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Tribalism is being used as an umbrella term to capture strong group loyalties that have been making it difficult for the sides to get along, agree, or even co-exist. Tribalism is not inherently a bad thing – loyalty to one’s groups can be a very good thing. Tribalism often shows up as “protect our own” — again not inherently a bad thing. The problem is when that loyalty becomes blind devotion that sees only enemies outside the tribe. In that atmosphere, our ability to solve problems at all levels is overwhelmed by these “us vs. them” alignments. Complicating matters is that the divides are along so many different dimensions, from party to religion to race to ethnicity to gender to class and so on. Compromise is increasingly viewed as weakness.
We have been looking at tribalism for the last several years at Houston Foresight. We recently developed a Gated Communities scenario as part of a Future of Communities project that projected a future driven by tribalism (among other factors). It’s a world in which the urban-wealthy basically check out and rely on private services and manage their own affair within gated havens. The have-nots are left to fend for themselves inside economically, environmentally, and structurally depleted communities, and scraping by on a bare minimum of resources. Suffice it to say, not a pretty picture. There are many ways to write a collapse scenario in which tribal differences are at the core.
As regular readers know, I am a huge believer in the importance of values. I sincerely believe that if we can find ways to pull together, none of the daunting global challenges in front of us are insurmountable. I’ve seen enough of the power of the human spirit to believe. My interpretation of long-term values shifts as part of ConsumerShift (see this short post) suggest that this pernicious phase of tribalism will pass, but it had better be quick, because those daunting global challenges are going to wait for us to get sorted. — Andy Hines
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