I'm going to make a similar suggestion to what I made on Twitter... We need to start reaching out to small groups.
Right now, if you try to present a logical argument on the internet, you're shouting at the sky. It's futile. We're not going to change thousands of lives the way we really want to. We will feel good about ourselves for "owning the libs," though.
I'm reminded of the story of a white supremacists son who went off to college. He was insistent that Jews were evil. Someone decided to show him compassion and invited him over for dinner. Over the course of months, feeding him and letting him get to know the Jewish man who was being kind, he began to see that he was wrong. Not because someone presented a logical argument or because they shouted him down or cancelled him, but because they were kind and they ate with him.
This is the same strategy that Christ used in His time. He would invite the sinners to dine with Him, and then they would turn from their sinful ways.
Our ability to reach out to the world has destroyed our ability to affect change locally. It's all too small. We don't help the poor man on the corner; we give money to the national campaign against homelessness (or whatever). We don't talk to mothers in crisis; we post about Supreme Court justices.
We're all debating everything on a national level or on a worldwide level.
COVID has made this whole thing worse. For nearly a year, for hundreds of millions of people around the world, their association with their fellow man has been limited to what they posted on Facebook or Twitter or (Social Media Platform X). We've dehumanized EVERYONE we meet and put them in categories of either "with us" or "against us."
We need to get off the internet, sit down, and just enjoy some time with other humans without thinking about whether they agree or disagree.
If you can't meet with them face to face, take the discussion away from the public sphere and send messages back and forth. Create a dialog that's more than what you can type in 240 characters.
I cannot help but think this is related to the diminishment of the family.
I grew up with 10 sets of aunts and uncles, dozens of cousins, and an even larger number of great-aunts and uncles, second cousins, third cousins, etc. Just about every philosophy under the sun was represented by people who greeted me with a smile, hug, and kiss each time I saw them. No matter what they sat around the tables and argued over, they all showed up every time to eat and drink and mostly ignore the children running through their midst.
We don't really have to much of that now. My husband and I made a concerted effort to mimic this for our kids since we live away from family, but the best we could do was host regular gatherings for friends. But we choose our friends. Our friends mostly have the same views as us.
Maybe if we had bigger blood tribes we wouldn't seek out ideological ones.
That's an interesting insight. I hadn't considered it, but it makes sense. Loss of identity in the traditional/conventional sense leads to LARPing it out in the new, globally-connected ideological/social media realm.
I think it has everything to do with the breakdown of our institutions. From the media to the Church to the government, no one trusts traditional authority structures to uphold the true, the good, and the beautiful or any coherent value system really. For many traditional Catholics (myself included), this means a hermeneutic of suspicion for everything that comes out of the Vatican. And while this is certainly warranted, it means even when it comes to authentic magisterial pronouncements, we’re going to seek out other, lesser authorities whose world views more neatly conform to our own to confirm or reject that Church teaching. When back in the day, we used to just listen to the Pope and our bishops and stop there.
This can be extended to all other areas of life. Science, medicine, geopolitics. Universities, newspapers, research institutions, all of them have been corrupted or are perceived as corrupt by enough people that we cannot refer to them as objective arbiters of truth in order to settle disputes. We seek filters, pundits, to help us know what to think. Part of this is that our institutions themselves have become part of tribalism and the other part is that there’s so much information out there, we need an arbiter to help us discern what’s important and what’s factual.
Then again, perhaps I’m just begging the question. Why did our institutions break down and become tribalized? Perhaps it’s the information glut. Anthropology, archaeology, psychology, and the rest of the soft and hard sciences are only a little over 200 years old in their recognizable form. Perhaps the sheer amount of information available to us is more than we can possibly use and integrate into a coherent viable system.
Thanks for the post, Steve! I’m a longtime 1P5 fan and I love what you’re doing here. God bless.
"Why did our institutions break down and become tribalized?"
This is the question I don't know that anyone has satisfactorily answered. Was it inevitable? Is this just what mass literacy and global connectedness have wrought? We need to keep probing for answers here.
You are right. Mass literacy cannot be underestimated. If we are honest, this has really only been true for the last century at most. But in that short century it has triggered the transitioning from a "mass society" (modernity) to a "network society" (post-modernity). I often find myself repeating to friends that the reason things are so messy right now is that we are at an inflection point in history. Like other inflection points (transition from Roman society to Medieval society, or from Medieval society to modernity) it is a thoroughly unpleasant time to live, characterized by violence (or at least widespread unrest) and apocalyptic preachers. What we are living through right now, so far as I am concerned, is "normal", just infrequent. When society gets reorganized, as it does from time to time, we should expect things to be unpleasant.
I think, perhaps, there has been a misunderstanding. An inflection point is, for the purposes of this comment, the change in direction of a line. It has a more technical definition that isn’t super important for our purposes here.
While human nature does not change, the circumstances under which humans live do change from time to time. Sometimes those circumstances change dramatically, altering human behaviors and customs substantially. In part, this is how we distinguish different historical eras. In no way does this imply a cyclical nature for history. Rather, I mean to describe a linear history that changes direction from time to time. As a general rule, transitioning from one era to the next is chaotic. Human societies making those transitions generally undergo existential crises because the people in those historical periods lose a sense of who they are; they don’t yet understand the new society they are entering. I was only attempting to suggest that we live in one of those transitional periods and that serves to explain a lot of the societal angst we experience.
Stop it. You’re reading into my point something that isn’t there, and I am not really sure why you insist on doing so. There is no logical connection between the idea that there exist different periods of history with different fundamental living conditions, and the idea that history is cyclical (or that there is some underlying “logic” to history). Yes, the transition from one type of society to another is seen largely in retrospect. The fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of medieval society took several centuries and couldn’t be characterized as a transition until after Rome was definitively gone. As a result, I also agree that the names of eras and their starting and ending points can be arbitrary. But again, none of that has even the remotest connection to the idea that history is cyclical or that history has some underlying logic. Also, none of that makes any difference as to whether those historical periods are real or not. There can be, and are, real (even measurable) differences in human living conditions, behaviors, and patterns of thought at different periods in human history. To say that we shouldn’t characterize and give names to those periods (eras, epochs) because they are all part of one history one “be-ing” is beyond silly. By that logic we shouldn’t make any distinction between cats and dogs or chairs and tables, all are just part of the one “be-ing”.We might as well just give up thinking altogether.
If we want to play the grossly-misread-and-heresy-police game, I would counter by claiming that your position (“there is only be-ing”) is basically pantheism/monism, while also arrogantly conceding that I sure you don’t actually believe that, you’re just not smart enough to see the logical endpoint of your premises. Let’s not do that, because it’s dishonest.
Well, since you mentioned "tribes"...ha - seriously, I have been reading about Nicholas Black Elk and how he was able to merge his Native religion with the Catholic faith, how the early good Jesuits taught him - it's a long read of many books; how he was defeated, but adapted, and was able to reconcile his old ways pretty much perfectly with the Catholic faith. It is beyond my understanding, but have found my life is not so contentious as it used to be, thinking about the Good Red Road...
