ABSTRACT
This chapter considers white supremacy in the United States as a model for a persistent polarizing myth, centuries old. It looks at universal mental mechanisms which have bolstered this myth. Loyalty to the group fosters an action-based posture, convinced that its point of view is honorable and even patriotic. But the reversion to simpler realities does violence to the more whole-minded self. The mechanisms of splitting and projection cleave away the most highly evolved mental capacities that foster appreciation of the nuances, ambiguities and the grays of complex reality. Any new or different ideas about reality would be felt as jarring and alien, especially if it were to reveal the myths as just that, myths, instead of unquestioned truths to live by. The contemporary European philosophical voice of Rob Riemen adds to the understanding that the reversion to tribal states of mind easily leads to the rise of fascism.
