Résumé: How we learn as children is a determing factor, if not THE main determining factor with regards to how we think as adults.
As we learn our brains adapt to this new learning, but as we formulate our world views, our brain patterns interpret the world in terms of these established patterns.
Wexler shows how childhood learning affects brain development, arguing that it is not individual brain functions but systems that are developed in the brain which reflect our learning and our development.
But once in place, it is more difficult to change brain patterns. Thus what is familar is better, and we tend to fear the unknown because it is not part of how our brains interpret the world.
Wexler shows how these patterns affect everything from cultural wars to fears of immigrants to how we tend to prefer the familiar in everyday life.
On the other dise of the coin he shows how parents can be affected by the learning of their children.
Brain patterns are fixed, but not in stone, and can be adapted.
Indirectly, Wexler's book is baiout the old nature/nurture issue. As a philosopher who has studied this issue in great detail I came to the conclusion that we will never be able to completely know what is nature and what is nurture. Wexler's book supports my conclusion in that he shows how nurture can affect nature---how we learn and we deal with our environments---affect our nature.
This book has real implications for political philosophy since it demonstrates that foreign intervention, no matter how well intentioned, will be rejected, especially if the views presented are significantly different from existing ones.
In short, a very interesting work