Collective Compartmentalisation and International Affairs

The human mind can sustain conflicting thoughts or beliefs about itself and cope with the ensuing cognitive dissonance via a psychological defence mechanism known as compartmentalisation. Using the current Anglo-European response to the war in Ukraine versus Gaza, this article proposes that beyond the individual, it is possible to conceive of collective or national compartmentalisation. This can offer a useful model in understanding radically different responses to different social categories of refugees and asylum seekers fleeing war. It will argue that integration of all aspects of self-conception at the collective and national level is, as it is for the individual, a more desirable outcome in matters of humanitarian response and collective moral integrity.