the difference between what is meaningful and what can be ignored. The learning of language depends on differentiating what is meaningful from the meaningless, since only certain sounds, phonemes, carry meaning. Social learning includes reciprocal interaction. Responses are not just a matter of reacting to stimuli but acting on experiences and being able to reflect upon them. Prejudice, in this sense, even if it is benevolent prejudice, is at the heart of learning. One of the earliest manifestations of rivalry and of prejudice, of the desire for warm intellectual relationships and for compatible others, is the tension between siblings in the home. The earliest groups are, after all, of relationships with one person. They consist of friendships, and for some, their own general group identities remain exclusively with one other person, sometimes permanently, and sometimes one at a time.
