Matthew
Matthew
Jul 21, 2017 · 2 min read

Just the opposite, in my view. Out of all the examples given so far, the only one that is actually “tribal” was the Red Sox/Yankees example, because a Red Sox fan is never a Yankees fan, and vice versa.

That’s not even true. There are people who like both the Red Sox and Yankees. People who straddle that line may have weaker tribilistic instincts, or it could just be a subject they don’t care about that much.

In the case of politics, the fact that somebody is a social conservative does not indicate to you what their economic views are; and someone who is an economic libertarian may or may not be a conservative Christian.

Tribalism isn’t really about Groupthink. It’s not that everyone agrees on everything. In genuine tribes, there are disagreements all the time. The primary distinguishing feature is trust. People tend to trust the words, intentions, and actions of those from their own tribe and tend to distrust the words, intentions, and actions of those from other tribes.

So while a social conservative might disagree with an economic libertarian on some issues, because they are part of the same political tribe, there is not the inherent level of distrust between them that exists between a social conservative and a Democrat (aka Marxists trying to destroy America).

So, you can use the term “tribal” all you like, but you will have to constantly be defining in rather long sentences who is included in that particular “tribe” each time you use it.

Problematic, by my way of thinking.

Nah, I think you just don’t really understand why the term trust is used. That’s fine. We don’t have to agree. This issue is pretty inconsequential.

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    Matthew

    Written by

    Matthew

    Contrarian. Relentlessly critical of my own beliefs. My feelings are, always have been, and always will be irrelevant.