On Tribalism

We identify ourselves as members of all sorts of tribes; our families, political parties, race, gender, social organizations. We even identify tribally just based on where we live (Go Yankees).

Tribalism is pervasive, and it controls a lot of our behavior, readily overriding reason. Think of the inhuman things we do in the name of tribal unity. Wars are essentially tribalism. Genocides are tribalism - wipe out the other group to keep our group safe – taken to madness.

Another example is the polarized way we argue about so many issues, and the irony that as we make these arguments we claim to be intelligent (smart, therefore right) yet we ignorantly close our minds to views that conflict with ours. Trump supporter? You're a Nazi!

Research has found that the more challenged our views are, the more we defend them -- the more dogmatic and closed-minded we become...an intellectual form of "circle-the-wagons, we’re under attack" tribal unity. We are social animals. We have evolved to depend on our tribes, literally, for our safety and survival.

The thing is, as with most issues, few people in either tribe have looked closely at the actual evidence. On both sides, most people are just trusting their tribe’s designated experts.

Some of this material is summarized from https://bigthink.com/risk-reason-and-reality/how-tribalism-overrules-reason-and-makes-risky-times-more-dangerous and other sources.