Forget "Tribe" - Become a Citizen of the World
Photo: Raising Miro: On the Road of Life
Ligaya Mishan
April 13, 2020
The New York Times T Magazine
Some things,
the writer of this essay gets right, IMHO. Others, she does not.
Writer at
large, Ligaya Mishan, declares she is going to rescue "tribe" from
"decades of anthropological study that privileged Western
civilization." Okay. I guess. But that would be a tall order in a
short New York Times T Magazine
essay. Yes, the British Colonial Office hired anthropologists in the early-mid
20th Century to further colonialism, and help expand the privileges of
Westerners beyond Europe.
I am not sure
what decades of anthropological study the writer wants to rescue
"tribe" from. Because later she rightly refers to American
anthropologist Marshall Sahlins who objected to the term in the mid-20th
century; and who was quickly joined by virtually all other American
anthropologists, especially within US cultural anthropology.
Within British social anthropology,
on the other hand, is where the term "tribe" took root in academia
and far beyond in the early-20th century. However, even among the Brits its
professional usage declined significantly, especially so by the middle of that
century. Regrettably, the British, via BBC, still to this day like to report on
"tribal clashes" in Africa.
More
importantly, there is much more to the anthropological use of "tribe"
that Mishan does not address. At the end of this post, for example, there is a
link to the use of "tribe" with reference to African ethnic groups, a
very good article readers will find informative.
All that said, there
are more important fish I want to fry here than the history of anthropology
shortcomings in Mishan's essay. The real problems with her essay begin when she
tries to "square this [early human within-band bonding] with the ethos of
individualism."
First, Mishan
ignores the early Christian innovative emphasis on the individual's choice of
accepting or not accepting God and His redemption. Prior to this there was not
much choosing individuals could do. This was an important occurrence in the
history of Western individualism. Okay, the Christian notion was not a total liberation
of the individual. However, it helped lay a foundation for European individuals
to dare to begin thinking independently and scientifically about the Earth and
the cosmos, and later about society, philosophically and politically.
Mishan claims
individualism originated in 12th Century Europe, but "was not
fully embraced until the 17th Century, at the start of the Age of Enlightenment."
I think hers is a too narrow understanding of individualism. If you want to
limit yourself to individuals being more important than their groups,
okay, I guess. However, the individual-group dynamic balance is as old as
humankind itself. We covered this at Own & Ibis a few times.
It is not a matter
of there being no individualism before it began during the 12th
Century in Europe. This is not a good way to think about individualism. Nevertheless,
Mishan goes on and compounds the problem of her narrow view by claiming
"the primacy of the individual is still resisted by many
cultures, particularly much of Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin
America." In a sense she is right, it is. But emphasizing overwhelming
individualism is and has been resisted for a long time, and for good
reasons.
Over-emphasized,
unfettered individualism is not a good permanent human strategy for
individuals or groups. It wasn't 200,000 years ago and has not been
since. It still isn't. Much of the dysfunction we see in many Western
societies, and those that have followed Western ways, is attributable to a
culmination of a long-growing imbalance promoting and favoring individual
freedom over group responsibility, especially beginning in the early 20th
Century in the US.
When did this
begin? If you want to find the source of individualism, look at the transition
from nomadic hunting-gathering band life to settled agricultural urban life in
Mesopotamia beginning between 10-15,000BP. That is when and where
individualism's ascendance first reared its head. The autocratic governance
that ensued was a driving down of the rise of this
me-first-over-my-anonymous-fellow-urbanites thinking. This is when we first
began to systematically forsake our brothers, sisters, in-laws, fellow-workers,
and friends. Individuals became even more "special" during the
Enlightenment, and pathologically so beginning in the early 20th Century. See
my blog essay, “Enlightenment
Lost: A Faustian Exchange of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity for Self Glorification
and Material Convenience,” November 2018.
Mishan is right
to note Heidegger's notion that to be human is to be in the world, not standing
proudly apart and above it. She is also right to note that when the
context of living grows beyond human’s ability to deal with it on a
face-to-face basis, as was begun in early Mesopotamian settlements, "we
become unmoored," she says.
