Where is Tribalism Needed?

Like anyone else on earth, one of the biggest obstacles I deal with on a daily basis is the friction — the resistance — to do what I need to do.

One approach is focusing on all the elements within myself — goals, habits, invisible scripts and stories I tell myself, etc. — to get insight on feeling stuck and unmotivated. The opposite approach would be taking the most macro-view of humanity. To do that, it’s helpful to use the Neil Howe’s ‘4th Turning’ model, which analyzes the cycles of history through the ebbing and flowing of historical highs and lows — golden ages and crises — as new generations come of age and influence the course of history.

The seasons go from: a high ; and awakening ; and unraveling ; and a crisis. That cycle — the saeculum — lasts the length of a long human life (80-100 years).

Post WWII, the US experienced a high (VJ Day -> Assassination of JFK). The 60s and 70s marked an awakening period — a cultural watershed moment that marked a time where norms and ideals before look nothing like it did afterward.

The 80s into the 2000s — defined by culture wars and nationalistic hubris — served as the unraveling period.

Since the financial crash in ’08, we have been experiencing the crisis, defined by the destabilization and increased tribalism we all notice on a day-to-day basis.

One of the symptoms of the tribalism is tying every issue back to our most base and primal instincts — fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

These are forces well beyond our control.

So, what are the different approaches here?

The default mode results in getting swept up in the frenzy and latching onto a tribe, which all of us are guilty of to some extent. The other approach is a more individualistic, lone wolf approach. A delicate harmony obviously needs to be found.

That looks something like: being aware and engaged about the world, but self-aware enough to sidestep manipulative forces that appeal to the worst parts of us: distrusting, suspicious, blaming, etc.

There are global problems and there are problems at our feet.

Anxiety and fear help us orient toward those problems in order to do something about it. But when we solely orient toward global problems — climate, injustice, etc. — no detectable progress can really be experienced, like trying to heat the ocean by screaming into it. We are most manipulable in that state of constant anxiety, of which many take advantage.

So, ultimately, it comes down to the specificity problem. In a crisis season (which we’re in) there is a Cheesecake Factory-sized menu of global issues (and tribes) from which to choose.

Tribalism, to some extent, is needed in order to get through these crises (WWII wouldn’t have been won unless the Allied “tribe” formed), but when we lose sight of our individualistic place in the world, pervasive anxiety can be induced by demagogues and global forces to manipulate us for someone (or something) else’s gain — and to our own detriment.