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A lot of comments saying "money and laws and religion are made up, too!" This is absolutely correct but avoids dealing with the spirit of the claim. The reason

by ixtli 9y ago

A lot of comments saying "money and laws and religion are made up, too!" This is absolutely correct but avoids dealing with the spirit of the claim. The reason this is worth saying is because so many people believe that tribalism and its artifacts are essential parts of being human. But it's worth discussion because it's no more "natural" than anything other mythology we create to make a consistent narrative of our history to justify our actions. Having grown up in America this is a practical matter because many people are convinced that America is right implicitly because it's America.

mcguire 9y ago
"...people believe that tribalism and its artifacts are essential parts of being human..." Out of curiosity, can anyone find any examples of groups of humans which do not experience tribalism and its artifacts?
- allemagne 9y ago
  Humans have always been social and have probably always had some kind of "us" and "them." That's probably what most people mean by tribalism. That's always been there. But wouldn't rewinding the clock to the very beginnings of our species get rid of basically everything that could divide people into groups based on social constructs? I think that's what the parent comment was getting at by "artifacts of tribalism". In that sense it's trivial to consider an ancestor who has never thought of any number of things that split us today. How many potential ways of defining our "tribe" are we ignoring today that were crucial to our ancestors or will be crucial to our descendants? How do you really define experiencing an artifact of tribalism anyway? Once you've invented or have taught the concept of "being French", does it count as experiencing it? Even if you don't believe that concept has merit, or if you're only distantly affected by historical events surrounding France?
  - ixtli 9y ago
    Yes you are correct about what I meant by artifacts: stuff that flows from tribalism. Your question about what we're ignoring is super interesting and while I don't have great answers this reminds me of a super interesting concept discussed in "The Story of B" called The Great Forgetting ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_B#The_Great_Forgetting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_B#The_Great_Forge... ) TL;DR: The majority of time humans have existed we've actually been a loose federation of hunter gatherers. When we banded together into towns and cities we very quickly lost tens of thousands of years of learning because the nature of our lives changed and we hadn't previously been writing anything down. Another thing that occurs to me is that complete mutual aid (which required abandonment of tribalism) may very well be "unnatural"! However, if the goal is total equity in society, this isn't an excuse: we're capable of complex problem solving and as a result we're likely capable of "overcoming" our baser instincts, if tribalism can be counted among them. A quotation from The Dispossessed comes to mind, when UKLG is describing the world of an anarcho-communist faction that had, instead of being subjugated, gone to a barren planet and eked out a life there for centuries despite its very harsh climate: "They cut back very hard indeed, but to a minimum beneath which they would not go; they would not regress to pre-urban, pre-technological tribalism. They knew that their anarchism was the product of a very high civilization, of a complex diversified culture, of a stable economy and a highly industrialized technology that could maintain high production and rapid transportation of goods. However vast the distances separating settlements, they held to the ideal of complex organicism. They built the roads first, the houses second. The special resources and products of each region were interchanged continually with those of others, in an intricate process of balance: that balance of diversity which is the characteristic of life, of natural and social ecology." (pp. 95-96)
EggsOnToast 9y ago
I agree with your overarching point but I think the acknowledgement that it's all made up is more of an argument in favor of tribalism than against it. What's good for America isn't necessarily good for the rest of the world. And yet, if America as a gestalt entity always persues the maximum benefit for its people in particular then the only reason this might be "bad" with scary quotes is because other countries aren't doing the same for their citizens for some reason.
- allemagne 9y ago
  Why not put the world under a United States of the World to maximize the number of people benefiting from tribalism then? Or else why keep California in the union if what's good for California isn't necessarily good for the rest of America?
  - EggsOnToast 9y ago
    I'm a little late to reply but the blunt answer is "because it wouldn't be worth it." To clarify, the point I was making wasn't that tribalism is actually desirable, simply that if it's ethically agnostic then entrenched and powerul tribes benefit more from its perpetuation typically. For the thought experiment, creating a United States of the World would require either literally taking over the world or some amount of agentic sacrifice from every nation absorbed into the uber tribe. The case for California is similarly unrealistic but for different reasons, you can choose to occasionally give a member of a tribe lopsided benefits and deny them at other times. This is especially true when the alternative is compromising the perceived security of people who are already members of the tribe. Put more succinctly, the California idea is bad because it would lead to infighting and can be handled in a non-binary fashion.
- ixtli 9y ago
  Perhaps I don't understand what you mean but it occurs to me that what's best for America can often be achieved easily by exploiting other countries (their resources, their labor, etc.) so the two nations outcomes aren't aligned.
mannykannot 9y ago
Indeed, though it also seems that within the 'my country first and screw the rest' groups there are quite a few who believe that a large percentage of their fellow nationals are hell-bent on destroying it.
- ixtli 9y ago
  This is a really interesting contradiction that I come across a lot. There's a narrative that the majority weaves for itself that it's under attack despite having a near total monopoly on power.