Eh, I don't know what I'm talking about, but saw this yesterday to more easily explain: The pessimist complains about the wind, the optimist hopes for a change in direction, and the realist adjusts the sails.
I fall firmly into the camp that tribalism, ingroup / outgroup dynamics, are, if not genetically hard-wired, then a nearly universal feature of human societies. And by societies I don’t mean just civilizations and cultures. These dynamics play out on smaller scales too. The reason these dynamics are pervasive is simple. If your society either cannot or actively chooses not to distinguish friend from foe, then inevitably your society will be destroyed by a society that does make that distinction (and judges you to be the foe). What this means is that the only societies that endure are those that are fundamentally tribal. From time to time there may arise societies that don’t use ingroup / outgroup dynamics but they will always be subsumed into a society that does. In this sense, tribalism is the basic and advantageous distrust of outgroup members until they have proven that they are not a threat to the ingroup.
It is fashionable to talk about the exploits of European explorers and their colonial governments as of late, and I think here too they might provide useful examples. We know that Europeans were not able to colonize every part of the globe. What distinguishes the parts of the globe they were able to colonize, from those they were not? Well, at least in part, their reception by the indigenous society. The European explorers write that in the Americas they were greeted largely with curiosity. In China and Japan, Europeans were greeted with skepticism. The Americas got added to Philip II’s list of titles, China and Japan did not. Now, I well understand that the comparison is not perfect. The Aztecs, for example, were dealing with a good deal of internal societal problems when Cortez arrived, which Cortez exploited (the Aztecs had their own colonies, who were less than happy to be their subjects). Moreover, at least in Early Modernity, the Chinese and Japanese societies were more technologically advanced than any found in the Americas. And, the Chinese and Japanese had the advantage of having Old World disease immunities that the Aztecs and Incas lacked. Nevertheless, the fundamental difference in disposition to the European outsiders aligns with the end result.
As you note, tribal thinking is exacerbated when there is a heightened perception of danger. If you know your enemy is on the warpath you are likely to hear them coming around every corner. In conversation with my brothers, I often fund myself coming back to the idea that 2020 was a year of revelations. At lot of groups, for whatever reason, felt it was time to show their cards. And, a lot of what would have sounded like tinfoil hat conspiracy theorizing in 2019 became revealed as fact in 2020. The “build back better” and the “great reset”, the pet projects of a shockingly small number of the rich and powerful being forced on human society through propaganda and social incentives are but the most obvious. The point here is simply that, if you think that “build back better” is a euphemism for a dystopian hellscape and all those in charge of it have just stepped out onto the stage and into the light, you’re going to be on edge. I was just reading an article from a Catholic news group yesterday talking about the response of a certain Catholic charity to COVID in underdeveloped parts of the world and the quotes from their spokesman were basically verbatim those of the UN. No matter how much good a given Catholic charity does, when you hear them lovingly quoting from one of the Church’s greatest enemies, it sets you on edge. The shields go up, and so forth. Whether you want to or not. You are protecting yourself and others you love from a real and present danger.
Now, there can be disadvantages to tribalism. Ideally tribalism is a filtering mechanism, designed to weed out the harmful while allowing the good or the neutral to pass through and be received by the society. But, when the outgroup appears so corrupt that nothing is allowed to pass through, it leaves the ingroup stunted and stale, unable to undertake a healthy self-criticism, correct its faults, and grow. This unhealthy form of tribalism, I think, ultimately backfires. Eventually the ingroup members discover the outgroup (in spite of the efforts of the gatekeepers) and rightfully come to resent the ingroup for the stunted backward society that it is, and this not because the ingroup’s ideals are wrong but because those ideas have been overshadowed by a formalistic tendency, the appearance being more important than the content. Obviously form and content are intrinsically connected, but if it is perceived that the content is being ignored in favor of the form, people will abandon both. Tribalism doesn’t have to be unhealthy like this, but it takes real wisdom to guide and moderate the tribal tendency and use it well. It also takes real trust on the part of those who are not leaders in society to accept the filtering of the leaders. As usual, wisdom and trust are lacking and so we are left with an iron curtain of sorts.
The claim that society has always been a battle between conservative and liberal camps is only relevant to democracies. That political spectrum is split along such lines (which is overly simplistic but hey) is because democracies are set up to require a “governing” team and one or more “oppositions”.
Democracies are very young, and in their current form you can argue that they mostly were only formed in the 20th century (America is an exception, but it actually proves my point I think). As democracies ‘mature’, they don’t become more aligned, they become more tribal. (America is the model democracy and definitely seems more tribal than other democracies).
Most democracies are set up to operate between two extremes and seek consensus in the middle. Hardly surprising that society takes on the same form - but with societal values breaking down and no firm purpose to society, consensus is rapidly becoming a thing of the past.
I didn't intend this to be a political post, though. It's more of a general phenomenon that tends to show up rather strongly within political contexts, but is found in lots of other areas as well. Wherever there's an ideological position staked out, you're likely to run across this.
Perhaps, but I suppose I’m suggesting that the origin of this is political, or rather that it’s due to our political system. We’re far enough down the democratic rabbit hole that the consequences of a system that is typically designed to have a governing side and an opposition side(s) is driving an increasingly confrontational approach to others and therefore cementing the divisions more.
I just don’t think in medieval England your ordinary person was discussing how “liberal” the local monastery was, and how they didn’t agree with the King’s latest piece of legislation. They didn’t have the same level of tribalism as we do now, which is global, instant, and divisive.
I'd boil the problem down to one thing that needs to be solved first, though not a magic bullet - self-awareness. The majority of people have no idea why they believe what they do, and more importantly, why are they so angry when someone disagrees with them. This inability (or unwillingness) to look at interior motives closes one's mind to any alternatives, because "accepting another possibility means I'd have to think and that's hard," or "accepting another possibility means what I think might be wrong and that's scary," or "accepting another possibility means [trusted person] could be wrong and I need to feel safe with [trusted person]."
An ability to accept intellectual discomfort through introspection, for the most part, doesn't exist among any creed or political stripe. Solve that, and things get better. How to solve that? Don't ask me, I'm a guy who's commenting on the internet.
Fear does seem to be key to all of this. Tribalism exists as a group response to threats, right? So it only makes sense that fear always plays a role in driving it.
I am now way an expert, although like yourself, the the subject interests me a lot. I wonder if perhaps the breakdown of discourse is largely due to an underlying problem that is growing throughout the sciences: the functionality of dialectic itself as a means to discern, discuss and share truth in dialogue. Happy Friday!
All right. I'll try not to let this run on, but, in my defense, you are asking one of those simple questions that is actually right at the heart of the research I am currently working on.
The main thrust of this essay is tribalism. Let's start with that. Here's what I see about the opposing "tribes" : Rationalists, atheists, and materialists, with the Chief-Thains (ie, the ones with the most money, and the biggest clubs) the Transhumanists and the Eugenicists.
