The New Tribalism by Robert Reich

[Crewleader]

The New Tribalism

Sunday, March 23, 2014

We are witnessing a reversion to tribalism around the world, away from nation states. The the same pattern can be seen even in America – especially in American politics.

Before the rise of the nation-state, between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, the world was mostly tribal. Tribes were united by language, religion, blood, and belief. They feared other tribes and often warred against them. Kings and emperors imposed temporary truces, at most.

But in the past three hundred years the idea of nationhood took root in most of the world. Members of tribes started to become citizens, viewing themselves as a single people with patriotic sentiments and duties toward their homeland. Although nationalism never fully supplanted tribalism in some former colonial territories, the transition from tribe to nation was mostly completed by the mid twentieth century.

Over the last several decades, though, technology has whittled away the underpinnings of the nation state. National economies have become so intertwined that economic security depends less on national armies than on financial transactions around the world. Global corporations play nations off against each other to get the best deals on taxes and regulations.

http://robertreich.org/post/80522686347

[DeSwiss]

1. The New Tribalism

- Ain't it great!?!?! Hey Ma!!! Look, we're evolving!!!!

K&R

[Kurovski]

2. Thanks for the link, DeSwiss...

I'm going to finish watching it monday. night.

[snot]

3. Super depressing.

It was bad enough, thinking we'd regressed to feudalism (obedience/being owned in return for hoped-for-though-inconsistently-materialized care).

[Demeter]

4. A properly defined "tribe" is NOT a bad thing

It is defining what is right and what is wrong.

The problem comes when a tribe includes evil or excludes good. Not one person, but one class of evil, or one class of good, because of trivial reasons.

Trivial reasons are prejudices: religion, health, class, race, sex, economics, etc.

Non-trivial reasons for exclusion are holding prejudices, seeking to inflict hurt on others, hoarding resources, abuse of power, denying reason, other dysfunctional characteristics. Anti-social, anti-human, anti-rational people cannot integrate into a functioning tribe without destroying it.

Which is why our nations are crumbling. The psychos have taken over.