When I was a small boy, my father took me to see a few football matches at Selhurst Park, and ever since I have supported Crystal Palace football Club. I have never lived in or near south London and they are not a particularly successful club, so why I still follow them 45 years later is hard to explain, but to switch my allegiance to another club would be difficult and unnatural. Once you have stood in a crowd and cheered your team to victory, shared the highs and lows, lived success and failure with the fans and players for a season or two, bonds are formed that are hard to break.
Like all good Palace fans, I keep following them as they struggle on and, because it's what loyal Palace fans do, I dislike Brighton Football Club with a passion that equals my love of Palace. I have no idea why Palace fans loath Brighton so much and having lived in Brighton for three years I know that the people of Brighton are lovely kind people just the same as anywhere else. It’s just a learnt behaviour that comes from being a dedicated Palace supporter.
I’m not alone in this irrational football tribalism, as I recently met a man who, as evidenced by his broad Scotch accent, had lived in Scotland for many years (and is keen supporter of Scottish independence), but still supported his childhood team - Sheffield United. There is also similar loyalty in other sports as demonstrated by John Majors gripe, that people coming to live in Britain from aboard, continue to support the cricket team from their original country, rather than England. the team of their new home.
This may be all harmless rivalry, but on a more serious level, my youth spent in Kent means I grew up in an atmosphere of prejudice against the French. Being just over the Channel, ie near, but separate, and having (allegedly) not performed in the Second World War as well as they could have, being enemies in the Napoleonic wars and (unbelievably) not using soap as much as they should, moaning and demeaning the French was common as I grew up. Echoes of this behaviour continue to this day especially since Brexit. Having now grown up and taken several vacations to France, I see this as complete nonsense, but as a youth I knew no better, so I went along with it. Like road rage, if the other driver cant hear it, what’s the harm in having a rant about other people, it relieves a bit of stress and makes you feel better. The problem is the French are real people and as the world gets smaller, do hear what we say, just like the other driver when I forget I have my car window down..
Similarly, I was raised as an Anglican Christian, so there was an unspoken but ever present undercurrent that Catholics, Muslims, Jews etc where inferior as they didn’t worship as we did, and so were wrong in their beliefs. To acknowledge that they were just different, but equality valid in their religion and style of worship, would undermine our own world view as having the correct way to think and act or, would undermine our own obviously higher importance and correct superior thinking. It was easier to avoid the complexity of the world and just assume others were simply wrong and ignorant. Now I’m an atheist, I hold the view that all of the religions are contemptible, and based on primitive, backward views so although in this instance I have switched teams, have I personally developed into a better person or am I still stuck in a tribal rut?
It appears to me that it Is a universal human trait to always “adopt a them and us” attitude, to always divide ourselves into people like ourselves and other people we don’t know or interact with. Labeling and pigeon holing others makes it easy for us to avoid the complexities of the world and is probably deep rooted in our past history. When populations increased, land and resources became more valued and people started to compete ie kill each other for gain rather than work together for increased overall gain. Ever since we have been forever dividing our selves up, maligning the others, promoting our tribe as superior so we can increase our own status and justify stealing, exploitation and killing of other people. Or, in modern terminology, promoting propaganda, spreading fake news, being nationalist, racist, sexist, anti Semitic, anti Muslim, homophobic etc etc so our group can get or stay in power. Slagging off the others makes you and people like you appear superior, it also allows you to scapegoat and blame others for your failings and avoids the issue of saying how your group should address its own problems. Simply get rid of the others and all will be well. No wonder it is a favourite tactic of all politicians around the world. From Boris Johnson and Brexit, Nicola Surgeon and Scottish independence, to Putin and Xi Jinping, tribalism can explain a lot..
So is Tribalism, the dividing of peoples into groups, the root of many of the problems of today. Well if there are no national tribes, why go to war? If there are no ethnic tribes, why be racist? If there are no tribal religious sects, why hate other believers in God or Gods? Acknowledging we are all part of one global humanity, and face similar problems such as poverty and wealth distribution, climate change, war, disease, water and food shortages, education, birth control, human and female rights, racism, sexism, biodiversity loss etc etc wouldn’t these problems start to drastically reduce? I hope you can agree that it would.