Trace all their philosophical roots to their beginnings. You encounter the beginning of the clash between two opposing paradigms -- back to the ancient dispute between Plato who believed in the immortality of the soul [see: Phaedo and Meno] vs Aristotle who asserted that human beings were nothing more than blank slates to be written upon by a hereditary master class [see: Politics].
All the Rationalists, Materialists and Humanists, Transhumanists and Eugenicists stop there, and dare go no further. These two opposing paradigms have clashed and warred from the 17th and 18th centuries to present day. Gottfried Leibniz versus Isaac Newton, Rene Descartes, John Locke, et al. After them we get sickos like Malthus and Darwin, and on and on, until here we are in present day circumstances, looking at how every scientific discipline is rotting under ant-scientific corruption from within because of these people and their dominant views.
These two paradigms are still fighting it out in the original, perpetual balance of power war, and dare not ever stop.
Why?
Because they dare never go any further into the past beyond Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates. If they did, they would discover that what they call rationality is flawed, and fundamentally wrong.
Beyond the ancient Greek founders of Classical Reason, the basis of our modern systems of rational thought, were other, more ancient truth seekers in the era of mythology. These people understood that truth could not be unknowable, or at best, only relative. The whole point of all the mythologies of the ancient world was about the pursuit of truth. The Ideal Human they wanted to be, or to return to depended on knowing truth.
Ultimately, on finding it, the discovery that no human being was capable of becoming perfect and immortal, not even with the help of the gods, was what spawned Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle in the first place.
The ancients were afraid. The gods were lying -- all of them. The logos that the ancient Greeks had produced from the mythos they were born into told them that the world they knew would ultimately diminish and die. There was no world to replace it. Outside of the fallen, dying world and its mythos was chaos, and death. To go beyond it was to go insane, and die in disgrace and dishonor.
Later, Christianity arrived, and a new mythos was born. Out of it, a new logos preached and taught of a new world, an Ideal Human Who was Jesus, the Creator-God become Man. Everything the ancient peoples had hoped and searched for...
But by then, most of the ancient world was decaying into fatalism, narcissism and nihilism. Thanks to those philosophers, Pontius Pilate is asking Jesus, moments before the Crucifixion, 'What is truth?' His rhetorical question was the cynical cry of the entire age. Rome and its gods had no answer to it. Pilate didn't even realize that the Truth was standing right in front of him when he asked it.
To conclude, I think it is about time we move beyond this old dialectic, and re-examine how to look at, explain, and share the truths we have.
Oh! Sorry I missed you. Today was the day Sarah and I officially announced we're expecting. I've been answering FB, emails and texts all day, I and I just finally got a breather. Sufferin sucotash! I don't know how you can do this every day. And this ONE topic from people I actually like (or at least say I do).
Sorry it was bit long. But I guessed it was a reasonable distillation of what was about 89 pages of rough text in a second draft, so ... yeah.
And I didn't want to make it go on so long, but there it is, and here we all are. You said awhile ago that you're behind in your reading, and I can sure relate to that. 2,000 years of saintly people writing literally miles of pages of great answers to all our questions is its own problem, isn't it? None of those people ever thought there would come a time in the history of the world when nobody would have years and years to read them all.
And the other side of the problem are people like Robert Pirsig, and his Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. All of his work to find out why science is rotting out with self-created anti-science, all of his research in pursuit of the truth, led him straight as an arrow to the Catholic Church as the solution, and he couldn't stand it. It disturbed his sanity, and blew his mind.
Unless you have a solid -- and I mean solid -- education in rhetoric, you'll get lost in all the conniving head games and logic traps he put in that book to hide the fact from himself and everyone else that the enlightenment not did not produce the scientific 'dogmas' which should have equaled or surpassed Catholicism, and was never necessary for human progress, but was an irrational hindrance to its organic growth upon those who stubbornly insisted upon seeking real answers by faithfully following the truth wherever it lead anyway. The last 500 years of rational modernism was a waste of time, and had never produced anything but the very things that were accelerating the word's demise.
Pirsig's book was as much of an open confession of his failure as it was a covert but angry denial of the very answers he sought. In a way, it was the twentieth century equivalent of Captain Ahab going to the bottom with his nemesis, hating the white whale of the dying modern world, but determined to never admit why...
Um.... anyway.
Everyone that has commented so far has some damn good points, and a solid grasp of many parts of the problem at the heart of your article. Your article itself is rich with truth -- rich, I say! Rich! Haha! -- including the resource materials you quoted.
Take that question above -- 'Why did our institutions break down and become tribalized?' which is the excellent question of the hour, and it has a definite, truthful and helpful answer.
No, it was not because of mass education, and their deteriorations were helped along by mass propaganda and brainwashing, but that was not its cause.
Literacy and education are not always the same thing, although many people assume so in a society where literacy is very widespread. Probing deeper is exactly what to do.
The institutions that are breaking down base their ideals in a fallible, mortal image of humanity. The ideal human of the modern world is not even close to the model of the (ultimately unachievable) beautiful, perfect and immortal human of the ancient world, no matter how many injections of Botox or vaccinations for Covid.
But that is where dialectics has got us to: some tribes are defending an inhumane, machinelike, processed monster of a system and its institutions, while other tribes who are still sane can only watch them lose their reason, their humanity, and ultimately their lives.
The institutions that are falling are doing so because they're based in lies, and refuse to give them up. Their ideals are finite, limited and not universal. (All modern governments, for instance, are operated and financed on the lie of stealing.)
In the end, just like the fallible human beings that made them and operated them, they grow old, they become weaker, they lose the capacity to function, and ultimately they die. That's all they can do.
That's what the Greek truth seekers discovered thousands of years ago, and it's what the tribes in charge of things in this world are facing now. It's what Robert Pirsig and the Boomer generation were completely unequipped to face, and its partly why we are gathering into tribes.
What is really the chief reason the sane ones among us are organizing into tribes?
Work crews.
We are planning and organizing for the work ahead.
The world, its institutions and the paradigms they are based on are not going to die anymore. They are dying, and we are getting ready for it.
The sane ones that is.
You, your wife, me, my wife, and all the wonderful people that left a comment here.
It's what we are. It's what we do.
And now -- the fix.
Identify the problem, get the whole truth of the matter, find the people responsible, correct or remove them, assess the damage, plan repairs or replacements, recycle what can be re-used and dispose of the garbage responsibly. Care for the dying, grieve for the dead, take care of the necessary things, make the appropriate funeral arrangements, and everything else is cleaned and put away properly.
Start with ourselves, then our families and tribes. After that the nation. After that, you over there, us over here and the other sane nations of sane tribes made up of sane families of sane people will work together to clean up the rest of the planet.
(The planet? Yes, the planet. The earth is fine, only the old world is dying.)
Hopefully, none of the prophets of doom and gloom, Catholic or otherwise, are right about the timing and the conditions ahead.
