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. He is a 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 and better connected, do hear what
we say, just like the other driver when I forget I have my car window
down..Such ignorant sentiments are also exploited by the right wing and
nationalists which threaten us all.
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, Trump and MAGA, to Putin and Xi Jinping, tribalism
explains 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
thankfully negotiations have developed a solution based on pragmatism
rather than ideology.
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 peoples differing view
points 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 but 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 only talk of the
fantasy to Making the tribe great again. However increasing the tribal
barriers to trade, migrants, ignoring the law and increasing military
power will back fire todays world.
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 as important as 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 the "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 domestic horses or ships, so
only 6,000 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, based on a geographic location, as to
which
tribes to avoid and which to co operate / trade with, which is equally
advantageous.
Update June 24 A book on this subject
has now been published. Inheritance - The Evolutionary origin of the
modern world by Oxford Professor of Anthropology Harvey Whitehouse. He
says we all have a Tribal bias but should think of humanity as one tribe
in order to solve our many problems ie base our Tribalism on the
geographic location of the whole planet Earth rather than end
tribalism.
