Instead of assimilation, Bourne favored a kind of "dual citizenship," an institutionalization of divided loyalties. He wanted tribal minorities to expose themselves to wider currents of thought without acquiring the mental habits of "cultural half-breeds." His position resembled that of Orestes Brownson, although there is no evidence that he was acquainted with Brownson's work. Like Brownson, Bourne maintained that individuality had to rest on early instruction in a definite, particular set of cultural practices. His position also resembled—and in this case was strongly influenced by—Josiah Royce's defense of provincialism, even though Bourne referred to his own "trans-national" ideal as a form of cosmopolitanism. For years, Royce—the third member of Harvard's distinguished triumvirate of philosophers—had been warning against the "levelling tendency of recent civilization," which threatened to "crush the individual." "Frequent changes of dwelling-place" destroyed "community spirit," according to Royce. Newspapers, "read by too vast multitudes," fostered a "monotonously uniform triviality of mind." "Industrial consolidation" and "impersonal social organization" strengthened the "spirit of the crowd or of the mob." Provincialism—loyalty to the "small group"—furnished a necessary counterweight, Royce argued, to the homogenizing effect of modern life, as long as it did not degenerate into "ancient narrowness."

Neither Bourne nor Royce explained what would happen if particular loyalties came into collision. How would the resulting conflicts be resolved? It was the fear that they could not be resolved short of open warfare that made the assimilationist program attractive as the best hope of social peace. Groups, it appeared, were inherently warlike and contentious. They operated according to the principle of exclusion: all that held them together was a common antipathy to outsiders. Social order, accordingly, seemed to depend on the dissolution of groups into their constituent individuals. Individuals had rights that could be recognized and guaranteed by the state, but groups characteristically refused to recognize the rights of competing groups, even to recognize their humanity. "Those who are not members of the tribe are not human beings," Boas noted with disapproval.

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