Ultimately, I would just LOVE to wait for Jesus to show up with a million trillion angels and saints, but I have no idea how to tell an angel to take out the garbage, and I don't have the first clue how a resurrected Catholic saint's organization skills are.
Neither do any of you, not really, let's be honest, so we are doing the only thing besides praying that we know how, and that is to get organized and get ready for work.
My apologies for the delay in replying to you. My attention has been directed elsewhere, and after reading your reply (which I thank you for), I felt it deserved careful regard and consideration when I could put the greatest amount of attention to it.
There is still a lot I would like to consider more in depth, but I wish to at least say here that I would agree with much of your comment on Plato. I do agree with your assessment that much of the intellectual and ideological trouble can be laid at the feet of his school of thought, and of his heirs. But Aristotle is not blameless either, for that matter.
You had said, "The later attempt by Christian thinkers- particularly the early fathers and most particularly Augustine - to “explain” Apostolic Tradition through the terms and metaphysic of the neo-Platonists has proven [to have] been nothing short of disastrous, especially in the Latin/Western church." And I most certainly agree.
And I agree with your later statement that there is, in fact, an internal metaphysic within the Old and New testaments which is distinct from, and incompatible with "that neo-Platonic sort." Do they "constitute" Apostolic Tradition? That is an intriguing word choice. I am intrigued, but until I can hear more of your argument on this choice of phrase, I will respectfully neither agree nor disagree.
Though in your conclusion you worded it differently and with modern symbolic language, I was reminded somewhat of the old pagan problem of the wheel of incarnation, in its unending repetition and how to escape it. In other places it was sometimes termed the problem or riddle of the circle of sin. I agree that Plato and the Neo-Platonists have no real answer, and never will.
I would venture to say however, that it was not only because their metaphysics failed to give it, but also in large part because they wanted to bury any memory of any pre-platonic schools of thought that led anywhere close to the concept of Arete, (usually translated into the word virtue) whether through willful ignorance, disingenuous argument or outright violent force. Is this what you were alluding to in your final sentence, regarding Mind versus Being and real beings?
So if Plato, Neoplatonism, and all their palsied metaphysics are to be reckoned with, especially the notions of eternal Ideas/Forms/universals, it seems that searching the past for what they attempted to replace would be a good area to start.
The harm they've done to the entire inhabited planet, let alone the west, is almost incalculable. Look at what their intellectual heirs have done with Fra Luca Pacioli's straightforward treatise of accounting, and how the modern accounting principles once based upon a solid theology of confession have become the means to manifest the third Horseman's power of Famine to accumulate wealth, and to lead merchants the world over from a life of virtue leading to heaven into a Pestilence upon the entire human race.
To conclude, once again I thank you for the comments and intriguing arguments, they are most welcome. I look forward to any reply you make. Heaven knows, I am not a subject matter expert on much of anything anymore, but it is wonderful to converse in good company and fraternal peace with those who are. God Bless!
Tribal is a misnomer here; a poetic word harkening back to some supposed "primitivism", which for some reason people take to be an explanation... What we're calling "tribalism" here is a modern middle-class ("bourgeois") squabble about who has the right plan for improving the world. Everyone who enters society these days (i.e. everyone who considers themselves a respectable person) thinks it's their duty and calling to know how to improve the world and preach it. Naturally people disagree on the right method, and they can't help seeing those with the wrong method for improving the world as the enemies of all humanity. Stop caring about making the world a better place, stop caring about improving society, stop caring about saving humanity... and see how quickly your "tribal" tendencies disappear.
Quote from Zhuangzi (Burton Watson translation)
The man with two toes webbed together would weep if he tried to tear them apart; the man with a sixth finger on his hand would howl if he tried to gnaw it off. Of these two, one has more than the usual number, the other has less, but in worrying about it they are identical. Nowadays the benevolent men of the age lift up weary eyes,10 worrying over the ills of the world, while the men of no benevolence tear apart the original form of their inborn nature in their greed for eminence and wealth. Therefore I wonder if benevolence and righteousness are really part of man's true form? From the Three Dynasties on down, what a lot of fuss and hubbub they have made in the world!
If we must use curve and plumb line, compass and square to make something right, this means cutting away its inborn nature; if we must use cords and knots, glue and lacquer to make something firm, this means violating its natural Virtue. So the crouchings and bendings of rites and music, the smiles and beaming looks of benevolence and righteousness, which are intended to comfort the hearts of the world, in fact destroy their constant naturalness.
For in the world there can be constant naturalness. Where there is constant naturalness, things are arced not by the use of the curve, straight not by the use of the plumb line, rounded not by compasses, squared not by T squares, joined not by glue and lacquer, bound not by ropes and lines. Then all things in the world, simple and compliant, live and never know how they happen to live; all things, rude and unwitting, get what they need and never know how they happen to get it. Past and present it has been the same; nothing can do injury to this [principle]. Why then come with benevolence and righteousness, that tangle and train of glue and lacquer, ropes and lines, and try to wander in the realm of the Way and its Virtue? You will only confuse the world!
A little confusion can alter the sense of direction; a great confusion can alter the inborn nature. How do I know this is so? Ever since that man of the Yu clan began preaching benevolence and righteousness and stirring up the world, all the men in the world have dashed headlong for benevolence and righteousness. This is because benevolence and righteousness have altered their inborn nature, is it not?
Let me try explaining what I mean. From the Three Dynasties on down, everyone in the world has altered his inborn nature because of some [external] thing. The petty man? - he will risk death for the sake of profit. The knight? - will risk it for the sake of fame. The high official? - he will risk it for family; the sage? - he will risk it for the world. All these various men go about the business in a different way, and are tagged differently when it comes to fame and reputation; but in blighting their inborn nature and risking their lives for something they are the same.
Apologies for replying to my own comment twice, (I wish there was an edit function); this is my last one...
Take the Roman Catholic altar in "tribal" terms. In the middle ages, the Roman altar is the symbol of Western Christendom, against the Greek heretics and Mohammadens of the East; every good citizen of the Holy Roman Empire worships at it. In the Counter-Reformation, the Roman altar is the symbol of Catholic orthodoxy (Trent) against the Protestant heretics coming from up north; now more than before the altar represents the right theology, the right doctrine about God and the Church. Now, in our post-Vatican II age, the Roman altar has been thoroughly modernised, has it's become a symbol for improving humanity, for making the world a better place; but this has divided the altar somewhat, because not everyone agrees on the right method for improving humanity — some think it's fundamentally a matter of discipline, so they want the Roman altar to be austere and reverential; others think it's fundamentally an attitude of open friendliness, so they want the Roman altar to be warm and welcoming . . .
I'm going to make a similar suggestion to what I made on Twitter... We need to start reaching out to small groups.
Right now, if you try to present a logical argument on the internet, you're shouting at the sky. It's futile. We're not going to change thousands of lives the way we really want to. We will feel good about ourselves for "owning the libs," though.