by ixtli 9y ago

mcguire 9y ago

"...people believe that tribalism and its artifacts are essential parts of being human..." Out of curiosity, can anyone find any examples of groups of humans which do not experience tribalism and its artifacts?

allemagne 9y ago
Humans have always been social and have probably always had some kind of "us" and "them." That's probably what most people mean by tribalism. That's always been there. But wouldn't rewinding the clock to the very beginnings of our species get rid of basically everything that could divide people into groups based on social constructs? I think that's what the parent comment was getting at by "artifacts of tribalism". In that sense it's trivial to consider an ancestor who has never thought of any number of things that split us today. How many potential ways of defining our "tribe" are we ignoring today that were crucial to our ancestors or will be crucial to our descendants? How do you really define experiencing an artifact of tribalism anyway? Once you've invented or have taught the concept of "being French", does it count as experiencing it? Even if you don't believe that concept has merit, or if you're only distantly affected by historical events surrounding France?
- ixtli 9y ago
  Yes you are correct about what I meant by artifacts: stuff that flows from tribalism. Your question about what we're ignoring is super interesting and while I don't have great answers this reminds me of a super interesting concept discussed in "The Story of B" called The Great Forgetting ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_B#The_Great_Forgetting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_B#The_Great_Forge... ) TL;DR: The majority of time humans have existed we've actually been a loose federation of hunter gatherers. When we banded together into towns and cities we very quickly lost tens of thousands of years of learning because the nature of our lives changed and we hadn't previously been writing anything down. Another thing that occurs to me is that complete mutual aid (which required abandonment of tribalism) may very well be "unnatural"! However, if the goal is total equity in society, this isn't an excuse: we're capable of complex problem solving and as a result we're likely capable of "overcoming" our baser instincts, if tribalism can be counted among them. A quotation from The Dispossessed comes to mind, when UKLG is describing the world of an anarcho-communist faction that had, instead of being subjugated, gone to a barren planet and eked out a life there for centuries despite its very harsh climate: "They cut back very hard indeed, but to a minimum beneath which they would not go; they would not regress to pre-urban, pre-technological tribalism. They knew that their anarchism was the product of a very high civilization, of a complex diversified culture, of a stable economy and a highly industrialized technology that could maintain high production and rapid transportation of goods. However vast the distances separating settlements, they held to the ideal of complex organicism. They built the roads first, the houses second. The special resources and products of each region were interchanged continually with those of others, in an intricate process of balance: that balance of diversity which is the characteristic of life, of natural and social ecology." (pp. 95-96)

EggsOnToast 9y ago

I agree with your overarching point but I think the acknowledgement that it's all made up is more of an argument in favor of tribalism than against it. What's good for America isn't necessarily good for the rest of the world. And yet, if America as a gestalt entity always persues the maximum benefit for its people in particular then the only reason this might be "bad" with scary quotes is because other countries aren't doing the same for their citizens for some reason.

allemagne 9y ago
Why not put the world under a United States of the World to maximize the number of people benefiting from tribalism then? Or else why keep California in the union if what's good for California isn't necessarily good for the rest of America?
- EggsOnToast 9y ago
  I'm a little late to reply but the blunt answer is "because it wouldn't be worth it." To clarify, the point I was making wasn't that tribalism is actually desirable, simply that if it's ethically agnostic then entrenched and powerul tribes benefit more from its perpetuation typically. For the thought experiment, creating a United States of the World would require either literally taking over the world or some amount of agentic sacrifice from every nation absorbed into the uber tribe. The case for California is similarly unrealistic but for different reasons, you can choose to occasionally give a member of a tribe lopsided benefits and deny them at other times. This is especially true when the alternative is compromising the perceived security of people who are already members of the tribe. Put more succinctly, the California idea is bad because it would lead to infighting and can be handled in a non-binary fashion.
ixtli 9y ago
Perhaps I don't understand what you mean but it occurs to me that what's best for America can often be achieved easily by exploiting other countries (their resources, their labor, etc.) so the two nations outcomes aren't aligned.

mannykannot 9y ago

Indeed, though it also seems that within the 'my country first and screw the rest' groups there are quite a few who believe that a large percentage of their fellow nationals are hell-bent on destroying it.

ixtli 9y ago
This is a really interesting contradiction that I come across a lot. There's a narrative that the majority weaves for itself that it's under attack despite having a near total monopoly on power.