How do we overcome tribalism?

[Evangelicalhumanist]

I think what we're seeing today is the result of identity politics ostensibly taking a very wrong turn somewhere around the late 1980s and 1990s. I'm not sure how or why, but that's when I started to notice a change in direction and different kinds of rhetoric which were incongruent with the narratives which were formulated in the 1960s and 70s. What was once a message of love, peace, and togetherness turned into something else which is hard to define, except that it's more divided.

I think the answer to this should be pretty clear. In most of the so-called western world, being white and Christian (and male, of course) put one at the top of the social order, and this had been the case for a very long time. Even in the 1950's and 60's, there were hardly any members of governments who were not white, Christian and male. In the 1970's this began to change, as did the demographics out there in streets, where immigrants who were not white and who were not Christian began growing in numbers. And as they wanted a "piece of the action," and wanted to be considered "as good as the next guy," they started agitating for their own place in the power structures, until such terrible anomalies as a black man being elected US President, or worse, a partionally black woman as Veep. Congress and state governments are filled with non-white, non-male legislatures, and the courts have black women sitting in judgement over white men -- oh the horror!

I think that's what is happening, especially in the US. Those white men want their rightful place at the top back, and are now arming and readying themselves to take it.

Edited to add: Oh, sorry, I forget to add heterosexual to white, male and Christian.

 

[Valjean]

That's just it, there are plenty of reactions & habitual behaviors that are hard wired (the urge to kill ur boss, to rape your sister in law, etc.) but we overcome them all by choice. Now if you don't accept the existence of free will and insist that everyone's just a programmed robot then we're done. otoh if you accept our having choices then we can agree that it's our decision which tribe we're a member of.

It's true that we can resist our natures, we do it all the time, or we wouldn't be able to live together in the large, diverse groups we do. But this conditioning is a shallow veneer, and is easily breached in times of fear or insecurity -- as humanity's endless history of war and strife illustrates.

 

[Stevicus]

I think the answer to this should be pretty clear. In most of the so-called western world, being white and Christian (and male, of course) put one at the top of the social order, and this had been the case for a very long time. Even in the 1950's and 60's, there were hardly any members of governments who were not white, Christian and male. In the 1970's this began to change, as did the demographics out there in streets, where immigrants who were not white and who were not Christian began growing in numbers. And as they wanted a "piece of the action," and wanted to be considered "as good as the next guy," they started agitating for their own place in the power structures, until such terrible anomalies as a black man being elected US President, or worse, a partionally black woman as Veep. Congress and state governments are filled with non-white, non-male legislatures, and the courts have black women sitting in judgement over white men -- oh the horror!

I think that's what is happening, especially in the US. Those white men want their rightful place at the top back, and are now arming and readying themselves to take it.

Edited to add: Oh, sorry, I forget to add heterosexual to white, male and Christian.

The white males wanted to keep that place at the top just as much (if not more so) back in the 60s and 70s, too, but the overall tenor and mood of that era was more unified than now. That's why they couldn't keep a monopoly on power, and that's how society changed.

It would be one thing if these disputes of today were solely between heterosexual, white, Christian males vs. a unified front of all other oppressed groups, but it's not really like that these days. Identity politics prevents that. Now, we see disputes between blacks and Hispanics, blacks and Asians, TERFs and transgender people, and so on. Every identity group is vying for its own place in the hierarchy and finding themselves in competition with other traditionally oppressed identity groups, not just white males.

 

[wellwisher]

Back in the 1960-70's tribalism was disappearing due to the young people and the love generation. The tribal dividing line was shifted to the generation gap at the age of 30. Anyone younger or older than 30, independent of sex, race, religion, was on the same team. It was a new dividing line that broke down the older classic tribal barriers. Since this new line was very fresh, there were no long standing grievances for that line, and people could still communicate across the line. The love generation was grounded on Jesus and Christianity and the age 30 may have been connected to when Jesus started his ministry. Christianity like many religions has members from all other classic tribes.

This started to change as those originally under 30 started to become 30 and older. This change was reinforced by the political left in both education and indoctrination. For example, in education rather than teach a common language, English, which break down barriers to success, Liberal education and the teacher unions decided to teach everyone in their native tongue,, thereby reinforcing immigrant tribal barriers. This was sold as compassion. It also added more teaches for the teacher union dues and campaign kickbacks. Don't all the new tribes have an official day of the year or month?

