Have you ever felt this warmth in your heart when you realize you’re talking to someone who is part of your community, someone whose background is the same as yours or your family’s? What is this warmth? Is it a tribalist pleasure or relief? Why can we develop such feeling with the whole humanity?
Maybe, from time immemorial, we have been chasing security. This implies we needed to create strong bonds between us and a small group of people to secure our survival. Generation after generation, we may have wire our brain to feel pleasure or love when we identify someone being part of our tribe. Through tribalism, we have survived. Yet, why should we still feel the same today as we no longer live in a isolated community? Can we feel this sensation of love and security when we meet a complete stranger, completely alien to our background?
Probably not.
Is there another way to connect and feel reassured with a foreigner?
Yes, indeed.
Even if some counties are racially-focused, others do accept the idea of racial-free bonds.
There are indeed different ways to connect with someone which may not be as instantaneous as the ones which are tribally based.
We all share a common humanity, this seems not to be enough to create strong – unfortunately – bonds between people.
What other levers could we use to feel deeply connected and deeply reassured with someone?
This may be contextual: In a group, we tend to look for what separates and reproaches us. So, depending on the group, we may create in our mind bonds which wouldn’t exist in other situations. For instance, two Spanishards of different regions may no feel particularly close to each other in Spain whereas both of them immersed in another country, they would believe themselves as instantaneously connect by their nationality.
Should we wait for a alien invasion to create an instantaneous – and racial-free – link between humans? I wish we wouldn’t have to do so.
Before such an event to occur, what could be done to abolish the ethnicity awareness and other borders that separate human beings?
A tribe is essentially a group of people sharing the same cultural heritage. Thus, we could state that globalization is a process of cultural uniformization aiming to a global tribalism. To some extent, this works. However, why this is not working everywhere? Probably because not all culture become globalized, a few are actually globalizing. Could we possibly make a global culture a merging of all? Probably not, since culture is a soft power and powers want their culture to dominate.
If culture is used as propaganda, how can we create a global identity free from tribalism or, at least, one that is more inclusive?
I only see two options :
- Minority groups resign their tribalism (and thus their identity) to the dominating one – something I reject even if it’s an ongoing process
- The creation of a universal narrative surpassing others, which all of humanity could embrace and which would integrate all previous concepts of tribalism
slike a colossal though coherent puzzle.
