I'd like to return to the original question:
Is there a word for the condition somebody has when he thinks, "this is the way I think, therefore everyone thinks this way," ... it's more like assuming everyone is like yourself and if they're not there is something wrong with them.
Insanediego is describing one aspect of residual tribalism as manifested in the modern individual. There was probably evolutionary value in the kind of thinking he describes, maybe in unifying tribes and clans, most of whom perceived themselves as "people" and everyone else as "other" to a greater or lesser degree. They thought the same as one another and had a strong, unifying way of looking at their world. If there is an anthropologist peeking in, maybe he can provide the technical term for this kind of thinking. It's universal, and there has been a snowballing move in the last few centuries to erase it from our genes, or at least to modify its expression. With the advent of increasingly efficient transportation over long distances, tribalism evolved into nationalism for good or for ill; and the individual, when dealing with the newly-cosmopolitan world, had to be acculturated away from many aspects of tribal thinking. Racism is a form of what Insanediego describes. We all feel it - we see other races as... well,
other - but we are trained from birth in modern society to avoid acting on these thoughts, just as we are trained away from acting out rape, assault, murder, and other natural thoughts. So it isn't that there's something
wrong with people with whom we disagree; we simply recognize them as "other."
Then, maybe because of the casual use of "idiots," Insanediego adds a twist:
"...this is the way I do things so if other people don't do it this way, they're idiots."
Sometimes we recognize "other" not as idiots, but as role models. For example, some blood from Scotland and England runs in my veins, but I'm glad my U.S. culture recognized long ago that there are better cooks in the world.
And one last:
It has something to do with Narcissism
I think narcissism is far off the mark. Narcissism is more about being impressed with ones own physical beauty, and it doesn't suggest that others are not beautiful.
