5.7 Tribe matters more than truth
Edward Evans-Pritchard, a British anthropologist, made this comment about the Nuer people he studied in the southern part of Sudan in 1930…
“That each Nuer considers himself as good as his neighbor is evident in their every movement. They strut about like lords of the earth, which indeed they consider themselves to be. There is no master and no servant in their society but only equals who consider themselves God’s noblest creation. Their respect for one another contrasts with their contempt for all other peoples.”
This is a particular description of the Nuer people, but it also captures the psychological essence of tribalism.
Because…
Human tribes are self-centered and self-congratulatory.
The central article of faith for a tribe is…
We are special.
But not just special…
We are exceptional.
But not just exceptional…
We are the best, the best of the best.
Okay, but wait, isn’t self-centeredness a bad thing? Aren’t we humans supposed to put others first? To find meaning in life by serving others.
Maybe you might want to call self-centeredness and self-conceit a moral failing, but in tribal terms it’s a definite…
Survival advantage.
Because the more worthy and deserving a tribe felt itself to be, the better it would fight for itself when threatened, and the more diligent it would be in taking care of itself in the course of daily life.
If a tribe had low self-esteem, it wouldn’t be as motivated to fight enemies and care for itself, and so it would not last long. Evolution dispensed with such tribes and over time it worked a high degree of tribal self-esteem into our genome.
Every tribe needed a coherent, motivating…
Tribal identity.
And to sustain that identity, to keep it strong, each tribe created its own…
Tribal Story.
Which set it apart from other tribes and made it special.
When elders taught young people about their tribe, they talked about…
How we came to be. What our origin was. And how special it was. How our ancestors had a touch of the heroic about them. How they had slain enemies. How they came to live in this place.
How our god chose our tribe as his favorite. How he watches over us and protects us.
How our songs are ours and only ours. How our dances are special, because no one else dances the way we do. How the art we decorate our weapons and tools and bodies with, is unique and particular to us.
And…
How our way of life is the best there is.
Each tribe’s Story, which was made up of many contributing stories, was not only definitional, like holding up a mirror so the tribe could see itself reflected. It was also organizing, meaning that it pulled the tribe together in coordinated action.
And so this Story was not just something elders told around the campfire at night…
The tribe lived inside its Story.
And that became their primary world. And it made people feel deeply held.
But the Story was…
Fiction.
Not entirely of course. There were many factual elements. But the overriding sense of being the best among all tribes ever, that was a fiction.
Tribes differed in their behavior. Some were more peaceful and accommodating, others were more aggressive and dangerous. But no tribe was better than any other just because it was itself. The belief in exceptionalism was a fantasy.
Yet it was a useful fantasy. It turns out if you think better of yourself than you really deserve, that’s good for you. It motivates you to stretch and develop and improve.
But it matters that you only think a little bit better of yourself. Because over-appreciation of yourself to the point of self-aggrandizement is counterproductive.
Here’s an analogy I find helpful. When musicians, athletes and others talk about flow, about being in the zone, they say that time stops and struggle ceases and they perform far beyond what they thought they could do.
What is it that makes flow possible? It’s the skills/challenge balance. It’s when you have a challenge that goes beyond your skill level. But…
Just a bit.
If you don’t have enough challenge, your life goes to sleep on you. If you have too much you get paralyzed and shut down.
But if you have a challenge that’s just right, that’s just a bit beyond your level of skill, and you take it on, then…
You’re in the sweet spot.
Then you have a chance to enter the flow state. And that’s a place where you can do an advanced level of growing and developing.
For our tribes, thinking just a bit better about themselves than what was real, got them to stretch and grow and develop. That optimism was motivating. Whereas pessimism about themselves would have made them pull back from challenges and surrender to a debilitating despair.
So to summarize, tribal self-esteem that was a bit higher than the tribe really deserved, was a fiction but a beneficial one.
And this meant that the tribe was now living in two realities.
First…
Real reality.
Which is the factual truth of the world around them. The truth of the animal and plants they depended on to survive.
But they also lived inside…
Social reality.
Which was their self-created tribal reality. It focused internally on the people they lived with rather than externally on the world around them.
And social reality mattered more to people than real reality, because…
Their tribe was their unit of survival.
So first things first and what came first was making sure that you were an accepted and active and contributing member of your tribe.
Then you worried about the world.
But what if a tribe went too far with their fiction?
What if people got the idea into their heads that nutritious roots and berries were invented by the devil and should be shunned? Or that poisonous plants had magic powers and were good to eat? That tribe would be gone overnight.
What if elders started teaching children unreal lessons? What if they threw away their fire-starting tools, their bows and drills, and taught that fire could only be started with a mystical incantation and only when the gods were in the mood to respond? That tribe would regress into the rigors of a pre-fire life. And once you deleted that hard-won knowledge from group memory, it might take generations for the group to rediscover how to tame fire, if they ever did.
It was okay if tribes got a little crazy around the edges. It didn’t matter if their origin story was fantastical or their god was a bit bizarre. As long as they stayed in close touch with reality in the core activities of their daily lives they would survive just fine.
Why do I even bring this up given that tribes which went too far disappeared and are thus irrelevant?
Because…
Now we have tribes that are very far gone into fiction.
We have tens of millions of people who have lost touch with reality. They’re living in a fantastical social reality of their own making. They’re caught up in magical thinking. They’re out of their minds.
And then there’s this…
They live inside lies, a whole constellation of lies, unending lies, that they hold onto with a death grip.
And here’s the principle they follow without even knowing it…
A lie counts as the truth if you need it to make your tribal story work.
So if you get crazy frustrated when you’re talking with a MAGA or MAGA-leaning person, and you want them to step out of their fantasy world and get real, this is what you’re up against.
And please don’t beat yourself up for not being able to break through to these people one-on-one.
This is…
A tribal problem and so it needs a tribal solution.
Which is why it’s so important to give people living in a fantasy world some place better to go. Like a new tribe that actually nurtures and sustains them. Like a new political home they can count on to be way, way better than the one where they have to live on lies instead of nurturance.
And this is why, as I’ve said before, it’s so absolutely critical that the Democratic Party becomes a true, trustworthy, sustainable political home for working families.
There’s the argument, “We need to get back to normal.” But no we don’t. The old normal is what gave rise to Trump and his movement. The old normal was causing mass suffering.
We need to enlist people in making a world that’s…
A whole hell of a lot better than the old normal.
There are some MAGA and MAGA-leaning people who hit the wall, who wake up and see how the MAGA movement is failing them, and will be willing to talk with you and let you help them find a better way to live.
But if we’re looking at our country as a whole, no amount of individual conversations will be enough to change our trajectory.
We need to be able to invite working families into a tribe that is truly nurturing and inclusive and…
Grounded in the real reality of real people in their real lives.