I'm reminded of the story of a white supremacists son who went off to college. He was insistent that Jews were evil. Someone decided to show him compassion and invited him over for dinner. Over the course of months, feeding him and letting him get to know the Jewish man who was being kind, he began to see that he was wrong. Not because someone presented a logical argument or because they shouted him down or cancelled him, but because they were kind and they ate with him.
This is the same strategy that Christ used in His time. He would invite the sinners to dine with Him, and then they would turn from their sinful ways.
Our ability to reach out to the world has destroyed our ability to affect change locally. It's all too small. We don't help the poor man on the corner; we give money to the national campaign against homelessness (or whatever). We don't talk to mothers in crisis; we post about Supreme Court justices.
We're all debating everything on a national level or on a worldwide level.
COVID has made this whole thing worse. For nearly a year, for hundreds of millions of people around the world, their association with their fellow man has been limited to what they posted on Facebook or Twitter or (Social Media Platform X). We've dehumanized EVERYONE we meet and put them in categories of either "with us" or "against us."
We need to get off the internet, sit down, and just enjoy some time with other humans without thinking about whether they agree or disagree.
If you can't meet with them face to face, take the discussion away from the public sphere and send messages back and forth. Create a dialog that's more than what you can type in 240 characters.
Yes. I like it. Even as an introvert who cringes at the idea, I see the merit in it.
I cannot help but think this is related to the diminishment of the family.
I grew up with 10 sets of aunts and uncles, dozens of cousins, and an even larger number of great-aunts and uncles, second cousins, third cousins, etc. Just about every philosophy under the sun was represented by people who greeted me with a smile, hug, and kiss each time I saw them. No matter what they sat around the tables and argued over, they all showed up every time to eat and drink and mostly ignore the children running through their midst.
We don't really have to much of that now. My husband and I made a concerted effort to mimic this for our kids since we live away from family, but the best we could do was host regular gatherings for friends. But we choose our friends. Our friends mostly have the same views as us.
Maybe if we had bigger blood tribes we wouldn't seek out ideological ones.
That's an interesting insight. I hadn't considered it, but it makes sense. Loss of identity in the traditional/conventional sense leads to LARPing it out in the new, globally-connected ideological/social media realm.
I think it has everything to do with the breakdown of our institutions. From the media to the Church to the government, no one trusts traditional authority structures to uphold the true, the good, and the beautiful or any coherent value system really. For many traditional Catholics (myself included), this means a hermeneutic of suspicion for everything that comes out of the Vatican. And while this is certainly warranted, it means even when it comes to authentic magisterial pronouncements, we’re going to seek out other, lesser authorities whose world views more neatly conform to our own to confirm or reject that Church teaching. When back in the day, we used to just listen to the Pope and our bishops and stop there.
This can be extended to all other areas of life. Science, medicine, geopolitics. Universities, newspapers, research institutions, all of them have been corrupted or are perceived as corrupt by enough people that we cannot refer to them as objective arbiters of truth in order to settle disputes. We seek filters, pundits, to help us know what to think. Part of this is that our institutions themselves have become part of tribalism and the other part is that there’s so much information out there, we need an arbiter to help us discern what’s important and what’s factual.
Then again, perhaps I’m just begging the question. Why did our institutions break down and become tribalized? Perhaps it’s the information glut. Anthropology, archaeology, psychology, and the rest of the soft and hard sciences are only a little over 200 years old in their recognizable form. Perhaps the sheer amount of information available to us is more than we can possibly use and integrate into a coherent viable system.
Thanks for the post, Steve! I’m a longtime 1P5 fan and I love what you’re doing here. God bless.
"Why did our institutions break down and become tribalized?"
This is the question I don't know that anyone has satisfactorily answered. Was it inevitable? Is this just what mass literacy and global connectedness have wrought? We need to keep probing for answers here.
You are right. Mass literacy cannot be underestimated. If we are honest, this has really only been true for the last century at most. But in that short century it has triggered the transitioning from a "mass society" (modernity) to a "network society" (post-modernity). I often find myself repeating to friends that the reason things are so messy right now is that we are at an inflection point in history. Like other inflection points (transition from Roman society to Medieval society, or from Medieval society to modernity) it is a thoroughly unpleasant time to live, characterized by violence (or at least widespread unrest) and apocalyptic preachers. What we are living through right now, so far as I am concerned, is "normal", just infrequent. When society gets reorganized, as it does from time to time, we should expect things to be unpleasant.
That reminds me of this clip from Niall Ferguson: https://youtu.be/yLiPPtxKRAA
I think, perhaps, there has been a misunderstanding. An inflection point is, for the purposes of this comment, the change in direction of a line. It has a more technical definition that isn’t super important for our purposes here.
While human nature does not change, the circumstances under which humans live do change from time to time. Sometimes those circumstances change dramatically, altering human behaviors and customs substantially. In part, this is how we distinguish different historical eras. In no way does this imply a cyclical nature for history. Rather, I mean to describe a linear history that changes direction from time to time. As a general rule, transitioning from one era to the next is chaotic. Human societies making those transitions generally undergo existential crises because the people in those historical periods lose a sense of who they are; they don’t yet understand the new society they are entering. I was only attempting to suggest that we live in one of those transitional periods and that serves to explain a lot of the societal angst we experience.
Stop it. You’re reading into my point something that isn’t there, and I am not really sure why you insist on doing so. There is no logical connection between the idea that there exist different periods of history with different fundamental living conditions, and the idea that history is cyclical (or that there is some underlying “logic” to history). Yes, the transition from one type of society to another is seen largely in retrospect. The fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of medieval society took several centuries and couldn’t be characterized as a transition until after Rome was definitively gone. As a result, I also agree that the names of eras and their starting and ending points can be arbitrary. But again, none of that has even the remotest connection to the idea that history is cyclical or that history has some underlying logic. Also, none of that makes any difference as to whether those historical periods are real or not. There can be, and are, real (even measurable) differences in human living conditions, behaviors, and patterns of thought at different periods in human history. To say that we shouldn’t characterize and give names to those periods (eras, epochs) because they are all part of one history one “be-ing” is beyond silly. By that logic we shouldn’t make any distinction between cats and dogs or chairs and tables, all are just part of the one “be-ing”.We might as well just give up thinking altogether.
If we want to play the grossly-misread-and-heresy-police game, I would counter by claiming that your position (“there is only be-ing”) is basically pantheism/monism, while also arrogantly conceding that I sure you don’t actually believe that, you’re just not smart enough to see the logical endpoint of your premises. Let’s not do that, because it’s dishonest.
Well, since you mentioned "tribes"...ha - seriously, I have been reading about Nicholas Black Elk and how he was able to merge his Native religion with the Catholic faith, how the early good Jesuits taught him - it's a long read of many books; how he was defeated, but adapted, and was able to reconcile his old ways pretty much perfectly with the Catholic faith. It is beyond my understanding, but have found my life is not so contentious as it used to be, thinking about the Good Red Road...
