re: #298 Justanotherhuman

No, a union wouldn’t be “tribalist” but a free association of people. You may have to pay dues to belong to a union, but it doesn’t require you to participate.

You didn’t mention anything about ‘require you to participate’. Tribes require you to participate?

And just because we in the US have “disparate groups” that we’re bound to, is that true of most people?

Yes.

What are those “disparate groups” you speak of? Or are those simply modern equivalents of societal units held in any other era, like church, work, associations, etc?

Well, yeah, and interest groups, families, schools we went to, cities we’re from, etc. etc.

Where those are, who are in them, are also very important. Look at church going in the US, for instance: Churches, more than any other institution, are the most segregated in the country.

Depending on what you mean by ‘instiuttion’, maybe, but what does this have to do with tribalism?

When I think of modern “tribalism”, for example, I think of Mormonism as a first example, along with certain segments of the rightwing, and even some on the left. Even though Mormons consider themselves “international”, it’s not a practice of balancing tribalism and globalism—it’s winning converts to their “tribe”.

So what about a left-wing Mormon and a Mormon who’s part of that ‘segment of the right wing’? Are they part of the same ‘tribe’?

Again, is tribalism exclusive, or not? We belong to disparate groups that don’t align perfectly, or sometimes at all, with each other.

I still am completely unclear on what you, or anyone else means, by ‘tribalist’. It generally seems to get used in two different ways: As a synonym for ‘factionalism’, when describing the groups that tend to revile and reject people who aren’t sufficiently fervent, like emoprogs who reject as insufficiently progressive anyone who supports Obama, or conservatives who reject any GOP member that’s at all nice to or works with the Democrats. And second, it gets used about very broad groups, like the Mormons, and it seems to not actually apply to the members of that group, but just to the group. There are tons of Mormons who don’t actually work to evangelize or try to get converts, that’s a function of the group, not the individuals within the group. And the group is so big that there’s no possibility that everyone in it fits your original definition.