ANATOMY OF HATE THE WARRIOR'S HONOR Ethnic War and the Modern Conscience By Michael Ignatieff Metropolitan Books 207pp $24.95 In one of the five pieces in this provocative collection, Michael Ignatieff quotes Freud on the subject of human estrangement: ''It is precisely the minor differences, in people who are otherwise alike, that form the basis of feelings of strangeness and hostility between them.'' In a move typical of Ignatieff's ability to cut to the core, he applies this observation to the world's ethnic conflicts. The Warrior's Honor is a good, solid, annoying book. In an earlier volume, Blood and Belonging, Ignatieff looked at the ethnic conflicts we count among the evil flowers of our age. In this book's pieces--all previously published in such periodicals as The New Yorker and Daedalus--he analyzes Western responses to those conflicts. That includes the barbarities that lately have ravaged peoples from Southern Europe to Afghanistan to Angola. Ignatieff takes issue with the ''clash of civilizations'' thesis of Harvard professor Samuel P. Huntington--which proclaims humanity to be fatally divided along cultural, religious, and ethnic lines. Ignatieff begins his counterargument in a Serbian farmhouse, where he asks a reservist what separates him from his Croatian enemies. At first, the man holds up a pack of smokes and says: ''See this? These are Serbian cigarettes. Over there, they smoke Croatian cigarettes.'' Then the man adds: ''They think they're better than us. They want to be the gentlemen. They think they're fancy Europeans. I'll tell you something. We're all just Balkan [excrement].'' So much for Huntington's clash of civilizations. Rather, the encounter is brilliantly revealing of what Ignatieff calls ''the narcissism of minor difference.'' But Ignatieff never asks why the discussion of ethnic distinctions leads the reservist to disparage all Balkans. They are excrement in relation to whom--people of developed nations? Nor does Ignatieff ask why the world is fragmenting into various ''identities.'' Is it globalization? In ''Is Nothing Sacred? The Ethics of Television,'' Ignatieff bears down on the emotional transactions that occur when TV news puts viewers a video clip away from suffering. Do our reactions represent ''the internationalization of conscience,'' Ignatieff asks, or ''promiscuous voyeurism''--or both at once? Because watching TV is a passive experience, Ignatieff is skeptical of its power in such moments. It can so easily manipulate images--and therefore emotions--in favor of prevailing political interests. ''In practice, it worships power,'' he says. ''Television is the church of modern authority.'' The Warrior's Honor has its weaknesses. For all his concern with politics, Ignatieff too often avoids tough political analysis. In looking at TV news, he calls for changes in format and ''a journalism that respects itself.'' But TV's failure goes beyond time constraints and low standards. If Ignatieff had considered the influence of advertisers, he would have had to conclude that the question of TV's quality was less moral than political. Such timidity leaves The Warrior's Honor long on Weltschmerz and short on ideas about how we ought to respond to distant calamities. It is one of the few marks against this otherwise thoughtful book. BY PATRICK SMITH RELATED ITEMS PHOTO: Cover, ``The Warrior's Honor'' Return to top of story

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