“Once people commit themselves to an opinion about "Who started this?," whatever the "this" may be—a family quarrel or an international conflict—they become less able to accept information that is dissonant with their position. Once they have decided who the perpetrator is and who the victim is, their ability to empathize with the other side is weakened, even destroyed. How many arguments have you been in that sputtered out with unanswerable "but what about?"s? As soon as you describe the atrocities that one side has committed, someone will protest: "But what about the other side's atrocities?”