Three of my four sons are dyed-in-the-wool Rams’ fans.
They’re the type of guy who, while watching a game on TV, will scream at officials’ rulings, curse players, and generally make fools of themselves. I recall one of them having a sponge brick that he would throw at the TV set in disgust. All of them wear Rams’ jerseys, make a big fuss about the NFL draft (when the Rams have a chance to improve their roster), trash-talk other teams’ fans, and are ferociously loyal to “their” team. Our son Ron used to have a shrine in his house which was piled with Rams memorabilia.
You know the type: middle-aged guys wearing silly outfits and making fools out of themselves in the background as the TV cameraman pans the crowd.
Why are they doing this?
It’s called tribalism: the behavior and attitudes that stem from strong loyalty to one’s own tribe or social group. In this case, the guys identify with the professional football team that they grew up with in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. My sons even stayed fanatically loyal to the Rams when they crapped on their Los Angeles fans and bolted to St. Louis.
Go figure.
Tribalism is pervasive in society. Individuals belong to clubs, fraternities, churches, knitting circles, coffee klatches, political parties, and such. It’s probably the rare individual who goes it alone: an antisocial human being.
People like to hang with other people who think like they do, as in “birds of a feather flock together”.
One of the by-products of tribalism is that the comfort of the tribe mentality controls our behavior, in some cases overriding our reason. “Everyone says…” usually means that everyone you associate with (i.e. your tribe) thinks this way.
There was disbelief within our Bear Creek community in 2008 when Barack Obama was elected President. How could that happen? Opposition to Obama was strong in our pasty White, gate-controlled, Jack Nicklaus’ golf course Country Club subdivision. The election must have been rigged, people said. “I don’t know a single person who voted for him!”
That’s right: no one in your tribe would dare support such a guy, let alone a Democrat.
Tribalism affects every facet of life.
Churchgoers feel a common bond with their peers in the pews, and like to feel that “believing” makes them better human beings than non-believers. In some cases, religious tribalism extends to feelings of superiority over other religions; i.e. Christians over Jews, Muslims over Christians, Catholics over Protestants, etc. This is curious to me (a non-believer), as all Jews, Christians, and Muslims pray to the same God of Abraham.
Racism is tribal at its core; the belief that your skin color makes you smarter, more industrious, or just plain more human than folks who don’t share your hue. President Trump has a stated fondness for human beings of Nordic lineage, believing that they work harder and smarter than their South American and African counterparts. His America doesn’t want immigrants from “shit hole countries”. By the same token, many Orientals have the belief that Westerners don’t work as hard, appreciate education as much, or have as much wisdom as they do.
Most wars are tribal in nature, and particularly the ones whose goal is genocide. Christian armies understood that they were doing the Lord’s work during the Crusades, white people felt a need and a duty to exterminate the Native American tribes, and the Nazis felt duty-bound to purify the Aryan “race” by eliminating Jews. Genocide is tribe-on-tribe warfare…no holds barred…because “we’re better than those guys”.
Tribalism controls, to a great extent, how we think. Or, how our group of like-minded folk think. For example, if the tribe believes x, and facts arise that dispute this belief, it is common for the tribe to ignore the new facts or aggressively attack the new information. This is because tribe identity is more important than facts. “Fake news” is a gut response to information that doesn’t support the tribal belief.
“Confirmation bias” is the tendency to process information by looking for, or interpreting, information that is consistent with (the tribe’s) existing beliefs. Tribe members want to believe, and it doesn’t take much of a shove to get them there. This is the explanation for the success of Fox News, which basically reports stories that are favorable to the “conservative” cause. Faithful viewers (the conservative tribe) are rewarded each night by learning that they were “right” about one issue or another, or about how their tribe is being screwed by another tribe (i.e. Liberals, Democrats, Immigrants, the Chinese, the Press).
Donald Trump’s “America First” populist campaign slogan is tribe-speak for “the rest of you nations be damned, America will do whatever it wants, whenever it wants”. His speech to the United Nations this year, reasserting this message, was received by laughter from the assembled dignitaries.
Trump’s tribe (his political base) will undoubtedly understand his rude reception to be a total vindication of the America First movement…because it fits that campaign mantra that our country (the American tribe) is disrespected and taken advantage of.
I know many members of the MAGA tribe. They drank the Kool-Aid back in 2016 and are loathe to believe that they made a mistake.
They’d rather eat green flies than admit that the guy is out of his depth and ill-equipped, intellectually and temperamentally, to lead the Nation.
That’s what tribalism engenders: loyalty over reason, belief over facts.
Ever heard of the Dark Ages?