Tribalism

I had a conversation with my son about tribal behavior while watching the Ryder Cup golf tournament. We observed the players were more emotional when playing on a team instead of playing solo golf. The golfers are saying with their demonstrations of emotions and enthusiasm they are fighting for the tribe, and they expect a reward. When you hear someone tell you they are doing this for you or your tribe they expect to get paid for what they are doing.

I believe this tribal behavior is part of our historical gene pool. We always wanted to belong to a strong tribe that we could rely on for our survival and the ability to find a mate and sow our genes.

No matter how great we are as an individual we still need a place to belong and get respect and protection. That place is a tribe that we can rely on. Therefore we build up expectations of the tribe we belong in that no other tribe will conquer my tribe, so I feel safe.

We take pride in our tribe. False pride is a deadly sin. We think when our tribal representative wins a golf match against another tribe we falsely believe our whole tribe, including ourselves, are better than the people in the other tribe, even though we did not play in the event.  When our high school team wins we feel false pride that we are better than the members of the tribe that lost, even though we did not play in the game!

Frederick Douglas, a slave in the South, in his "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas" wrote about how slaves would argue over who had the best master. The slaves wanted to think they were in a better tribe. Today the republicans and democrat party faithful argue over which of them has the best master, but masters they have, telling them what they can, must, and cannot do.

Our delusional devotion to our tribe shows in the ever day military ceremonies at civilian and private events. Waving the flag and singing the
National Anthem is a way of saying our tribe is greater than any other tribe, no matter how many people we murder by drone operators sitting thousands of kilometers from the site of the murder, and we call these women drone operators brave, just because they are wearing a uniform that represents our tribe.

No matter what horrors a tribe commits, the tribe always thinks it is right.- "What a thing it is to have a country that can't be wrong, but if
it is, is right, anyway!" William Dean Howells

When one fails they always look for a sanctuary in their  tribe. People invest a lot in the tribe. They always hope to get more from the tribe
than they invest.

Are humans good or evil?   They will be good if it is to their advantage and evil if that is to their advantage.   They will be good to their own tribe because there are rewards.   They will be evil to another tribe because that is to their advantage as they can capture the enemy tribe's women and food and help insure their own genes are reproduced.   If the world was all one race, religion, nation and tribe, evil would be reduced, but not eliminated.   Evil will be eliminated only by artificial intelligence, bio engineering, and time.

Charles Tolleson