An Introduction to Tribalism for the Modern World That Has Forgotten It
30 comments
·June 28, 2025dcre
dudeinjapan
Be careful with your words there. This article was written by my nephew.
tolerance
This article is so reductive that by the end I don't know who "we" are and what "we have" to preserve and appreciate or what modern state is worth fighting for if it's the one that raised us on the rule of law that that made us illiterate to the tribal nature that this same state is reviving through its failures?
cjfd
One can present these two systems as equal alternatives but there is a very big difference. The system with the rule of law leads to much more prosperous societies than the tribal one. Corruption is economically extremely expensive. Like, one it really gets going, it can easily decrease GDP by a factor of 10. The same with dictatorships. As long as the dictator makes somewhat reasonable decisions it is more or less okay but any dictatorship is only a few bad decisions away from becoming much poorer. And when it depends on the good judgement of a single person these bad decisions are certainly going to come.
Ozzie_osman
This article seems to reduce the world to "fair and non-tribal" vs "unfair and tribal". These probably correlate. But it's not that simple.
For example, in many tribal societies, if a man from tribe A harms a man from tribe B, his own tribe might offer restitution to tribe B (or punishment for the criminal). In fact, disputes would often escalate to tribal leaders, who of course might be biased and only look out for their own, but not always. This was how peace was generally maintained. Otherwise, anytime someone from a tribe harmed someone from another tribe, there would be war.
ants_everywhere
Forgotten it? Tribalism has been one of the single biggest tropes in pop political rhetoric for at least a decade.
It's hard to find a political post on HN that doesn't invoke it in the comments.
moritzwarhier
I think this is a good piece of writing, the only part I disagree with is the claim that these thoughts would be broadly overlooked or disagreed with.
And it could make a bigger effort to connect the world of tribes to the worlds of cities, nations et cetera.
Basically, the history of the modern islands of law, and larger collectives.
I agree with other comments that it could have more links to prior philosophical and anthropological art.
But sometimes, being reductive helps in bringing philosophical point across.
I think that the article does well in bringing across issues that are felt by many people in the world today, especially in the Western world. Geopolitics and international relationships do feel like tribalism scaled up to the industrialized, globalized world sometimes.
This is not new, either, I think.
The close similarity of cronyism and tribalism is pointed out especially well, too.
Another critique could be that it does this reduction so well that for the most part it feels as if the author is arguing for an abandonment of law and a return to tribalism.
lukeasrodgers
There are a lot of big claims here and literally not a single reference to anthropological research or even anything resembling it. This article is very badly argued.
i_dont_know_
I think there's something about the way this is written that's endemic to our time -- it basically feels right because it gives a possible explanation of current events that has some internal consistency. It doesn't mean it's right, but neither the author nor (most of) the audience care about that part.
pnutjam
wow: "Why would a clan that guarantees its own justice ever yield to a system that promises justice to its enemies? To do so is to voluntarily surrender its greatest strengths: the power to protect its own, punish its rivals, and maintain its position in the world. It is not merely a loss of advantage; it is the dismantling of the clan’s very foundation."
White nationalism and conservatism in a nutshell...
reliabilityguy
> White nationalism and conservatism in a nutshell...
Do you think people in Africa think otherwise?
I know the political climate is charged right now, but cmon people.
gcr
Yes, I find folks in other countries are highly collaborative in a way that my own country (USA) often is not.
I think the general sentiment in my country is driven by goal-seeking behavior dominated by individualistic fear, and I see less of that elsewhere. "Political charged"-ness is both a contributor and an outcome.
tolerance
Has it occurred to you that a White nationalist and conservative may be reading that same passage and bringing whatever you are to mind? Or the entire article for that matter.
skrebbel
This is not a novel insight. The attitude described is basically textbook conservatism, as per Wilhoit's law [0]
Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect
For a majority of HN readers (and I assume the commenter you're replying to) that in-group is their country's white majority but in other circles it's other groups. They may be groups who don't call themselves conservatives but that doesn't mean they aren't.
In other words, I agree with their claim that said quote is conservatism in a nutshell. Anti-conservatism isn't rooting for some other group, it's being against this kind of tribalism wholesale.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_M._Wilhoit#Misattribut...
cdrini
That's a pretty wild definition of conservatism, I don't think even uncharitable historians/political scientists would define conservatism in that way. And in fact it's not a textbook definition; looking at the link you posted seems like that quote is from a composer's blog in 2018.
luckylion
"Some random 59 year old from Ohio wrote this, so it's well known that that's conservativism in a nutshell" is a strange stance.
> Anti-conservatism isn't rooting for some other group, it's being against this kind of tribalism wholesale.
Do you have any examples of that? I've never seen someone who doesn't go mild on people who share beliefs he holds dear and judges harshly those who don't.
benreesman
The tribes in the United States used to be called Yankee and Dixie. Now they're called other things, sometimes "red" and "blue", sometimes "MAGA" or "woke", but the geography (Mason-Dixon line), the sympathies, the prejudices, all very visible to this day.
Americans have no trouble seeing tribalism or clannish behavior when its in the Middle East, or in Africa, but seem to think America is differentnt (a phenomenon that also has a name: American Exceptionalism).
In my view, the Yankee/Dixie tribal cold war combined with American Exceptionalism is some pretty stiff stuff indeed.
PhilipRoman
Not american and have no idea what the situation there is like, but from election county maps it seems that the divide is much more fine-grained than you make it sound (nowhere near the sort of thing you see in Germany for example).
efavdb
Yes geo-wise it’s often urban vs in USA. What’s it like in Germany?
reliabilityguy
> (a phenomenon that also has a name: American Exceptionalism).
I’m not American by live in the US, and I agree. This inability of Americans, on average ofc, (regardless of the degree, social status, race, etc) to accept that people in other countries may view A THING differently than what Americans think these said people think is mind boggling.
pnutjam
Exactly my point, this has been going on in America for a long time.
lyu07282
I think its much more useful to think of those divides as artificial or manufactured creations, as a tool for pacification, divide and conquer. You can also see that expressed in US foreign policy, the sunni/shia/kurdish divide in Iraq after the war, that too was an artificial creation by the US ruling class.
nradov
US foreign policy might have exacerbated some tribal or sectarian conflicts but historically those groups have never gotten along very well. There is a long history of violence stretching back centuries before the US even existed.
zmgsabst
Americans see tribalism just fine: we’ve been discussing since Malcolm X how the tribal sentiments of minorities are utilized by a political party in the pursuit of power.
And the primary division these days is urban vs rural, with the secondary PMC vs working class. Woke vs MAGA maps onto that divide more cleanly than anything else.
OrvalWintermute
Despite your clumsy attempt to tie tribalism exclusively to white conservatives, there are many other groups far more tribalist across the spectrum.
pnutjam
Who said exclusively?
micromacrofoot
you guys always tell on yourselves
spacecadet
Yes. This put what I have been saying... "every day feels more and more like survival mixed with fuck you I got mine"... into much better words and concepts. I grew up poor and got involved with "tribes" where power was the goal and we learned growing up that you demonstrated your power. Lucky enough to have escaped that and to have matured into a passivist of sorts- I am troubled by the increasing tribalism and more and more feel my patience eroding and that itch in my id to demonstrate power...
This is hopelessly abstract, with not a single reference to any actual historical group or political regime, let alone any rigorous research or writing. For nearly a decade I've watched people use the word "tribalism" to avoid thinking and have never seen anything to convince me of its value. Calling this high school level writing is unfair to thoughtful high school students.