So I'm silent about anti-semitism, anti-muslimism, anti-christianty, anti-hinduism or anti-atheism. Damnit, I left out the Buddists and the Zoroastrians. Well, I'm gonna be silent about their dissenters too. Seems better to be "for" something than "against" something, but I'm sure in no position to judge. I just hope that I can be cool sometimes.

I agree with your idea that intolerance and bigotry act as a sort of barometer of social unrest. It does seem to come in waves, and it does seem that people are more tolerant when they are secure and happy. I guess that's pretty much a no-brainer. When we see someone that is intolerant, we're probably looking at someone who is scared, angry or hungry. Something like that. If we see a whole culture become that way, then a large part of the culture is probably scared, angry or hungry. The ones that aren't are probably agitated by the ones that are, so the social mood swells.

I also agree with your hypothesis that gang mentality might be a survival mechanism for humans, with long roots back into tribal cultures. That is an interesting observation, and one that I agree with. Sounds reasonable. One would like to think that if they were in a culture that was doing something really stupid, they would buck the system and go towards the side that wasn't being so stupid. But I don't guess we get to see how we'll really react until we're in the soup.