Two people arguing

Two Tribes

Robert Dunn
4 min readFeb 21, 2021

Nearly three years ago I wrote about tribalism and how it is a fundamental part of human nature, and I also attempted to show how, with a little effort and some rational thought, we could overcome what I saw as the negative aspects or tribalism and focus on the global tribe.

Well it looks like nobody was paying attention as things have definitely become more polarised, at least in the UK — although from recent events it looks like the US is definitely in the same boat. You could argue that any country that perpetuates a two-party electoral system encourages division, but in my opinion the significant change over the past few years has been the willingness with which politicians have been prepared to exploit this.

There have always been a large number of people who do not vote in elections. There are many possible reasons for this — ignorance of the differences between the candidates and their parties, dislike of politics in general, apathy because not much seems to change regardless of who wins and many others. If you imagine political alignment as a spectrum going from (of course) left to right, then I had always assumed that these non-voters came from across the political spectrum, but it looks like I was wrong.

It has long been observed that politicians will stretch and bend facts to suit their arguments and persuade people to vote for them, and that fascism in particular becomes more popular when people are persuaded to look back fondly on a past which may or may not have existed but was definitely better than the present, and then put the blame for this eradication of national identity/reduction in quality of public services/whatever on someone not of the same ethnicity. What is new is the realisation that once people are brought onboard to support a cause, they can then be lied to and manipulated with fake news with impunity. Once they have fixed their colours to a mast, they go all-in and nothing will persuade them otherwise. Steve Bannon did this for Donald Trump — “Make America Great Again” was a fantastic example of persuading people that things had gone wrong, but support me and everything will be OK. Assuming that your definition of ‘great’ involved protectionism, insularity, dubious ethnic preferences and generally sticking two fingers up at the rest of the world. But for a country brought up for generations on the idea of American exceptionalism, the land of the free, that shining beacon of freedom and democracy, the promise of restoration to a state that never really existed in the first place proved too hard to resist.

Similarly in the UK the UK Independence Party persuaded many people that the reason for their woes was the UK’s membership of the European Union. The EU has a lot wrong with it for sure, the amount of bureaucracy and number of committees alone is staggering, but any organisation that has managed to more or less keep the peace on a continent whose entire history consists of conflict has to have something going for it. English exceptionalism, the jingoistic, misty-eyed view of the days of Empire, the mistaken love of ‘Rule, Britannia’ (it was taken from a pageant about Alfred the Great), all put to use in persuading people that Brexit would lead to a new golden age of global influence and prosperity.

The debate on Scottish independence is seeing the same things happen — pick your side and defend it, and those who support it, no matter what. The amount of pro-UK hatred for Scottish independence and those who support it on social media (hi, Twitter!) is matched only by the disdain that supporters of independence have for those who support the Union. Two sides, both happily entrenched in their extreme positions, neither willing to look critically at their own side, lobbing insults and unhelpful rhetoric and hogging the media with it, is not the best way to conduct a meaningful and constructive discussion yet it appears to be the only thing happening if you look at mainstream media.

So if political discourse has been reduced to tit-for-tat trench warfare, how do we get away from it? Which newspaper, TV channel or media website, desperate for subscribers and the sensationalist nonsense that attracts them, and often owned by individuals who support a particular political party, will print a reasoned, unbiased view of current events? How does the voice of reason make itself heard above the hubbub and across the apparent chasm that separates the two tribes that seem to inhabit every debate? Even the once-venerated BBC has been hamstrung by political appointments — it’s existence and funding are dependent on an Act of Parliament, all it took was a government shameless enough to take advantage of it — and is reduced to reporting whatever the government says, even when it is a gross distortion of the truth.

I believe that the best answer is to keep searching for the truth, keep engaging with those who disagree with you to find the common ground, keep challenging and questioning those who are ‘on the same side’. You can support a cause and criticise the politicians who champion it; you can call out those who go too far on social media; you can question arguments that support your own beliefs; and you can continue to take EVERYTHING you read or see on TV with a pinch of salt. By all means pick a tribe or family of tribes, but that doesn’t mean you can’t welcome people from other tribes!

Keep questioning, keep challenging yourself and others, and keep it civil!

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Robert Dunn
Robert Dunn

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