Tribalism

27 December 2020

[Above photo: “My Blue Door” after R. Wintz.

DT has certainly fanned the flames of fear and difference and 74,000,000 Americans have responded. I guess we could say that the other half has, as well.  I’m aware of my intolerance of the other side, but I’d at least like a fair shake for them.

Tribalism, based on place of birth, religious belief, skin hue, SES, bone structure, sexual preference, hairdo, clothing style, preferred music, and all other imaginable ways of slicing and dicing our origins and tastes, seems to be so hard-wired in us. It actually feels good to self-righteously dislike or despise the other side at times, meeting their intolerance with our own.  Whereas a religion or a national creed to whom large numbers belong may allow them to join together and work toward common goals, that often means in opposition to “the others” who live elsewhere or believe otherwise. It seems so stupid and destructive, since we all want the same fundamentals. It is only in the ornaments of civilization that we differ.

One of the bright pillars of the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute was Stan Goodman, who mentioned to me in passing during my supervision with him that he thought of all religions as exclusive clubs—-you belonged or you didn’t—complete with special rituals, etc. When I was a student there, it certainly felt like a very clubby enclave of secular Judaism, and I felt on the outside. I recall feeling stung when one of the other candidates said to me, “Oh, I always thought you were Mormon.” which emphasized to me my “Otherness” to her and revealed to me my attitude toward Mormons.

Our tendency to pick our side, and to demonize or idolize the other in ways subtle and obvious, is compelling and pervasive. Living in a diverse community like Berkeley, at which a PTA meeting can seem like a mini-United Nations gathering, helps but is not sufficient. Proximity and familiarity diminish the fear element which propels tribalism but we feed it in so many other ways. Sports team rivalries, political parties and elections, adherence to cultural or religious norms and doctrine, and so many cultural opportunities encourage splitting off the “other”.

Malawi is not free of this, what with tribal, linguistic, geographic, and religious rivalries. Myanmar is likewise tainted. Here, with 132+/- tribal identities, there is opportunity for bullying at all levels, from the schoolyard to the corridors of power. The majority 60% of the country is Bamar and Buddhist.  Many want the country to be a Bamar Buddhist country, just as many Israelis want a “purity” of culture there. The problem is, there are many Muslim and Christian, mainly Baptist and Catholic, families here whose ancestors have been here for generations. And ethnic Chinese. And Indians and Bangladeshis.

One thought about Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s defense of the military atrocities against the Rohingya is that it is purely pragmatic: If she doesn’t side with the military, she may be displaced and the country may slide back into a military dictatorship. A competing, or perhaps additional, thought is that she, too, feels strongly that Myanmar belongs to the Bamar Buddhists and the others must just adapt, leave, or be crushed, regrettably.

Given our tribalism and our tendency to get very violent with each other every few years, it is amazing that in the 75 years since we dropped the bombs on Japan, no one with nuclear weapons has lost it and crisped us all. What a species! Then again, I was listening to the 1956 recording of Glenn Gould playing the Goldberg Variations as I woke up this morning and thought, “What a species!”

It takes a constant daily effort to counter our desire/tendency to want homogeneity and to guard against tribalism. Civil dialogue helps. Diplomacy helps. I don’t think we can outlaw inflammatory rhetoric without severely damaging our right to free speech but I wonder. The “illusion” that we accept each other, within the bounds of the law, is both desirable and a necessity. Like the stock market, treaties, trade agreements, a marriage, friendships, and so much more, illusion is important and can help bridge over substantive differences. The idea that we can “root out” our tribalism seems mistaken to me; we are tribal at base. We can, and should, struggle against it.  We must attempt to codify equality, but that goes only so far if people don’t respect the spirit of the law.  We must support a strong, non-politicized judiciary in order to have a democracy. Those are lessons I have learned from our recent brief experiment in tyranny. I haven’t had to think much about them before, as a member of the dominant white, educated, privileged caste.  At base guilt doesn’t help. Mine is a practical and selfish choice about the quality of the society I want to inhabit and my experience walking down the street or in a city council meeting or lying in bed before sleep at night.

Finally, and accompanied by an exhausted sigh, I had a letter accepted to the NY Times (23 December). I’d almost given up after fruitlessly submitting many. I have lately used the opportunity of writing on a topic simply to clarify my thinking. Then, Surprise!  Here it is to save you the search.

To the Editor:

An executive, rather than a judicial, pardon befits monarchs and tyrants, not the American president. It distorts, and betrays a disdain for, our judicial processes in many ways.

If Michael Flynn or Mohammed bin Salman or Marc Rich, for that matter, has been unfairly served by the courts, he should be referred back for a second accounting. And “pre-emptive pardons”? Please.

We are about to see the pardon process become intolerably abused by the ultimate self-dealer in the White House. It will provoke individual outrage and disgust; it should incite large-scale, masked and distanced peaceful protest across the nation and comment, at least, from the Justice Department.

Writing this helped me think to think more clearly about it. Could we have a special judicial body and mechanism for pardons? Is it already called “an appeals court”? Do we need to modify the appeal process, to fine-tune it so that innocents or others unfairly sentenced can be pardoned? Knowing that our prison system is designed and conducted for punishment, not rehabilitation, should alter how we think about sentencing and pardoning. After all, we want to optimize society and capital punishment, for example, seems not to deter capital crimes.

All covid restrictions have been lifted here. The Myanmar economy, shaky in good times, cannot tolerate a prolongation of the shutdown. We are bracing for “a wave”. And looking around for a vaccine.