Politically there was a divide and conquer strategy of creating victims to justify the invasion of other tribes; entitlements. It began as the women being told they were victims leading to the government sanctioned invasion of mens clubs. DEI is about the diversity of tribes, equity for their victim grievances and I is for invasion to create a tribal backlash, like with Bud Light.

The gender nonsense is about naming more sub tribes based on pronouns with the backlash of counter tribalism, that one would expect. You guys need to look in the mirror for reinforcing tribalism by confusing the meaning of human rights with tribal equity that benefits only Lefty tribes and creates counter grievances for more tribes. We need to drain the swamp that benefits by this.

My guess is this is all connected to deficit spending, borrowing and debt and the rip off of the American future. Past grievances like slavery is being blamed on the present to divide and rip off. It is easy to fix by stopping borrowing and having to live within our means. This will make it harder to support so many tribes for the middle man skim.

 

[Pete in Panama]

It's true that we can resist our natures, we do it all the time, or we wouldn't be able to live together in the large, diverse groups we do. But this conditioning is a shallow veneer, and is easily breached in times of fear or insecurity -- as humanity's endless history of war and strife illustrates.

There are more people at peace now than ever before. Humanity is bringing forth an ever advancing civilization. Sure you could say we were better off in 1800 than we are now, but if you wanted to demonstrate it you'd have to die at birth like so many others.

 

[Heyo]

There are more people at peace now than ever before. Humanity is bringing forth an ever advancing civilization. Sure you could say we were better off in 1800 than we are now, but if you wanted to demonstrate it you'd have to die at birth like so many others.

I think we all agree that we are now better off than in 1800, but are we still better of than the '60s-'70s? The '80s-'90s, the '00-'10s.
There is a long term positive trend of civilisation advancing but there is also a short term trend of decline.

 

[Estro Felino]

Because:
1) people believe they are immortals and fear death
2) as a consequence they take life too seriously because they have no awareness of its finitude.
3) as a consequence they need certainties to have the impression of eternal life, a fictitious one, since immortality doesn't exist.
4) certainties come from dogmas. And dogmas are what brings the members of a tribe together, hence tribalism, or echo chamber.

As Heidegger used to say: our existence should be always accompanied by the awareness of death, that we are not eternal.

 

[Pete in Panama]

I think we all agree that we are now better off than in 1800, but are we still better of than the '60s-'70s? The '80s-'90s, the '00-'10s.
There is a long term positive trend of civilisation advancing but there is also a short term trend of decline.

Let's look at this together. First, we can agree that 1800 was far better than 800 which was far better than 8000BC Next, let's look at the 60's, 70's & 80's.

In 1960 we had wide spread segregation in the south where blacks simply were not allowed to vote. That decade brought about the Civil Rights Act and ended segregation. The 70's ended our 15-year Vietnam war along with the draft. The 80's ended the Berlin wall which led soon after in the early '90's ending both the entire Soviet Union and the cold war with its many missile crises. Remember that this in turn resulted in an enormous "peace dividend" w/ the U.S. defense budget going from 2/3 the annual budget down to our current 12% w/ Human Services taking up the slack.

So yes, we have to accept the fact that we're better off w/ the 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's.

 

[Pete in Panama]

Because:
1) people believe they are immortals and fear death
2) as a consequence they take life too seriously because they have no awareness of its finitude.
3) as a consequence they need certainties to have the impression of eternal life, a fictitious one, since immortality doesn't exist.
4) certainties come from dogmas. And dogmas are what brings the members of a tribe together, hence tribalism, or echo chamber.

As Heidegger used to say: our existence should be always accompanied by the awareness of death, that we are not eternal.

Not sure where you're getting your data but this is wildly different from my take.

What I see is that most of the time most folks have better things to do than obsess w/ their mortality/immortality. The reason for this is common sense and what we can see w/ our own eyes. We can know that our lives in this universe must have a beginning and an end and that this is good. We can also see while in this universe that our life/experiences go beyond time and space: we can not only see the parallel realities of whether we get out of bed in the morning --or not, and we can also imagine a universal end trillions of years in the future as well as see before the big bang way back when there wasn't any time for it to happen in.

