Tribes Against Humanity

So much of our woldview is determined by the tribe of which we are a part. Disagreeing with your tribe is difficult and painful. So if on the Left they decide that we can’t sing about “standing up” against injustice because it’s ableist—not everyone can literally stand up—and I think that’s stupid, it creates a disconnect. Same with my martial arts friends on the Right—I like you, I like working with you, but your ideas are bonkers. It’s hard to feel community in those circumstances.

(Third in a series that starts here.)

But if the tribe I choose influences my worldview, it’s still the tribe I chose. So a critical element of all this is, how did I choose? Why is the society of nerds congenial but the society of sports fans or frat boys less so? What are the attractive elements of the tribe and what are the dealbreakers that will prevent my joining?

Take the Right. There’s a lot in the espoused values of the Right which I find attractive. Personal responsibility, the worth of the individual, not looking for a handout but making it on your own—all these fit me well. 

But there are dealbreakers for me on the Right as well. The absolute inability to appreciate the experience of those less fortunate or marginalized. Taking individualism to such an extreme that it justifies letting people die in the streets rather than help them. (Which this is not exaggeration. This is the actual, literal consequence of policies pushed by the Right these days.) The authoritarianism. The lack of empathy and imagination. Carrying water for plutocrats.

That list got a bit out of hand. And what I keep coming back to is, I can make all the rationalizations I like but the fundamental issue is one of the heart. I don’t like the worldview of the right. I grew up reading Heinlein and found a lot to like in the libertarian perspective. But I never bought it. I never adopted it as my worldview. On the other hand, I read The Dispossessed and accepted Le Guin’s perspective immediately. One of the characters prepares a list of who will get food and who will not in an expected famine, based on their usefulness to the group. The protagonist comments, “There is always somebody willing to make lists.” Yeah, and don’t be that guy. My recognition was immediate and visceral.

A person is known by the company they keep, because that shows where their soul is. Not the heart, which is a fickle organ. The soul is much more foundational.

And yet the match is never exact, in the first place, and in the second: tribes drift. Often, their self-reinforcing nature makes them become more extreme. What starts as a harmless exaggeration becomes lunacy—a disconnect with the facts of the world as they are.

To choose this political moment as an example, there’s always been some tendency towards conspiracy theories on the Right. On the Left, too—but at one time the conspiracy theorists on Left and Right were equally kept on the margins. The John Birchers and Area 21 people were a fringe element with no access to or control over policy. They were pandered to sometimes, by more mainstream politicians—but forgotten as soon as their votes were in the bag.

What changed is that Republicans decided they could not do without these people to win elections. First was the opening created by the Democrats embracing civil rights—the Southern Strategy was an explicit decision to appeal to racists on racist grounds. Then came Reagan, giving a still-civilized voice to the same people. Reagan invented the welfare queen not just to make the case against welfare—he used her to make the case for Americans to turn against Americans, for those with little to be suspicious of those with less. And more than that, she made the case that government itself is the enemy, giving your hard-earned money to those who never worked a day in their lives.

And if government is the enemy, what else will it not do? Gingrich brought a whole new class of Republicans into power, who did not have the restraints of the previous generation. They led their tribe to a new place. Vince Foster didn’t just commit suicide, he was murdered; and he wasn’t the first or last; there are dozens of murders to the Clintons’ account. But the government is the enemy, so it’s perfectly logical that the FBI is in the Clintons’ pocket which just explains why they got away with it. So when Trump is accused of collaborating with the Russians, who are you going to believe? The FBI, who are already compromised? Or the people in your tribe who will explain to you how it all works?

Having bought into the worldview of this tribe and having followed it through its evolution from the 80’s to today, this all makes sense. Everything in the bubble is justified and proved by everything else in the bubble and there is no external reality to set perspective—because anything outside the bubble is lies anyway.

Choosing a tribe (or several) is almost inevitable and my initial choice has to do with my innate characteristics. In what tribe available to me is my soul most at home? That is where I will gravitate. The tribe becomes my community and its discourse sets the parameters for how I see the world. And the more committed to my tribe I am, the more that is so. Though I chose the tribe, the tribe then becomes my guide, my framework, and the lenses by which I see the world. But even if the tribe was healthy at the beginning, there is no law of the universe that says it will remain healthy. And if it develops a sickness, it is likely to take me with it.

My task as a human then is to live in my tribe, and yet not be bound by it. To be a member of my community and yet still be myself.

(To be continued.)