Wired to the thinking of the Tribe

by HoratioTarr Fri Jun 10, 2016 12:19 pm

I found this article interesting as I believe we are ultimately all tribal.

Even more astonishingly, from the earliest days of Europeans in America, settlers of both sexes ran away to join Indian tribes. This wasn’t just a few people, it was hundreds and hundreds. The practice was so rife that in the early 1600s settler leaders made it an offence with harsh punishments, but over the following centuries people still ran off in huge numbers. And it hardly ever happened the other way. Indians didn’t want to join white society.

The attraction, argues Junger, was the sense of community, the importance of the tribe, evident in other primates and in primitive human societies. The superficial attractions of American Indian life were obvious: sexual mores were more relaxed, clothing was more comfortable, religion less harsh.

But mostly it was the structure of Indian society that appealed. It was less hierarchical, essentially classless and egalitarian. As the people were nomadic, personal property hardly mattered, since it was limited to what you or your horses could carry.

What changed this natural way of living for humans was first agriculture, then industry. Accumulation of personal property led to people doing what they thought best for themselves, rather than for the common good. But, suggests Junger, we’re not happy like this. We’re wired to the lifestyle of the tribe.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/books/article-3634383/Why-d-war-humans-desire-tribal-sense-belonging-missing-modern-life.html

by HoratioTarr Fri Jun 10, 2016 12:21 pm

Junger, an American journalist and former war correspondent, gives many examples of what our modern way of living has cost us. In a modern city or suburb you can go through an entire day meeting only strangers. As affluence and urbanisation rise, rates of suicide and depression go up. According to the World Health Organisation, people in wealthy countries suffer eight times the depression rate of those in poorer ones. But when we revert to the tribe, things improve.

Those caught up in the bloody conflict in Bosnia often say they were happier during the war. The reason, they say, was they all pulled together, felt connected and part of something bigger than themselves.
Junger spent time embedded with U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and says he was never alone there. Soldiers slept a dozen to a shelter. You couldn’t stretch out an arm without touching someone. Men of all colours, classes and creeds bonded as they had to look out for one another.

In a tribe the survival of the individual depends upon the survival of the group. The lack of this brotherhood is what makes it so hard for returning combat veterans to reintegrate into contemporary, fragmented societies.

by HoratioTarr Fri Jun 10, 2016 12:22 pm

When you step back and really view the way the world is going in this respect...it's quite disconcerting.

by eddie Fri Jun 10, 2016 1:21 pm

Moving this is social issues.

by eddie Fri Jun 10, 2016 1:24 pm

I absolutely think that's true. We all feel safer in a crowd of like-minded people.

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