More Americans should visit the Balkans and learn the regional history. It's a beautiful area, and gives some perspective on the universal human capacity for irrational hatred.
What I've never understood is how people can get so outraged over even minor political differences. If someone agrees with you 80% then that's an ally, not an enemy.
- Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.
- The group has a polarized, us-versus-them mentality, which may cause conflict with the wider society.
- The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify whatever means it deems necessary. This may result in members participating in behaviors or activities they would have considered reprehensible or unethical before joining the group.
- The leadership induces feelings of shame and/or guilt in order to influence and control members. Often this is done through peer pressure and subtle forms of persuasion.
- Subservience to the leader or group requires members to cut ties with family and friends, and radically alter the personal goals and activities they had before joining the group.
Pretty much any region has plenty of history that Americans should reflect on. E.g. whenever the American media and/or pundits talk about the "civil war", it's inevitably framed in comparison to the US Civil War. Except that was a very atypical "civil war", as those things go - fought by well-established governments using mostly conventional armies. And while it's still the most devastating war ever fought on US soil, its casualty numbers are minuscule by the world standards of what civil strife looks like.
To find out more about what an actual civil war looks like, one might explore history of civil wars in e.g. Russia, China, or even Finland.
What I've never understood is how people can get so outraged over even minor political differences. If someone agrees with you 80% then that's an ally, not an enemy.