So what I'm saying is the fact that our existence here has to be limited, yet our participation beyond this reality has already begun.

 

[Estro Felino]

Not sure where you're getting your data but this is wildly different from my take.

What I see is that most of the time most folks have better things to do than obsess w/ their mortality/immortality. The reason for this is common sense and what we can see w/ our own eyes. We can know that our lives in this universe must have a beginning and an end and that this is good. We can also see while in this universe that our life/experiences go beyond time and space: we can not only see the parallel realities of whether we get out of bed in the morning --or not, and we can also imagine a universal end trillions of years in the future as well as see before the big bang way back when there wasn't any time for it to happen in.

So what I'm saying is the fact that our existence here has to be limited, yet our participation beyond this reality has already begun.

I don't think so.
I think that too many people consider themselves special and unique, even if their lives are incredibly banal.
And they are not aware that their political ideas derive from others' mind: they simply follow the crowd.
There's also an obsession with popularity. It's a continuous, annoying popularity contest.

 

[Pete in Panama]

I don't think so.
I think that too many people consider themselves special and unique, even if their lives are incredibly banal.
And they are not aware that their political ideas derive from others' mind: they simply follow the crowd.
There's also an obsession with popularity. It's a continuous, annoying popularity contest.

ok, you're seeing one thing and I'm seeing something else.

There very well may be hard numbers on what people think but what I'd only be interested in is the big picture. There are 8B+ people in the world, that's a lot and it's in a lot of cultures. If it would make any difference I could look into this but only if you'd care.

 

[Estro Felino]

ok, you're seeing one thing and I'm seeing something else.

There very well may be hard numbers on what people think but what I'd only be interested in is the big picture. There are 8B+ people in the world, that's a lot and it's in a lot of cultures. If it would make any difference I could look into this but only if you'd care.

That's the point. It's an overpopulated world. Because people live in the constant delusion that mankind is improved through quantity and not quality. There is an obsession with matter. And not with spirit.
Tribalism is a direct consequence of the necessity to seize matter. Because materialism implies struggle.

 

[Heyo]

Let's look at this together. First, we can agree that 1800 was far better than 800 which was far better than 8000BC Next, let's look at the 60's, 70's & 80's.

In 1960 we had wide spread segregation in the south where blacks simply were not allowed to vote. That decade brought about the Civil Rights Act and ended segregation. The 70's ended our 15-year Vietnam war along with the draft. The 80's ended the Berlin wall which led soon after in the early '90's ending both the entire Soviet Union and the cold war with its many missile crises.

Yes but the '80s also had Reagan with whom the neo-con backlash started. The '00s had Bush junior and an unprecedented political lie (for which the US voters punished him with a second term). '16-'20 was a mess and your judiciary system is still busy cleaning up the ****.
And Europe isn't faring better. We got Brexit, Orban in Hungary, the PiS in Poland (which has been solved recently) and neo-fashos or fashoids in the Netherlands, Germany, Austria and Italy who have made it into the parliaments.
The pendulum is swinging back.

Remember that this in turn resulted in an enormous "peace dividend" w/ the U.S. defense budget going from 2/3 the annual budget down to our current 12% w/ Human Services taking up the slack.

... and tax breaks for the super rich. Income and wealth disparity are on a decades long high and rising.

So yes, we have to accept the fact that we're better off w/ the 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's.

 

[The Sum of Awe]

For me, one of the biggest challenges today is how everybody lives in their own little prison cell, echo chamber, whatever... incels vs feminists, men vs women, white vs non-white, etc.

I loathe this kind of groupthink.

But of course, I understand that there are actual grievances, actual double-standards and power imbalances, which need to be addressed.

Then again, on the other hand, I don't believe that these will ever go away completely, and what's more, I don't believe that this tribalistic mindset, in which my group is always the victim and society, "the system", "everybody else" has it in for us, is very helpful.

If the issue is based on putting one's own group above all others, then I don't see another, diametrically opposed group-based approach overcoming the problem.

IOW, I think that group identities are a necessary evil, a construct that we pragmatically need for political achievement, but that can also be a huge mental trap and ultimately don't achieve their goal.

How can we get past this? (Or am I simply wrong in my assessment?)

