re: #309 Justanotherhuman

Well, I did start off by saying I am studying tribalism, esp as it pertains to the 21st century and in modern thought. I never said I had any concrete definitions, those were just off the top of my head (and over which I could be proved wrong) and even your trying to pin me down on those doesn’t mean they are anything I consider final.

I wasn’t aware that “studying” a subject meant I had reached any conclusions; in fact, those could be just the opposite of what I went in with. But if you want to play that kind of game, that’s up to you. Play alone, though; for myself, I’d like to study a lot more and clear my head of any preconceived notions or those of anyone else.

I’m not playing any sort of game at all. If you’re studying the subject, if you want to think about tribalism, I don’t get why you don’t want to have a conversation about what we might define as tribalism or problems with those definitions. That’s part of ‘study’.

Also, if we are at the stage where we can’t even define what the word means, then it seems really odd to use it in discussion as though it does have an understood meaning.

I think it’s very important and interesting to study the way that group affiliations work, the way that identity works in socialization and politics. That’s a large chunk of sociology, is the sociology of groups. The concept of thinking about this isn’t a problem for me, it’s the bit where we use ‘tribalist’ as though it’s supposed to convey meaning. I don’t know what you, or anyone else, actually means when they say tribalist.