19: Tribalism

Tribalism Definition: Tribalism is the state of being organized by, or advocating for, tribes or tribal lifestyles. Some scholars postulate that human evolution has occurred in small groups, as opposed to mass societies , and that humans naturally maintain a social network . The American scholar Peter Killworth estimates that the median social network in the United States is 231 people. [1] [2] [3] The word "tribe" can be defined to mean an extended kin group or clan with a common ancestor, or can also be described as a group with shared interests, lifestyles and habits. The proverb " birds of a feather flock together " describes homophily , [4] the human tenancy to form friendship networks with people with similar occupations, interests, and habits. [5] Some tribes can be located in geographically proximate areas, like villages or bands , though telecommunications enables groups of people to form digital tribes using tools like social networking websites . Political tribalism: The modern political divides between right and left are examples of political tribalism Indigenous Tribalism: Use def above Sport and game Tribalism: video games and sports show signs of modern tribes but are really weak facsimiles that mimics and excite our tribal tendencies but don't really fully connect with people They are functionally worthless and don't pose any risk for membership No risk, no reward Modern Tribalism: the social equivalent of the paleo food movement Paleo-social constructionism no need to ditch the benefits of culture but _____ Benefits: Sebastian Junger and His Story Insert Clips and Quotes Indians and defecting whites Jack Donovan: Junger says people in modern society are missing a sense of tribe, and he's right, but he stops short of either truly understanding or being willing to address the totality of what it means to be part of a tribe. The elements of tribalism that make it fundamentally incompatible with pluralism and globalism go unmentioned or unexamined in Tribe, and what remains is a handful of vague, disappointing bromides about not cheating and treating political opponents more fairly and helping each other so we don't "lose our humanity." He fumbles at the truth with statements like this… "In a country that applies its standard of loyalty in such an arbitrary way, it would seem difficult for others to develop any kind of tribal ethos." …and then resolves them with cotton candy like this… "Acting in a tribal way simply means being willing to make a substantive sacrifice for your community — be that your neighborhood, your workplace, or your entire country." Junger seems to think that tribalism can be reduced to the old Boy Scout slogan, "Do a good deed daily." The question is, for who? Is your tribe just anyone? What does being a Good Samaritan have to do with tribalism? Indiscriminate love for humanity, which is what Junger preaches in Tribe, is, even at the most basic dictionary level , the exact opposite of tribalism. Tribalism is human, but it is not humanitarianism. Tribalism is defined as, "strong loyalty to one's own tribe, party, or group." Tribal belonging is exclusive and the camaraderie and generosity that Junger admires in tribal people is functional because the group has defined boundaries. Tribal people are generally not wandering do-gooders. Tribal people help each other because helping each other means helping "us," and they know who their "us" is. In a well-defined tribal group where people know or at least recognize each other as members, people who share voluntarily are socially rewarded and people who do not are punished or removed from the group. Reciprocity is also relatively immediate and recognizable. There is a return for showing that you are "on the team." Problems in modernity -Modern life is boring us to death Not difficult enough -Mass shootings from isolation -social media - "All calories no nutrition" -Lack of social isolation -Apartment living and lack of cohesion Addiction Problems -Loneliness -Guilt -Low self esteem -High stress -Anxiety -Depression -difficulty Coping with pain Benefit List: -Belonging What does belonging mean? Pulled up advice from Psychology today and it basically said be nice to people, Don't focus on differences -purpose Drive and human happiness, Referance blog -Adding value, Modern life makes us feel uneccecary because we are Primitive HG spend 4 hours a day surviving - Lots of time to socialize with intimate relations -Tactical virtues and their social component -biological necessity Pills and numbing ourselves - modern humans can't cope with modern life Modern life is addiction, It creates problems it makes solutions for Humans don't survive nature alone Biologically we can't create tribes of 100 Mil people Natural tribes max out around 150 (people you can remember 150) Robin Dunbar (The director of the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology at Oxford Universit) Dunbar number: I was working on the arcane question of why primates spend so much time grooming one another, and I tested another hypothesis – which says the reason why primates have big brains is because they live in complex social worlds. Because grooming is social, all these things ought to map together, so I started plotting brain size and group size and grooming time against one another. You get a nice set of relationships. It was about 3am, and I thought, hmm, what happens if you plug humans into this? And you get this number of 150. This looked implausibly small, given that we all live in cities now, but it turned out that this was the size of a typical community in hunter-gatherer societies. And the average village size in the Domesday Book is 150 [people]. It's the same when we have much better data – in the 18th century, for example, thanks to parish registers. County by county, the average size of a village is again 150. Except in Kent, where it was 100. I've no idea why. -Meaningful egalitarianism Protections against loafers and scammers -People who either steal or become too agressive within tribes are often killed or in some cases banished -Respected hierarchy Hierarchy is utilitarian and respected - -Other cultures and their tribalism India Middle East (Islam) Africa - Mention tribal issues East asian (China and Japan) The occasion was the return to Japan of Michael Woodford, the former boss of Olympus, a Tokyo-based lens-maker, who had been fired in October after he started asking awkward questions about $1.3 billion in suspicious transactions. His subject, in a nutshell, was corporate governance—not something that, in the abstract, usually sets reporters' hearts aflutter. But as the club pointed out, not even the Dalai Lama had drawn such a crowd. Mr Woodford, who is adroit in the spotlight, says the whole saga has been like walking into a John Grisham novel. Having been sacked by the board and stripped of his office, home and company car on October 14th, the 30-year Olympus veteran—one of just four gaijin to run a leading Japanese company—was told to catch a bus to the airport. The American Federal Bureau of Investigation, Britain's Serious Fraud Squad and the Japanese authorities are all now on the case. But in retrospect, he says, one of the most chilling moments came when he was still chief executive and had unsuccessfully challenged his chairman, Tsuyoshi Kikukawa, to explain the missing money. He found another director, Hisashi Mori, also seemed to be stonewalling him. "Mr Mori, who do you work for?" he recalls asking, expecting the answer to be Olympus. "Michael, I work for Mr Kikukawa. I'm loyal to Mr Kikukawa," Mr Mori is said to have replied. Mr Kikukawa, Mr Mori and the company's statutory auditor have since resigned from the board of Olympus, accused of a huge cover-up of securities losses dating back to the 1990s. But other board members who supported them and who dumped Mr Woodford still have their jobs. The company insists that he was fired for failing to understand its management style, and Japanese culture, not for being an awkward whistleblower. Native americans Concerns: Tribalism causes conflict? We are mostly talking about Political tribalism but that is inevetable when a country is as large as america I on America being too big. Does tribalism cause conflict of diversity? Not Multicultural enough inherently yes, defining a group requires discrimination Can America become tribal? no but don't try Not currently, not the way we think of america, the days of returning to some nationalistic or even white nationalistic nation are gone Biologically we can't create tribes of 100 Mil people What Is society? Putting the group above yourself, Subordination of the individual It is belonging, it is coming home. I will be writing more about how to create a tribe in the future and providing tools to build tribes In the meantime, visit barbarianforever.com and start by straightening yourself out and finding your passion. Whem you know who you are and how you can add value to others, you will be one step closer to finding the group where you really belong

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19: Tribalism is an episode from Barbarian Radio by Barbarian Radio.

This episode is 56:05 long.

This episode was published on May 20, 2018.

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