Taken to the extreme, an
irrational fear of strangers or more broadly, a fear of those who are different. Taken in a more moderate way, a
rational fear of those who are different in some
significant way, such as race, ethnicity, culture, politics, religion. Since people live together in families and communities where blood ties and cultural similarities foster cooperation, those who are different undermine this social solidarity. The very presence of people who are different in appearance or belief or language make the
majority of people in a community wary of those who do not share a common interest in preserving the dominant group.
This fear is justified since people naturally view those who look, believe, and act in a similar manner as extensions of themselves. Since people are naturally selfish, they will lend aid and befriend those whom they see as similar to themselves. Conversely, since people are naturally selfish and seek to dominate others to enhance their own power, they will naturally first seek to dominate those who are different. People who are different are more likely to be seen as objects rather than fellow humans.
When confronted with these threats to social cooperation based on viewing others as objects, it is rational to foster laws, social and economic policy, and attitudes that preserve one's own kind in power. To do otherwise is to hand power over to those who will destroy one's own way of life, culture, and political system.
Political power as well as cultural and social power are zero-sum games. When one group gains in the same
geographical region, other groups must lose.
Campus Leftist: "Oh, those
conservatives really show their xenophobia in opposing open immigration. That shows what closed minds they have and how paranoid they are. Of course, we had to shout down a
conservative speaker last night at the lecture series, and drive him off campus in order to promote diversity and pluralism. We would never be prejudiced as those
conservatives are."