(The simple answer that comes to mind, is, of course, empathy and compassion, plus rationality. Sure, but that seems a bit shallow and too abstract, and it begs the question of how we can further those in today's world.)

I think tribalism might just be human nature. We seek out those who are similar to us and bond with them, and often times it might lead us to be hateful or uncaring of groups we don't relate to. It's unrealistic to expect 8 billion people to fit into one category and get along, which is why globalism always eventually fails.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

How many here are not seeing China as the enemy no 1.
Yet only a few years ago everyone saw them as the future of major manufacturing for the west.

Today they have overtaken the west in most endeavours and in their living standards, and have probably the most advanced infrastructure in the world.
And seen as the major threat to American hegemony. So are now the enemy not a partner.

We are being brainwashed by our own governments, and falling for their propaganda.hook line and sinker.

 

[vijeno]

I think tribalism might just be human nature.

I've seen that point a few times on this thread... well, maybe this is true, maybe not. But even if it's true, then the counter-point is: Even if it is natural, we have to deal with it. After all, natural does not equal good. Eg. we might have a natural urge to grope random women, but (I seriously hope) we never do it, for very good reasons. Whatever the case, we somehow have to cooperate, and currently I see a strong tendency to shut oneself off, retreat into an echo chamber, and curse the "enemy". And that is no bueno, at all!

 

[Valjean]

I think tribalism might just be human nature. We seek out those who are similar to us and bond with them, and often times it might lead us to be hateful or uncaring of groups we don't relate to. It's unrealistic to expect 8 billion people to fit into one category and get along, which is why globalism always eventually fails.

Good point. Humans have an intense desire to form tribes, even if non-tribe members are essentially indistinguishable from the in-groups. Take sports fandom, for example. There's no doctrinal or lifestyle difference between rival sports clubs; no economic competition or territorial disputes. People just crave in-group solidarity and out-group rivalry, regardless of utility. It goes back to our hunter-gatherer days. You can see the same thing in chimps.

 

[Pete in Panama]

PThat's the point. It's an overpopulated world...

Please forgive me for stopping you right there.

The world right now is not overpopulated. We are not running out of food. Food prices are cheaper now than they were in the past and people are eating better now than we ate in the past. This overpopulation nonsense was all the rage a few decades ago in the U.S. and then the U.S. population stopped growing. Right now the only reason there are more Americans is immigration.

The world is getting richer & rich people have a lower birthrate --demographic realities.

 

[Pete in Panama]

Yes but the '80s also had Reagan with whom the neo-con backlash started. The '00s had Bush junior and an unprecedented political lie (for which the US voters punished him with a second term). '16-'20 was a mess and your judiciary system is still busy cleaning up the ****.
And Europe isn't faring better. We got Brexit, Orban in Hungary, the PiS in Poland (which has been solved recently) and neo-fashos or fashoids in the Netherlands, Germany, Austria and Italy who have made it into the parliaments.
The pendulum is swinging back.

... and tax breaks for the super rich. Income and wealth disparity are on a decades long high and rising.

you & I have to wildly different approaches to this question. My take is to establish common ground and make a measured analysis of what we can both observe together. What I'm hearing from you here are political slogans --my expectation is that you'll get into the infamous rule by corporations next.

That isn't a problem tho as I see a lot of very good people sounding that way. My only hope is that you & I can remain friends in spite of my failure to join your political faction.

 

[Valjean]

Please forgive me for stopping you right there.

The world right now is not overpopulated. We are not running out of food. Food prices are cheaper now than they were in the past and people are eating better now than we ate in the past. This overpopulation nonsense was all the rage a few decades ago in the U.S. and then the U.S. population stopped growing. Right now the only reason there are more Americans is immigration.

The world is getting richer & rich people have a lower birthrate --demographic realities.

If we're using resources faster than they're being replaced, that smacks of overpopulation.
If average topsoil depths are decreasing -- maybe we're overpopulated.
If average aquifer depths are increasing -- Maybe we're overpopulated.
If extinction rates are skyrocketing, biodiversity decreasing, habitat decreasing, and wildlife numbers decreasing -- think overpopulation.
If half the world's human population can't sustain themselves comfortably with the resources from their own region -- the region's overpopulated.
If the planet's human population can't live comfortably without catastrophically altering the planet's climate, we're overpopulated.