Modern Tribalism

"My tribe is better than your tribe." Unfortunately, such infantile statement lies at the foundation of the current state of affairs in the US. People are convinced that their particular tribe is the best, that it is the only one that matters, and the good of their tribe is their foremost objective.

The tribe they feel so strongly about can be almost anything nowadays: a particular religious group, shared national origin, a street gang, political party affiliation, sports team; anything, really.

In particular, the two major parties function as the modern day tribes. Party affiliation replaces common sense, judgment and plain observation. "I am a Republican, you are a Democrat, so, obviously, you don't know what you are doing." "I am a Democrat, you are a Republican, so you are a thief!" The politicians make their decisions based on the potential benefit for their particular party, rather than for the country as a whole. Sadly, the voting public increasingly display the same sentiment. So often they vote for wrong reasons: "yeah, that guy is a felon convicted for public funds embezzlement, but he is in my party, so I'll vote for him." (If they bother to check who they vote for at all, as most often they just do "straight party ticket").

As with other things, the modern tribalism has its positive and negative aspects. A positive aspects would include competition and balance. These are important forces in our society. The proponents of the divided government principle will list (and rightly so) a number of very positive consequences of the situation when the president and at least one part of the Congress are from opposite parties. Regrettably, the changes in people's mindset render that positive aspect less and less relevant. What we see is the insurgence of "the worse the better" mentality. I have heard people saying (in a radio interview): "I'll vote for the worst possible democratic presidential candidate. She will do such awful job, she will bring the country so low that the people will finally realize they should vote republican." Never mind the harm it will do to the country. Never mind fellow citizens. Never mind that the depressed economy, lack of security or lax law enforcement will negatively impact the speaker himself. As long as "they" get blamed, it is good for "us".

And that is the problem.

It may bring a short term benefit to the chiefs of the tribe (i.e., top politicians and their sponsors), but it definitely brings a lot of harm to everyone else in a slightly longer term.

The desire to belong to a tribe is one of the fundamental needs of men, the social animal. Thus, calling for abandoning the tribalism does not make sense. People will simply not discard their affiliations, nor should they. However, we need to work towards changing the "the worse the better" mentality. We should bring back the competition and balance.

Or soon enough there will be only "worse", and no "better".