This document discusses significant differences between the cultural personalities and communication patterns of non-mainstream and mainstream groups in an effort to understand the nature and cause of conflict between groups. The author seeks to identify the "combustible" features of different communication systems, to demonstrate the systematic nature of the features as they operate within their respective "natural" cultural settings by showing how they interrelate with other aspects of the communication process, and to show the extent to which these features can be "accounted for" in terms of general or specific (ethnic) cultural factors. (Author/VM)