"Your view on tribalism as described here is fine, but the tone of the article is not "tribalism is an unfortunate reality", it's "tribalism is normal and healt

"Your view on tribalism as described here is fine, but the tone of the article is not "tribalism is an unfortunate reality", it's "tribalism is normal and healthy"." It's the same thing. Compare again to greed or selfishness. An excess of selfishness, avarice, is pathological. But having zero regard for self-interest, being altruistic to the extent of self-denial, is also bad. A modest amount of selfishness is natural and healthy. Traits are healthy when then form a productive, evolutionary stable strategy. If I am ultra-altruistic, that is not stable because those who are more selfish will win out and become dominant. If people are predatory, that is bad because it leads to everyone bringing each other down. If people are modestly selfish, while engaging in reciprocal altruism, and a tit-for-tat (or maybe tit-for-two-tats) strategy against defectors, that is a healthy, productive, and stable strategy. The same goes with tribalism. Tribalism can generally be defined as forming a tight bond with a group in order to perform coordinated action. If you avoid any form of tribalism as a strategy, then a group that acts tribally will dominate you. Avoiding tribalism is not an ESS. If you are tribal and predate on other tribes, that is also bad, it makes everyone worse off. The healthy strategy is for a tribe to look after its own interest, engage in reciprocal altruism with other tribes, and a tit-for-tat (or maybe tit-for-two-tats) strategy against other tribes that break the peace.