Watching the emotionally charged, blue and red state map unfold during the U.S. Presidential elections, it hits me how tribal people still are.
Ever since the days of early humans, we’ve clumped in clans. Today, our tribes may be those with the same skin color, religion, economic level, politics, or favorite sports team, but we still perpetuate the age-old mentality of “my people versus yours.” The criteria we choose for who’s in our group can be extremely arbitrary. For example, among the Maasai people in Africa, tribes are based on the number of cows.
Perhaps forming tribes is an inherent part of the human species, just like dogs run in packs and primates form families. But among animals, groups often form in response to limited resources or as an evolutionary mechanism to guarantee reproduction. People form tribes even when there’s plenty to go around and no danger of replicating their genes.
Certainly, forming groups of like people is not harmful in and of itself. It’s comfortable to hang around others with similar backgrounds and beliefs. And friendly competition between teams can be fun.
But tribalism becomes destructive when we use our group distinctions to hurt those not like us, filling the world with fear, anger, and despair – no matter what tribe we’re in. In recent years, we’ve witnessed our tribal shadow side, as houses of worship got bombed and peaceful protests interrupted with looting and violence.
I would like to think that humans have evolved to a higher level of consciousness. If so, working together, using our highly developed brains and big hearts, I pray we can figure out how to respect each other’s differences without harming each other and the earth.
Like diverse species of trees and plants peacefully coexisting in a forest under the same blue sky – often symbiotically helping each other – hopefully, so too can people.
© 2020 by Laurie Gardner
Comments 12
Beautiful and true. Hopefully, through this election and political process we will evolve to understand better that division is detrimental to us all. Understanding one another on a deeper level is what will help us to rise and evolve.
Author
Well said! At core, as humans, we all laugh, we all cry, we all become afraid…and we all have the ability to grow and evolve!
So true!!
Author
Here’s hoping many more are willing to move beyond hate to respect and love…
Amen to this!!
Amen!
Author
😀
Well said Laurie! Amy Chua wrote in the Atlantic in 2018 on the subject , and here is a thought provoking quote from that article regarding the politics of party divisiveness, which when carried to the extreme can actually threaten the Constitution : “George Washington, in his farewell address, described the ‘spirit of party’ as democracy’s ‘worst enemy. It ‘agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection.’ ”
Thanks for your thoughtful comment, very timely.
Author
Interesting… thanks, Thayer! Our tribalism goes well beyond politics, but the spirit is the same in all ways we focus more on our differences than on our shared humanity.
Yep, so true! To your larger and more global point, we were watching David Attenborough’s film ‘Life on Our Planet’ in which he shows the first photo of the earth taken from space during the Apollo program, and how that iconic image re-shaped perceptions; it is a great image to keep in our consciousness.
Since “Tribal” is probably baked into our evolutionary make-up, we need to work to expand our view of “Tribe” to include all of humanity.
Author
Hi Charlie,
I TOTALLY agree! Extended even further…all creatures on earth are ultimately one big, planetary tribe!
Thanks for this powerful truth…
Warmly,
Laurie