Is there an already-established word for this idea? The idea is something like, "We compete with our cousins until we meet strangers."

Just recently, there was a comment on the WhyWeGetAnnoyedBySmalltalk page about how Smalltalkers tend to lump Java and C++ together (when really Java is very very different from C++). I'm seeing the same kind of thing over on the PythonVsRuby pages. And wasn't there a StarTrekOriginalSeries episode about this (with the people with the black-and-white faces)?

Back when all I knew was A and B, the differences between the two seemed enormous. Worth fighting over. Now that I've learned C and D and E and F and G, A and B are starting to look like very closely related cousins. I still see the differences between them, but I see them from a wider perspective, and they don't seem nearly as important anymore.

''Yeah, me too. Back when all I knew was CeePlusPlus, JavaLanguage seemed unbelievably new and different. But now I've had experience in other languages (MlLanguage, LispLanguage, PythonLanguage, PerlLanguage), they seem very similar.''

Regarding the StarTrekOriginalSeries episode: It wasn't just that the differences seemed enormous. It was that the distinction of which was better was purely arbitrary. White on the left side was "better" than black on the left (or the other way around, I don't remember which). As a metaphor for the racial prejudice problems in the US at the time, it was so thinly disguised as to be non-existent. It's one of the most powerful examples of social criticism in a fictional TV show, IMHO.

''Another example: when you learn about research OperatingSystems out there (EROS, GrassHopper, et cetera) you realize that Windows, Mac and Unix are all the same thing, different only in trivial and uninteresting ways.''