Eh, I don't know what I'm talking about, but saw this yesterday to more easily explain: The pessimist complains about the wind, the optimist hopes for a change in direction, and the realist adjusts the sails.
"The pessimist complains about the wind, the optimist hopes for a change in direction, and the realist adjusts the sails."
I like this.
I fall firmly into the camp that tribalism, ingroup / outgroup dynamics, are, if not genetically hard-wired, then a nearly universal feature of human societies. And by societies I don’t mean just civilizations and cultures. These dynamics play out on smaller scales too. The reason these dynamics are pervasive is simple. If your society either cannot or actively chooses not to distinguish friend from foe, then inevitably your society will be destroyed by a society that does make that distinction (and judges you to be the foe). What this means is that the only societies that endure are those that are fundamentally tribal. From time to time there may arise societies that don’t use ingroup / outgroup dynamics but they will always be subsumed into a society that does. In this sense, tribalism is the basic and advantageous distrust of outgroup members until they have proven that they are not a threat to the ingroup.
It is fashionable to talk about the exploits of European explorers and their colonial governments as of late, and I think here too they might provide useful examples. We know that Europeans were not able to colonize every part of the globe. What distinguishes the parts of the globe they were able to colonize, from those they were not? Well, at least in part, their reception by the indigenous society. The European explorers write that in the Americas they were greeted largely with curiosity. In China and Japan, Europeans were greeted with skepticism. The Americas got added to Philip II’s list of titles, China and Japan did not. Now, I well understand that the comparison is not perfect. The Aztecs, for example, were dealing with a good deal of internal societal problems when Cortez arrived, which Cortez exploited (the Aztecs had their own colonies, who were less than happy to be their subjects). Moreover, at least in Early Modernity, the Chinese and Japanese societies were more technologically advanced than any found in the Americas. And, the Chinese and Japanese had the advantage of having Old World disease immunities that the Aztecs and Incas lacked. Nevertheless, the fundamental difference in disposition to the European outsiders aligns with the end result.
As you note, tribal thinking is exacerbated when there is a heightened perception of danger. If you know your enemy is on the warpath you are likely to hear them coming around every corner. In conversation with my brothers, I often fund myself coming back to the idea that 2020 was a year of revelations. At lot of groups, for whatever reason, felt it was time to show their cards. And, a lot of what would have sounded like tinfoil hat conspiracy theorizing in 2019 became revealed as fact in 2020. The “build back better” and the “great reset”, the pet projects of a shockingly small number of the rich and powerful being forced on human society through propaganda and social incentives are but the most obvious. The point here is simply that, if you think that “build back better” is a euphemism for a dystopian hellscape and all those in charge of it have just stepped out onto the stage and into the light, you’re going to be on edge. I was just reading an article from a Catholic news group yesterday talking about the response of a certain Catholic charity to COVID in underdeveloped parts of the world and the quotes from their spokesman were basically verbatim those of the UN. No matter how much good a given Catholic charity does, when you hear them lovingly quoting from one of the Church’s greatest enemies, it sets you on edge. The shields go up, and so forth. Whether you want to or not. You are protecting yourself and others you love from a real and present danger.
Now, there can be disadvantages to tribalism. Ideally tribalism is a filtering mechanism, designed to weed out the harmful while allowing the good or the neutral to pass through and be received by the society. But, when the outgroup appears so corrupt that nothing is allowed to pass through, it leaves the ingroup stunted and stale, unable to undertake a healthy self-criticism, correct its faults, and grow. This unhealthy form of tribalism, I think, ultimately backfires. Eventually the ingroup members discover the outgroup (in spite of the efforts of the gatekeepers) and rightfully come to resent the ingroup for the stunted backward society that it is, and this not because the ingroup’s ideals are wrong but because those ideas have been overshadowed by a formalistic tendency, the appearance being more important than the content. Obviously form and content are intrinsically connected, but if it is perceived that the content is being ignored in favor of the form, people will abandon both. Tribalism doesn’t have to be unhealthy like this, but it takes real wisdom to guide and moderate the tribal tendency and use it well. It also takes real trust on the part of those who are not leaders in society to accept the filtering of the leaders. As usual, wisdom and trust are lacking and so we are left with an iron curtain of sorts.
Some really good observations here, Daniel. Thank you.
The claim that society has always been a battle between conservative and liberal camps is only relevant to democracies. That political spectrum is split along such lines (which is overly simplistic but hey) is because democracies are set up to require a “governing” team and one or more “oppositions”.
Democracies are very young, and in their current form you can argue that they mostly were only formed in the 20th century (America is an exception, but it actually proves my point I think). As democracies ‘mature’, they don’t become more aligned, they become more tribal. (America is the model democracy and definitely seems more tribal than other democracies).
Most democracies are set up to operate between two extremes and seek consensus in the middle. Hardly surprising that society takes on the same form - but with societal values breaking down and no firm purpose to society, consensus is rapidly becoming a thing of the past.
I didn't intend this to be a political post, though. It's more of a general phenomenon that tends to show up rather strongly within political contexts, but is found in lots of other areas as well. Wherever there's an ideological position staked out, you're likely to run across this.
Perhaps, but I suppose I’m suggesting that the origin of this is political, or rather that it’s due to our political system. We’re far enough down the democratic rabbit hole that the consequences of a system that is typically designed to have a governing side and an opposition side(s) is driving an increasingly confrontational approach to others and therefore cementing the divisions more.
I just don’t think in medieval England your ordinary person was discussing how “liberal” the local monastery was, and how they didn’t agree with the King’s latest piece of legislation. They didn’t have the same level of tribalism as we do now, which is global, instant, and divisive.
I'd boil the problem down to one thing that needs to be solved first, though not a magic bullet - self-awareness. The majority of people have no idea why they believe what they do, and more importantly, why are they so angry when someone disagrees with them. This inability (or unwillingness) to look at interior motives closes one's mind to any alternatives, because "accepting another possibility means I'd have to think and that's hard," or "accepting another possibility means what I think might be wrong and that's scary," or "accepting another possibility means [trusted person] could be wrong and I need to feel safe with [trusted person]."
An ability to accept intellectual discomfort through introspection, for the most part, doesn't exist among any creed or political stripe. Solve that, and things get better. How to solve that? Don't ask me, I'm a guy who's commenting on the internet.
Fear does seem to be key to all of this. Tribalism exists as a group response to threats, right? So it only makes sense that fear always plays a role in driving it.
I am now way an expert, although like yourself, the the subject interests me a lot. I wonder if perhaps the breakdown of discourse is largely due to an underlying problem that is growing throughout the sciences: the functionality of dialectic itself as a means to discern, discuss and share truth in dialogue. Happy Friday!
Would you be willing to explain that a little more?
All right. I'll try not to let this run on, but, in my defense, you are asking one of those simple questions that is actually right at the heart of the research I am currently working on.
The main thrust of this essay is tribalism. Let's start with that. Here's what I see about the opposing "tribes" : Rationalists, atheists, and materialists, with the Chief-Thains (ie, the ones with the most money, and the biggest clubs) the Transhumanists and the Eugenicists.
