We talk about tribalism like we understand it. The same goes for racism. Tribalism comes from the nearly irrefutable idea that evolutionary psychology posits that our urges and emotional and physical needs come mostly from what thoughts and desires caused genes to propagate in a hunter-gatherer society where strangers were rarely met except in conflict and violence.
It was a world where even other human species, like Neanderthals, were not to be tolerated to exist. Now like Katharine Hepburn told Humphrey Bogart in the African Queen, we all know that we are here on Earth to rise above nature. And we are certainly called on to rise above racism and tribalism and to not assume they are traits found in others.
History and the news tell a telling story about how “systemic” they are not only in culture but in our DNA. If we all could drop the nutsy world views we love for just long enough to take a hard look at some hard science, we all may be much better equipped to understand the world and may also be better equipped at handling our own enlightenment. And maybe tribalism can be better channelled going crazy over the Seahawks or the Mariners.
Rick Walker
Snohomish
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