In his latest book Steven Pinker calls on us to be more rational. If only we thought about things and ditched our swift emotional responses, the world would be a better place. Underlying this cry, is the intellectual perplexity that democracy resulted in the election of Trump, and here in the UK, Brexit. Unfortunately, Pinker is barking up the wrong tree. He should have more faith in democracy and emotional irrational humans.
The reason why Trump was elected, Brexit happened, and for that matter, why people voted for Hitler or Putin, is because we are still fundamentally tribal. The world is constantly changing and today is changing so fast that it’s hard to keep up. The world is getting smaller, people are moving around more and the internet gives voice to anyone. Based on limited and uncertain information how do people decide between candidates? Should our leaders be someone similar to ourselves or someone from another tribe? In the UK should the foreign leaders in Europe make the decisions or people from my British tribe? Should we vote for someone who will restore honour and respect to our tribe by economic or military strength (so compensating for past humiliations) or someone who accepts that the other tribes may have a better way of doing things, and in this interconnected world, knows we can‘t be strong with out them. Faced with such problems, the human default position ingrained in our evolutionary roots, is to stick together and back the tribe.
In the modern world we need to learn that tribalism is no longer helpful. We need to vote for the people who realise that the world must work together to solve global problems not tribal ones. Today, what tribe our leaders come from is increasingly irrelevant, it is more important that they want to make the world better for everyone. Fear of outsiders fails, if we know that they want the same things as us and want everyone to succeed and be happy. Democracy may have made short term mistakes in electing Trump and bringing about Brexit, but autocracies make bigger mistakes, such as invading Ukraine, pursuing Zero Covid or suppressing human nature such as freedom of expression.
If we can accept this, move on from our tribal roots and the fear of outsiders, maybe it will be a better place.
Well that's my irrational view based on very little data, unless of course you consider a life time of unlimited associative learning and creativity as data!
Update Nov 24.
Trump has been re-elected and upon re reading the above I stick by what I wrote. The tribe of USA has been losing status recently, with China gaining economic power, the Afghanistan war ending in with drawl and a perceived threat from outsiders illegally wanting to join the tribe. Big Chief Trump has promised to make the tribe Great again and so increase his and every ones status on the world stage. The majority has lapped this up and so he has been swept to victory. (Everyone wants to increase their status). Trump hasn't clearly stated how he will achieve any of his promises, and will now have to deliver. And when he fails and people see clearly that he has no idea how to deliver and is making things worse not better, he will fight fight fight to maintain his status above all else. Luckly for America age is against him.