Trace all their philosophical roots to their beginnings. You encounter the beginning of the clash between two opposing paradigms -- back to the ancient dispute between Plato who believed in the immortality of the soul [see: Phaedo and Meno] vs Aristotle who asserted that human beings were nothing more than blank slates to be written upon by a hereditary master class [see: Politics].
All the Rationalists, Materialists and Humanists, Transhumanists and Eugenicists stop there, and dare go no further. These two opposing paradigms have clashed and warred from the 17th and 18th centuries to present day. Gottfried Leibniz versus Isaac Newton, Rene Descartes, John Locke, et al. After them we get sickos like Malthus and Darwin, and on and on, until here we are in present day circumstances, looking at how every scientific discipline is rotting under ant-scientific corruption from within because of these people and their dominant views.
These two paradigms are still fighting it out in the original, perpetual balance of power war, and dare not ever stop.
Why?
Because they dare never go any further into the past beyond Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates. If they did, they would discover that what they call rationality is flawed, and fundamentally wrong.
Beyond the ancient Greek founders of Classical Reason, the basis of our modern systems of rational thought, were other, more ancient truth seekers in the era of mythology. These people understood that truth could not be unknowable, or at best, only relative. The whole point of all the mythologies of the ancient world was about the pursuit of truth. The Ideal Human they wanted to be, or to return to depended on knowing truth.
Ultimately, on finding it, the discovery that no human being was capable of becoming perfect and immortal, not even with the help of the gods, was what spawned Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle in the first place.
The ancients were afraid. The gods were lying -- all of them. The logos that the ancient Greeks had produced from the mythos they were born into told them that the world they knew would ultimately diminish and die. There was no world to replace it. Outside of the fallen, dying world and its mythos was chaos, and death. To go beyond it was to go insane, and die in disgrace and dishonor.
Later, Christianity arrived, and a new mythos was born. Out of it, a new logos preached and taught of a new world, an Ideal Human Who was Jesus, the Creator-God become Man. Everything the ancient peoples had hoped and searched for...
But by then, most of the ancient world was decaying into fatalism, narcissism and nihilism. Thanks to those philosophers, Pontius Pilate is asking Jesus, moments before the Crucifixion, 'What is truth?' His rhetorical question was the cynical cry of the entire age. Rome and its gods had no answer to it. Pilate didn't even realize that the Truth was standing right in front of him when he asked it.
To conclude, I think it is about time we move beyond this old dialectic, and re-examine how to look at, explain, and share the truths we have.
Joe, I'm sorry, I didn't see this comment until tonight. Thanks for taking the time to spell this out.
Oh! Sorry I missed you. Today was the day Sarah and I officially announced we're expecting. I've been answering FB, emails and texts all day, I and I just finally got a breather. Sufferin sucotash! I don't know how you can do this every day. And this ONE topic from people I actually like (or at least say I do).
Sorry it was bit long. But I guessed it was a reasonable distillation of what was about 89 pages of rough text in a second draft, so ... yeah.
And I didn't want to make it go on so long, but there it is, and here we all are. You said awhile ago that you're behind in your reading, and I can sure relate to that. 2,000 years of saintly people writing literally miles of pages of great answers to all our questions is its own problem, isn't it? None of those people ever thought there would come a time in the history of the world when nobody would have years and years to read them all.
And the other side of the problem are people like Robert Pirsig, and his Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. All of his work to find out why science is rotting out with self-created anti-science, all of his research in pursuit of the truth, led him straight as an arrow to the Catholic Church as the solution, and he couldn't stand it. It disturbed his sanity, and blew his mind.
Unless you have a solid -- and I mean solid -- education in rhetoric, you'll get lost in all the conniving head games and logic traps he put in that book to hide the fact from himself and everyone else that the enlightenment not did not produce the scientific 'dogmas' which should have equaled or surpassed Catholicism, and was never necessary for human progress, but was an irrational hindrance to its organic growth upon those who stubbornly insisted upon seeking real answers by faithfully following the truth wherever it lead anyway. The last 500 years of rational modernism was a waste of time, and had never produced anything but the very things that were accelerating the word's demise.
Pirsig's book was as much of an open confession of his failure as it was a covert but angry denial of the very answers he sought. In a way, it was the twentieth century equivalent of Captain Ahab going to the bottom with his nemesis, hating the white whale of the dying modern world, but determined to never admit why...
Um.... anyway.
Everyone that has commented so far has some damn good points, and a solid grasp of many parts of the problem at the heart of your article. Your article itself is rich with truth -- rich, I say! Rich! Haha! -- including the resource materials you quoted.
Take that question above -- 'Why did our institutions break down and become tribalized?' which is the excellent question of the hour, and it has a definite, truthful and helpful answer.
No, it was not because of mass education, and their deteriorations were helped along by mass propaganda and brainwashing, but that was not its cause.
Literacy and education are not always the same thing, although many people assume so in a society where literacy is very widespread. Probing deeper is exactly what to do.
The institutions that are breaking down base their ideals in a fallible, mortal image of humanity. The ideal human of the modern world is not even close to the model of the (ultimately unachievable) beautiful, perfect and immortal human of the ancient world, no matter how many injections of Botox or vaccinations for Covid.
But that is where dialectics has got us to: some tribes are defending an inhumane, machinelike, processed monster of a system and its institutions, while other tribes who are still sane can only watch them lose their reason, their humanity, and ultimately their lives.
The institutions that are falling are doing so because they're based in lies, and refuse to give them up. Their ideals are finite, limited and not universal. (All modern governments, for instance, are operated and financed on the lie of stealing.)
In the end, just like the fallible human beings that made them and operated them, they grow old, they become weaker, they lose the capacity to function, and ultimately they die. That's all they can do.
That's what the Greek truth seekers discovered thousands of years ago, and it's what the tribes in charge of things in this world are facing now. It's what Robert Pirsig and the Boomer generation were completely unequipped to face, and its partly why we are gathering into tribes.
What is really the chief reason the sane ones among us are organizing into tribes?
Work crews.
We are planning and organizing for the work ahead.
The world, its institutions and the paradigms they are based on are not going to die anymore. They are dying, and we are getting ready for it.
The sane ones that is.
You, your wife, me, my wife, and all the wonderful people that left a comment here.
It's what we are. It's what we do.
And now -- the fix.
Identify the problem, get the whole truth of the matter, find the people responsible, correct or remove them, assess the damage, plan repairs or replacements, recycle what can be re-used and dispose of the garbage responsibly. Care for the dying, grieve for the dead, take care of the necessary things, make the appropriate funeral arrangements, and everything else is cleaned and put away properly.
Start with ourselves, then our families and tribes. After that the nation. After that, you over there, us over here and the other sane nations of sane tribes made up of sane families of sane people will work together to clean up the rest of the planet.
(The planet? Yes, the planet. The earth is fine, only the old world is dying.)
