Brad R. Togersen has an interesting post about tribalism that is well worth reading–at least until he then turns to how this applies to the Hugo Awards and the Sad Puppies slate (you can probably stop reading at the “Us/Them” cartoon). Most people probably don’t know and don’t care about nerd in-fighting. But the initial discussion of tribalism is spot on. Most of us are beyond sexism, racism, and all those other -isms, but tribalism remains. And like it or not, it’s not going away. (This is not to say that racism, sexism, etc., do not exist, but I do think certain people see racism when what they’re really looking at is tribalism.)
We all have our tribal markers. There is a reason why I tend to dress a step or two above the accepted dress code at work, even if it’s not a conscious decision. I likely have hundreds of “tells” that help those of similar (and hostile) tribes tell where I belong. That we can read these tells wrong is true, but doing so does not necessarily make you racist or sexist, etc. It just means you read the tells wrong and were surprised to find someone not to be of the tribe you thought.
This is not to say that tribalism is right or good, mind you. Just that it happens. Much of it is neither good nor bad. Certainly much of it is less bad than the other -isms. Racism, for example, tends to judge a person as part of a single tribe based on a single attribute. Tribalism usually acknowledges that a person can belong to multiple tribes, and you need to pick out several markers before deciding if they belong or not. The usual -isms tend to assume that “otherness” is negative. Tribalism allows for “otherness” to be neutral. They’re not of my trible, but they’re of a tribe of which I have nothing against.
Indeed, we usually spend our days moving from tribe to tribe. I have my tribe at work. We see things there in similar ways, though the majority of them do not share my personal interests. I have my online tribe–and boy are they a disparate group! I consider myself part of the Sci-fi/Fantasy tribe, but more of the sub-tribe that takes it seriously, but not to the point of convention-going and cos-play. My musical tastes put me into yet another tribe–an extremely small one, really.
Inclusion in my tribe doesn’t automatically make you a friend, mind you. Nor does exclusion make you an enemy. It just changes the way in which I interact with you. I don’t think less of you or fear you, but I will slip into my standard “getting to know you” routine in which I start trying out different tribal signs to see where you belong. And you’re doing the same to me. Few (and generally small) are the tribes to which we belong where we automatically accept and like each other based on tribal signs alone. You like Babylon 5? That’s great! Prepare for a fun conversation. But even then I’ll be watching for other signs to tell me if I can be truly open with you, even about a supposedly common interest.
I suppose, then, in a tribalistic world the main mark of enlightened, open thinking is how easily we accept people into our tribes, or perhaps how much benefit of the doubt we are willing to give those of other, potentially hostile tribes. Like it or not, the world still holds dangers, even in America. Some people want to give off tribal cues that put them in potentially dangerous tribes, and they should not be surprised or disappointed if people read those cues and respond in a defensive manner. But when encountering someone who appears to be of a different, but not dangerous, tribe we don’t have to put up our guard or respond negatively.
What I often see online is people who feel they need to be the guardians of other tribes to which they may not necessarily belong, but feel are badly treated. This can be a noble instinct, certainly, but the danger is in endowing those “protected tribes” with too much virtue and their detractors with too much vice. Just because someone disagrees with that tribe does not automatically put them in the “anti” tribe. Just because someone belongs to that tribe does not make them a paragon of good judgment and behavior. Most of us are somewhere in the middle; not entirely defensible or condemnable. Be careful in over-generalizing individuals, regardless of the tribes to which they appear to belong. There are a lot of tribes, and often they can look almost indistinguishable from other less savory tribes, when in reality they may actually be much closer to your own tribes than is readily apparent.
Anyway, seeing the world in black and white is always a danger. Tribalism presents us countless shade of gray, which in itself can present just as many pitfalls.
Let’s be careful out there.