The Resentment Tribe by Digby

[trumad]

This is one of the best posts I've ever read... Long but awesome.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_02_20_digbysblog_archive.html#110936080468434241

[LiberalEsto]

1. Fantastic

Thanks for posting this, I sent it to several friends

[applegrove]

2. Looks Excellent - I will get back n/t

[Eloriel]

3. I don't buy it

He may have some valid points in general, and it was an interesting read, but I simply do not find his explanation for why the Right is "always angry" and always wants more and is never satisfied and never will be to be in the least satisfactory or valid. It's too simplistic on the one hand, and it does NOT devolve to mere regionalism. Maybe what he's got to say is a piece of it, a symptom of it, related to it -- but it is in NO way ALL of it. His explanation also fails to address their outright pathology (so many of them are simply sociopaths! Tribalism isn't in and of itself sociopathology).

Nope, misses the mark on a lot of points.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. I've felt

that the ghost of the old Confederacy has risen, and that we must stand firm against them and their ideas. This was reinforced by a recent rendition of the Cooper Union speech by Sam Waterston. This article just reinforces and expands upon my feeligns.

My great-great grandfathers and uncles lost health and wealth to defend the ideals of the Union. I will continue their battle-we must win, or the whole world is lost.

[T Roosevelt]

5. Dovetails with a post at Mahablog about six months ago

Wednesday, August 4, 2004
Tribes

(I'm gong to free associate for a while. I hope you won't mind. I will get to a point eventually.)

This morning I stumbled onto this essay by Terry Heaton, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I'd like to add a little to it.

I want to skip down a few paragraphs to the part about tribes, because here the author is close to something important but not all the way there. Start with the paragraph that begins,

In the Postmodern worldview, people are united through the concept of tribes, where attraction takes center stage.

On the surface this sentence may not make sense, especially for people like me who have yet to figure out what postmodernism is. However, it caught my eye because I have long made sense of current human civilization by seeing it as made up of vast, overlapping tribes. It is helpful here to provide a definition of tribe, which Heaton does:

tribe n 1 group of (esp. primitive) families or communities linked by social, religious, or blood ties, and usually having a common culture and dialect and a recognized leader. 2 any similar natural or political division. 3 usu. derog set or number of persons, esp. of one profession etc. or family. (Oxford)

The difference between a tribe and a mere association is that the tribes you belong to (you may belong to several) make up a big part of your self-identity. Put another way, a tribe is an association with an institution or other group of people that your ego attaches to. So, when your tribe is threatened, particularly by another tribe, the ego reacts as if the self is threatened.

Further, long-held tribal identities are nearly impossible to shake loose; most people cannot divorce themselves from a tribe without going through all manner of existential angst.

For example, a person raised Catholic may come to disagree with most Church teaching but hesitate to switch denominations because it just plain feels uncomfortable. That discomfort comes from a primordial part of the subconscious warning us it's dangerous to leave the tribe. We might be eaten by saber-tooth tigers, or something.

I see the joining of tribes as an instinct given us by our early hominid ancestors that is hardwired into our species. Human beings can no more avoid joining tribes than they can avoid breathing. We form tribal identities with families, with communities, with nations, with ethnic or racial groups, and with institutions (religions, football teams, political parties). Tribes also form around philosophies or ideologies.

There are even tribes of people who are opposed to tribes. These people can be identified by how much they quote Ayn Rand to show how uniquely individual they are.

Freepers are an obvious example of a postmodern tribe. They will defend their Freeper fellows and leaders, such as George Bush, beyond all logic and reason, and they will do so with all the fierceness (and lack of intellect) of a wolf defending his pack. No facts, no argument, can shake their absolute faith that the Right is right. For individual Freep, Freepery is an extension of themselves, and if you discredit Freepery, you challenge a Freeper's very existence. It may be easier to reason with a wolf than with a Freeper.

Postmodern tribes differ from ancient tribes in that they are less geograpically based than they used to be. These days it's possible to join a tribe of people scattered about the entire planet. Although we still may classify Americans by city, state, or region -- Southerners, Yankees, Westerners, New Yorkers, Texans, Hillbillies, Hoosiers, etc. -- these identities mean less today than they did a century ago, and a century from now they may be gone entirely.

Many have commented on the Red State-Blue State nonsense within which our current political struggles are framed. Voting patterns do not neatly fall within state borders. What we're really looking at are tribal populations, which still tend to be more concentrated in some regions than in others. Over time, this will change. Even the "solid South" must eventually break up and become more tribally diverse.

Finally, I get to what may be an important point: I believe support for George W. Bush is based almost entirely on tribal loyalty and identity. Mostly he's got a couple of mega-tribes, such as what's loosely called the Religious Right, which is actually made up of several overlapping, socially conservative Christian tribes. And he's got a mega tribe called "political conservatives," which is made up of anti-government, anti-socialist, anti-tax, anti-multicultural (we used to call these people "bigots"), and anti-modernism tribes, among others.

IMO most members of these tribes will stick with Bush no matter how badly he screws up, because he's their tribal leader, and tribes must be defended at all cost. If you lose your tribe, other tribes will catch you and cook you in a big pot and decorate their huts with your shrunken head..

Bushism leaves real conservatives in an uncomfortable position, however. Their tribal instincts tell them to be loyal to the "conservative" tribe, but reason tells them Bush ain't no conservative. On the other hand, the pull of tribal loyalty may be strong enough to keep them from voting for Kerry. This will be an interesting group to watch in the coming weeks.

But what about support for John Kerry? I believe support for Kerry is based less on tribal identity than on an expectation he can perform the job of President of the United States well, or at least a damn sight better than Bush. We liberals and progressives and Democrats for the most part, I think, do not (yet) consider John Kerry to be our leader. He's more like the knight we've hired to go out and slay the dragon.

However, the ferocity with which we dislike the Bushies does come, at least in part, from our tribal loyalties. The Bushies really do want to catch us and cook us in big pots, etc. We are not imagining this.

Some commentators have made a big deal of the perception that most likely Democratic voters are less excited about Kerry becoming President than they are about getting rid of Bush. But what this really says is that support for Bush is based on primordial emotions, mostly fear, while support for Kerry is based more on judgment and reason.

We don't need to apologize for that.