However, it also plays a part in the generation of new species. Perhaps something like this explains the development of Cro-magnon man, despite being surrounded in the same geographic regions by Neanderthalers. All this bespeaks the existence of an innate racialism as an evolutionary force - a tendency to like the like and distrust the different. Modern society has pronounced its ethical condemnation of racism, but in the long run has met with little more success than in religion and in its condemnation of sex and aggression. One way is to avoid too great a diversity within a politically organized society.
Contemporary societies made up of a mosaic of ethnic components have potential advantages.
For example, social experiments can be tried out in one subgroup and, if successful, adopted by all. Something of this kind exists in the degree of independence of the fifty American states. But, as in current Yugoslavia, perhaps the mosaic can go too far and lead to conflict. This is a matter for investigation, which will remain uninvestigated until social psychologists wake up to the existence of a natural, innate racism. Like all instinctive forces, it has its virtues and its vices.