“Tribalism: The state or fact of being organised in a tribe or tribes.”
There is nothing wrong with that, per se.
Take care of your own. Prioritise and focus on the needs of those within your circle.
I have no problem with that. In-fact, I am all for decentralisation of power and decision making.
I believe communities, or tribes if you like, should be able to take control of themselves, rather than be dictated to by dark suits in far away cities, or increasingly, far away lands.
However, in recent years, tribalism has become weaponised, and used against us, by those that seek to rule over us all.
That tribal DNA that shows itself in sports stadiums across the world on a Saturday afternoon, where fans will celebrate a poor penalty decision when it goes in their teams favour, and bemoan a good penalty decision when it goes against them, has spilled out of the arena, and into the political discourse.
We’ve got to the point where a growing number of the public build their views on someone’s words or actions, based on who that someone is.
If the words are spoken by a member of another tribe, whether it be political, religious, or ideological, then those words are by definition wrong, and are to be either attacked, or dismissed out of hand.
The same goes for the actions of those on the other side. No matter what those actions may be, they are wrong.
But on the other hand, any word that comes out the mouths of your tribal leaders is to be taken as gospel. Their actions are celebrated or defended out of hand, no matter how contradictory that may be.
Because it is no longer about what we can find to align ourselves on. What little rays of light that shine on both sides of the divide, and illuminate all of us and highlight our commonality.
No, it’s about what we can find to disagree on. What we can find to have the other side cancelled, despite previously being against cancel culture.
The chess masters have turned the pawns against one another and a growing flock, have taken the bait.
Greta Thunberg being taken off of an aid ship by the Israeli military, despite being in international waters, is a good thing, because I don’t like Greta Thunberg.
Her highlighting and speaking out against the ongoing genocide of Palestinians, the murder of tens of thousands of children, and the starvation of over a million kids, is a BAD THING, because I don’t like her and her “How dare you” climate change nonsense.
But Donald Trump’s AI expansion, deployment of troops and Palantir surveillance state database of Americans is a good thing, because I like Donald Trump. He’s my tribal elder.
Plus, he’s only using that tech to crack down and target illegal immigrants. and I don’t like illegal immigration, so therefore I now support the very surveillance big brother state, that I would have once opposed, before my tribe introduced it.
Tribalism on the face of it, is fine, but it has now got to the point where it’s overtaking ego as the roadblock to unity and freedom for all peoples.
Ego on the face of it is also fine. Nowt wrong with a bit of self belief. Back yourself, right?
But unchecked, ego almost always comes before a fall. Because ego gets in the way of progress. It tears apart movements as people crave the attention and credit, often to the detriment of the cause.
Ego turns “Is this right for us?” into “Is this right for me?” and once that’s the over-riding focus of your actions and attention, glorious failure is never far behind.
Tribalism is just one step up the ladder from that. Instead of “Is this right for all of us?” it becomes “Is this right for all of us on my team?”, and then when coupled with ego, comes the inability for self reflection.
Doubling, trebling, quadrupling down, rather than admitting you’ve been played.
If all we care about is our team winning, even though they rarely are actually winning when they think they are, but lets for the sake of argument pretend that the team is actually winning, then what happens to the rest of those that must be by definition, losing?
Does the steak taste better when you know the other side have gone hungry?
Or would it not be better to step away from the tribalism, and ego, that we’ve been manipulated into, and instead focus our attention on what we can do to make things better for everyone, irrespective of their tribe?
Read more: The Weaponisation Of Tribalism
