The true Other is Stupidity. Every tribe has within it mostly stupid people but most likely usually a few switched on lightbulb people.
The POINT of most tribes is similarity. When you move into a new house you X. On New Years you Y. You all value ABC and considers the words of J sacred.
But these are external similarities. Certainly in communities of belief there is the possibility of moments of union, but few people are truly OPEN to life.
Put another way, every tribe has people eilling and able to take the time and expend the effort to understand members of other tribes as members of the larger tribe “human”. And the human tribe has members ready and willing to understand members of non-human races, such as what we term “aliens” who, for all we know, may predate humanity. You know, native Terrans, who like Native Americans may not be FROM here, but predate us.
And every tribe has those who resist all this. They have, in other words, stupid people. The singular “accomplshment” of the political Left has been to make a virtue of hatred and exclusion in the putative name of kindness and inclusion. It boggles the mind of anyone capable of clarity in this regard.
And right now we are “led”, which and large is to say manipulated, by the stupid. Bill Gates is stupid. Mark Zuckerberg is stupid. Chairman Xi is stupid.
All of them, no doubt, have high IQ’s. What I am speaking to is their humanity, their emotional presence, theit empathy, and their openness. All missing. In terms of human intelligence, all would be doing well to recite the alphabet and count to 100. Total deficiency.
It is normal and healthy to have a tribe. It is a snug and comforting place to belong, or so I suppose.
But tribalISM is not healthy. Himan growth MUST come in the form of learning the skill of balancing inner and outer, which is to say tribe/not my tribe.
Early Buddhists were supposed to be lifelong homeless mendicants. But even they were given three steady comforts: the knuwledge that the Buddha won at the game of life, meaning it was possible; specific ideas and practices which, when applied, constituted one winning strategy; and the knowledge that somewhere out there were people thinking and acting like them, who were their spiritual family, which is to say tribe.
It is foolish to try and pretend we are not how we are, and lying in nearly all cases is retrogressive from the outset.
All our problems have solutions, but as long as idiots control our airwaves and internet, we are all boats drifting off into the dark, alone.
We have paddles and rudders, and there is light on the horizon but as men and women we need to CHOOSE to do better.