Also, to her
credit the writer is right to ask "is 'tribe' the best way to describe the
loose alliances of today." Regrettably, she concludes it is not the best
term but it is all we can come up with to describe "groups that transcend
the old ties of kinship and language." "The English language fails
us," she says. But she declares that "no other word in English
carries the same promise of a family beyond family."
I think many
people like using the term "tribe" because it has a certain cachet, a hipness, a
primalness or authenticity, that other words such as group, clique, and others
are not regarded to have. I can hear the Iron John tom-toms and chanting now. I think the
use of tribe is a Western-hatched fad that will soon fade. Fade, but
not before it is folded into our false notions of an instinctual human nature
embedded in our genes and neurons – a false ideological embedment that has
already begun. Look for articles and essays to soon appear purporting to have
found our "tribe gene" or "tribe neural pathways/clusters/networks."
I credit Mishan
for mentioning Durkheim’s notions of a "collective effervescence" and
that humans are prone to "coming together, thinking together, feeling together,
and acting together." Yes, that has been going on since the Pleistocene. I
am not sure it had an "effervescent" quality, but early humans
certainly knew who was a member of their band
and who was not. That sort of
group composition awareness has been around as long as social mammals
have.
But there is
something about the modern use of "tribe" I don't like. If it's, say,
white nationalism and the similarities between such like-minded groups in
Georgia and Oregon one wants to focus on, then refer to your white nationalist
brothers and sisters, or comrades. If I want to march with Extinction
Rebellion or with women on the National Mall in Washington, I do not need
to be referred to as a member of the ER or Woman tribe.
As a
cosmopolitan in Diogenes's
sense, I personally prefer to be thought of and described, first and
foremost, as a "citizen of the world," a human being. If you must, an
ethnographer, an American-Ugandan, a person of English descent. But not a
"tribe" member. We can do better by not following the
"tribe" fad. Following it is not really helping us understand what we humans
are and why we do the things we do.
Returning to
the essay, Mishan then brings in Marshall McLuhan who, she says,
"attributed the decay of tribal culture to the overriding of oral
tradition by a codified, written language, a process accelerated by the 15th-century
invention of the printing press." Uh, no, not exactly.
There are
things I like about McLuhan's notion the "medium is the message," but
this idea of his Mishan presents isn't another of them. No, the "decay of
tribal culture" was not begun or caused by written language. It was begun
by the overwhelming press and complexity of living in larger, settled groups,
in Mesopotamia. Codified or written language, including law, was invented to
account for surplus food, and for social control where face-to-face accountability
had begun to prove less and less effective. Writing did not do in tribal
culture, its use by autocrats and their functionaries and agents did. They used
it to shift individual allegiance from between persons, to between persons and
the state and metropolis.
Finally
regarding the essay, Mishan says tribes are "instinctual, constantly
shape-shifting, drafters of their own fates" (empahsis mine).
"Instinctual?" No. See above and everywhere else I have written
about “human nature.”
I also don't
agree about tribes being "drafters of their own fates." Consider Pam
Dewey's docucommentaries
on religion and the co-evolution and rise of US conservatism, the Frontline
documentary, The
Persuaders. Modern "tribes" are found, created, and
fine-tuned by marketers and advertisers, and used by manufacturers, service
providers, and politicians to direct our economic and voter behavior.
What to do with
"tribe?" Ignore it, don't use it. Use "group." Hopefully
it's a fad that will go away sooner rather than later.
Here is a list
of essays and commentaries presenting my views on self, tribe, and band.
From From
the Unknown into Uncertainty: Essays and Commentary on the Origin, Evolution
and Future of Humankind by James E. Lassiter:
Essay 6, A New Map for Africa
Essay 7, Christian Exceptionalism
Essay 18, The Origin and Evolution of
Language
Essay 41, The Origin and Evolution of
Religion
Essay 63, Suffering and Injustice
Essay 91, After the Collapse of
Modernity
Essay 95, Going Local, Again
Essay 97, You Choose, Section 1,
"Primal Accommodation" and Section 2, "Settled Agricultural
Autocracy"
and
Commentary 2, On 'How Do We Explain the
Evolution of Religion?'
Commentary 38, Yes, There is a Human
Nature
Commentary 59, Game of Thrones
Finally, here is
another take on "tribe," this from the Africa region context:
"The Trouble with Tribe" by Chris
Lowe, Teaching Tolerance, Spring
2001
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