Chapter 2 discusses the common belief that people different from us all look alike and act alike. The outgroup homogeneity effect, as it is called, is rooted in normal categorization processes that become oversimplified. Categorization produces a range of tendencies that contribute to prejudice such as stereotyping, inaccurate attributions, ingroup favoritism, outgroup derogation, dehumanization, even scapegoating and genocide. These phenomena are explained and connected to contemporary events such as anti-Asian hate crimes during the Covid 19 pandemic. Chapter 2 ends with strategies for change that include intergroup contact, creating more complex social identities, and cooperative learning.

In Chapter 2, I introduce Girard’s mimetic theory with emphasis on his understanding of gods, “the victim mechanism,” and monotheism. What does it mean that monotheism interrupts archaic polytheistic religion by dividing God from the victim? This invites us to venture out into other monotheistic scholarship, like Assmann’s and its Freudian roots.

The Conclusion ties the themes of the book together to emphasize monotheism not as an "identity forged negatively against the other," nor as an escape from this othering. Rather, through the apophatic intolerance explored in all chapters, monotheism is conceived as othering-in-reverse, as a revelation of our blindness to scapegoating the other, highlighting our need not for mere inclusivity but agonistic pluralism.

Chapter 6 discusses the effects of disasters. It distinguishes between effects in the immediate aftermath of the disaster – mortality and demographic recovery; land loss and capital destruction; economic crisis; and blame, scapegoating, and social unrest – and longer-term structural consequences – societal collapse; economic reconstruction; long-term demographic change; reconstruction, reform, and social changes; and redistribution of resources. This chapter argues that disasters, even similar ones, did not always produce homogeneous outcomes. Furthermore, rather than being totally damaging or even controversially regarded as a ‘force for good’, the effects of disasters are best assessed by making a basic distinction between the aggregate level and the distributive level: disasters could be instrumentalized to benefit a certain segment of a given population over others.

In Greek tragedies and in Hardy’s tragic novels, plots beyond our control destroy our good character, while we or others lament this injustice and envision events otherwise. In such moments of counter-narrative rebellion, both the impassioned narrator of Tess of the d’Urbervilles and the titular character of Jude the Obscure attack the logics of rape culture and victim-blaming that, in Greek tragic fashion, descend on their heroines from without and degrade them beyond recognition. This chapter contrasts Hardy’s theory of tragedy with the Aristotelian model of tragedy in which protagonists themselves inadvertently cause their demises. Hardy’s sense of tragedy is different, too, from the Christian model in which heroines fall because of their moral vices. Like Greek tragedies, Hardy’s novels show extrahuman and anthropogenic sources of suffering that cannot be justified. In particular, Hardy’s tragedy decries the notion of scapegoating, which understands the exile or elimination of the “other” to cleanse the community.

Chapter 8 discusses how to deal with alleged new terrorism and security threats posed by migration. Fears concerning terrorism and security seem to have significantly set back the prospects for migration justice recently. While there is some threat level, key issues include deciding what measures would be effective in combating it, while being commensurate with that threat level, and not ignoring the opportunity costs pursuing such policies might entail, especially ones that might better promote the goals of an inclusive society capable of resilience to such threats. The chapter also considers whether some risks can be further reduced without compromising our values, principles, and other important justice goals. There are significant concerns that arise about the measures we should take to protect against the perceived threat when they violate other demands of justice. For instance, excessive public expenditure in one domain when further outcome gains are insignificant and other important basic rights remain unaddressed, is relevant to assessing how well justice is achieved in particular societies.