Hopefully, none of the prophets of doom and gloom, Catholic or otherwise, are right about the timing and the conditions ahead.
Ultimately, I would just LOVE to wait for Jesus to show up with a million trillion angels and saints, but I have no idea how to tell an angel to take out the garbage, and I don't have the first clue how a resurrected Catholic saint's organization skills are.
Neither do any of you, not really, let's be honest, so we are doing the only thing besides praying that we know how, and that is to get organized and get ready for work.
Love always, Joe.
Your style of argumentation is familiar. I don't recognize your pseudonym; have we been corresponding via email?
My apologies for the delay in replying to you. My attention has been directed elsewhere, and after reading your reply (which I thank you for), I felt it deserved careful regard and consideration when I could put the greatest amount of attention to it.
There is still a lot I would like to consider more in depth, but I wish to at least say here that I would agree with much of your comment on Plato. I do agree with your assessment that much of the intellectual and ideological trouble can be laid at the feet of his school of thought, and of his heirs. But Aristotle is not blameless either, for that matter.
You had said, "The later attempt by Christian thinkers- particularly the early fathers and most particularly Augustine - to “explain” Apostolic Tradition through the terms and metaphysic of the neo-Platonists has proven [to have] been nothing short of disastrous, especially in the Latin/Western church." And I most certainly agree.
And I agree with your later statement that there is, in fact, an internal metaphysic within the Old and New testaments which is distinct from, and incompatible with "that neo-Platonic sort." Do they "constitute" Apostolic Tradition? That is an intriguing word choice. I am intrigued, but until I can hear more of your argument on this choice of phrase, I will respectfully neither agree nor disagree.
Though in your conclusion you worded it differently and with modern symbolic language, I was reminded somewhat of the old pagan problem of the wheel of incarnation, in its unending repetition and how to escape it. In other places it was sometimes termed the problem or riddle of the circle of sin. I agree that Plato and the Neo-Platonists have no real answer, and never will.
I would venture to say however, that it was not only because their metaphysics failed to give it, but also in large part because they wanted to bury any memory of any pre-platonic schools of thought that led anywhere close to the concept of Arete, (usually translated into the word virtue) whether through willful ignorance, disingenuous argument or outright violent force. Is this what you were alluding to in your final sentence, regarding Mind versus Being and real beings?
So if Plato, Neoplatonism, and all their palsied metaphysics are to be reckoned with, especially the notions of eternal Ideas/Forms/universals, it seems that searching the past for what they attempted to replace would be a good area to start.
The harm they've done to the entire inhabited planet, let alone the west, is almost incalculable. Look at what their intellectual heirs have done with Fra Luca Pacioli's straightforward treatise of accounting, and how the modern accounting principles once based upon a solid theology of confession have become the means to manifest the third Horseman's power of Famine to accumulate wealth, and to lead merchants the world over from a life of virtue leading to heaven into a Pestilence upon the entire human race.
To conclude, once again I thank you for the comments and intriguing arguments, they are most welcome. I look forward to any reply you make. Heaven knows, I am not a subject matter expert on much of anything anymore, but it is wonderful to converse in good company and fraternal peace with those who are. God Bless!
Tribal is a misnomer here; a poetic word harkening back to some supposed "primitivism", which for some reason people take to be an explanation... What we're calling "tribalism" here is a modern middle-class ("bourgeois") squabble about who has the right plan for improving the world. Everyone who enters society these days (i.e. everyone who considers themselves a respectable person) thinks it's their duty and calling to know how to improve the world and preach it. Naturally people disagree on the right method, and they can't help seeing those with the wrong method for improving the world as the enemies of all humanity. Stop caring about making the world a better place, stop caring about improving society, stop caring about saving humanity... and see how quickly your "tribal" tendencies disappear.
Quote from Zhuangzi (Burton Watson translation)
The man with two toes webbed together would weep if he tried to tear them apart; the man with a sixth finger on his hand would howl if he tried to gnaw it off. Of these two, one has more than the usual number, the other has less, but in worrying about it they are identical. Nowadays the benevolent men of the age lift up weary eyes,10 worrying over the ills of the world, while the men of no benevolence tear apart the original form of their inborn nature in their greed for eminence and wealth. Therefore I wonder if benevolence and righteousness are really part of man's true form? From the Three Dynasties on down, what a lot of fuss and hubbub they have made in the world!
If we must use curve and plumb line, compass and square to make something right, this means cutting away its inborn nature; if we must use cords and knots, glue and lacquer to make something firm, this means violating its natural Virtue. So the crouchings and bendings of rites and music, the smiles and beaming looks of benevolence and righteousness, which are intended to comfort the hearts of the world, in fact destroy their constant naturalness.
For in the world there can be constant naturalness. Where there is constant naturalness, things are arced not by the use of the curve, straight not by the use of the plumb line, rounded not by compasses, squared not by T squares, joined not by glue and lacquer, bound not by ropes and lines. Then all things in the world, simple and compliant, live and never know how they happen to live; all things, rude and unwitting, get what they need and never know how they happen to get it. Past and present it has been the same; nothing can do injury to this [principle]. Why then come with benevolence and righteousness, that tangle and train of glue and lacquer, ropes and lines, and try to wander in the realm of the Way and its Virtue? You will only confuse the world!
A little confusion can alter the sense of direction; a great confusion can alter the inborn nature. How do I know this is so? Ever since that man of the Yu clan began preaching benevolence and righteousness and stirring up the world, all the men in the world have dashed headlong for benevolence and righteousness. This is because benevolence and righteousness have altered their inborn nature, is it not?
Let me try explaining what I mean. From the Three Dynasties on down, everyone in the world has altered his inborn nature because of some [external] thing. The petty man? - he will risk death for the sake of profit. The knight? - will risk it for the sake of fame. The high official? - he will risk it for family; the sage? - he will risk it for the world. All these various men go about the business in a different way, and are tagged differently when it comes to fame and reputation; but in blighting their inborn nature and risking their lives for something they are the same.
Apologies for replying to my own comment twice, (I wish there was an edit function); this is my last one...
Take the Roman Catholic altar in "tribal" terms. In the middle ages, the Roman altar is the symbol of Western Christendom, against the Greek heretics and Mohammadens of the East; every good citizen of the Holy Roman Empire worships at it. In the Counter-Reformation, the Roman altar is the symbol of Catholic orthodoxy (Trent) against the Protestant heretics coming from up north; now more than before the altar represents the right theology, the right doctrine about God and the Church. Now, in our post-Vatican II age, the Roman altar has been thoroughly modernised, has it's become a symbol for improving humanity, for making the world a better place; but this has divided the altar somewhat, because not everyone agrees on the right method for improving humanity — some think it's fundamentally a matter of discipline, so they want the Roman altar to be austere and reverential; others think it's fundamentally an attitude of open friendliness, so they want the Roman altar to be warm and welcoming . . .
Everybody these days is so benevolent and righteous, aren't they?