But is this all a dream? Is changing a basic human behaviour possible? Are be doomed to be for ever tribal, just looking after our own kind, those like us?
Well, when young children play, they play happily together, whoever their parents are. It is only when they get older and “learn” from their “wiser(!)” elders to differentiate themselves from others. that the divisions begin. Perhaps it starts when they sense fearful mums or hear negative talk of others, that the divisions set in or perhaps when they start at a different play group, church or school. It happens generation after generation as there is no reason for it to stop if the tribal group think remains separate from challenge. So I conclude that Tribalism is a learn behaviour and not fundamental to human nature. And If it is a learnt behaviour, it can be unlearnt or better still never taught at all.*
This does happen. I recall a TV documentary that investigated the poor relationship between some travellers and the residents of an unfriendly village who wanted them moved on. After showing the bad feelings both groups had against each other, the programme producers organised a meeting and sat individuals from both sides down for a cup of tea together. After a frosty start tensions eased and a more normal conversation developed and understanding of each others problems and worries ensued. By the end of the programme friendship, respect and tolerance started to emerge. Tribal barriers had been broken, and they started to see the others as people with different life styles but similar problems and desires.
I also recall the tale of the vicar, who during the second world war, organised German prisoners of war to spend Christmas diner with local families. This wonderful story resulted in many life time friendships developing between people who had been told to kill each other but by actually meeting realised the truth that they were no different from each other. Tribalism unlearnt. It is possible if people meet and talk together.
On a larger scale, the tribalism in Northern Ireland is slowly being unlearnt, but it is still a work in progress. Deep rooted divides are being eroded, but unfortunately have recently increased due to the tribalism of Brexit, and the need for borders, barriers and division to satisfy an idea that working alone is better than cooperating together. The Good Friday Agreement and Brexit are totally incompatible, but which is the better deal? The one that promotes peace or the one that creates divisions?
There is a lot of talk today that social media is promoting tribalism by detecting what you view online and sending you more of the same. This simple algorithm, which is designed to get more clicks and so earn the social media company more advertising revenue, results in you never seeing other persons differing likes and thoughts. So it promotes your initial views leading to a more polarised and extreme views. The Social media companies deny all this probably because, when they wrote the algorithms they didn’t know how political social media would become. Initially it was set up to keep in touch with your friends rather than tribe and the lack of interaction with other ways of thinking leads to a distorted virtual world view of your own creation, rather than a truer picture of the world with all its differences variety and complexity. The result is that Tribalism in America has got so bad that there is talk of a possible civil war after the next presidential election.
Theresa May once said that a citizen of the world is a citizen of no where. Whilst I admire her for her endeavours to do an impossible job after the Brexit vote, I totally disagree with this statement. I say that a citizen of the world is a person of hope, one who has abandoned tribalism, has a global world view, that accepts people have different cultures, political views, religion and life style but that all people deserve respect, tolerance and understanding. A citizen of the world rejects the labeling of people as black, white, republican, democrat, Labour, Tory: etc etc and accepts they are people just like you and I, but with minor differences that in the big scheme of things are not so important than we like to think they are. A Citizen of the world embraces the variety and complexity of people and endeavours to care for all so the world is a better place for all.
So I say Down with Tribalism, Up with Humanitarianism.
That is, until kickoff. Come on you Eagles!!!!
*Psychologists experiments highlighted in Sapolsky's book Behave appear
to indicate this is wrong and that Us/Them thinking is hard wired into
our brains. This may be so, but is it hard wired who "Thems" are? Why do
we discriminate against people of a different skin colour and not hair
colour, which is an equally striking visual characteristic? When humans
evolved and started migrating from Africa we were all black, so if
racism is hard wired, it can only be a very recent brain re-wiring which
commenced when skin colour changed due to living in less sunny northern climes ie 40,000 years ago. And at what point in time did it become a
frequent occurrence for white people to meet dark coloured people, so
that all brains become hard wired by evolution? This frequent long range
mixing requires transport technology ie ships, so only 4000 years at a
stretch. I can accept that we are hard wired to be afraid and
cautious of other tribes, which clearly has evolutionary advantages, but it is a learnt behaviour as to which
tribes to avoid and which to co operate / trade with, which is equally advantageous.
