Are You Inbred?
Hold on. Before you start yelling, allow me to explain.
Inbreeding refers to mating between close relatives. And genetically-speaking, it's a bad idea. Having a close common ancestor increases the odds that a couple will share a genetic abnormality. And that it will affect their offspring. Over generations, persistent inbreeding can produce an alarming number of birth defects.
History provides many examples, particularly in royal families concerned with maintaining the purity of their blood lines. The Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun, Spanish king Charles II, and Alexei, last heir to the Russian Empire are all tragic examples. You can read about them here...
Before you challenge me to a duel, let me say I'm not insulting your mama. This is not about literal incest and shallow, defective gene pools. What I'm talking about is tribalism and consequent shallow, defective idea pools. It's a metaphor.
Tribalism is group loyalty, which can be based on kinship, friendship, interest, nationality, ethnicity, religion, social class, employment, ideology, or other differentiator. This can be good or bad.
On one hand, tribalism is adaptive in an evolutionary sense. We have always stood together to protect our families and neighbors against threats. One form of family tribalism is unconditional love. As a father and as a son, I know something about that. Consider how far family loyalty goes compared to say corporate loyalty.
On the other hand, tribalism gone too far causes all manner of tragedy, injustice, dysfunction, and muddled thinking. The demonization by an ingroup of outgroups has been responsible for every atrocity under the sun – bullying, vandalism, theft, shunning, lynching, genocide. And misplaced ingroup loyalty has protected every kind of miscreant including rapists and murderers.
Our focus here is how tribalism contributes to the spread and perpetuation of bad ideas. Because everything that happens – good or bad – starts with an idea. Your tribe –whatever that may be– tends to reinforce its own ideas and attack the other tribe's ideas. Tribal groupthink is incestuous–it toes the party line; it hates diversity of thought.
If you've ever been in a political discussion on social media, you've seen how groupthink works. Flocks of webizens find safe digital corners to hang with their ideological gangs. When outsiders stumble in, the gang swarms them, shouting slogans and insults. Outnumbered, the outsiders realize they can't win and retreat.
Such lopsided victories make the insiders feel good about themselves and their ideas. The keyword is 'feel.' Rationality, science, facts and logic, solving problems–in a tribal bubble these are only background considerations.
Within a tribal bubble the game is affirming the tribe's default way of thinking. Challenging one's own beliefs in order to improve them is anathema. It's called confirmation bias and it's toxic. Weak, tribal idea pools produce bad solutions and strength in numbers gets them passed.
These days, everyone speaks of how dangerously polarized the United States is getting. Yet, every single person you talk to blames the other tribe. Liberals will tell you Trump is the root of all evil. Conservatives will tell you it's those Marxist social justice warriors.
So, tribalism is the problem but the other tribe is exclusively to blame? And the situation will only get better when the other side gets its head right?
As Shakespeare wrote "the eye sees not itself except by reflection."
The truth is, it's getting crazy out there. In the United States, Republicans and Democrats won't even talk to each other. If we want a future worth having, we must escape our bubbles. To do that, we must first look in the mirror.
Self-reflection takes courage. Lots of it. Your new and improved ideas will sound heretical to your tribe and they'll turn on you. At least the tribal leaders–the self-righteous, self-appointed keepers of the sacred groupthink–will turn on you.
But be of stout heart. Though your hand may tremble, keep holding the mirror. Hold it up for your whole tribe. If you can break the tribal leaders' spell, the rest will eventually come around or defect. Like the winged monkeys in The Wizard of Oz.
Stay tuned. There is much to talk about.