Return of the tribe

What is happening in our country today… feels a lot like The Return of the Tribe.To make that observation, is not to mindlessly denigrate a basic form of human social organization. There is a sense in which we are all tribal. Certainly our ancestors were.

In many pre-urban environments, the tribe is a superior survival mechanism.But the tribe is a harsh mistress. It brooks no infraction. In return for 100 percent loyalty and obedience, it grants 100 percent protection and affirmation.Most of the nations that exist in the modern world are aggregations of related tribal groups.

But the American nation was something new.Though it was culturally English, it was a nation created deliberately and from scratch… with agonizingly detailed and informed self-awareness. It aspired to learn from the past every learn-able lesson in how to maintain that delicate balance between freedom and order that enables a nation to keep moving forward, yet remain civilized and stable. There had never been anything like it.

Nearly every nation that has come into being since, has been modeled upon it.Fast-forward to the twentieth century.

In the latter half of that century, the American professional class moved in the direction of eschewing not only “tribal” identities, but all other forms of less-than-universal identity as well: family, faith, neighborhood, even nation.What could take their place?

Well, how about “human being?” For a brief, shining moment in modern history, the ideal of “human rights” did seem to be an ideal that was well understood, and sincerely aspired to, by many people. Most Americans did not see that as conflicting with their national identity, because they truly believed (with some cause) that the shape of the government they had created… provided a sound structural foundation for the protection of human rights.

But gradually, American education was infiltrated by the toxic doctrine of “cultural relativism” according to which American belief in its own carefully– even painfully– wrought institutions, was seen as just another chauvinistic conceit. After all, who were we to judge others?!

The problem with that was– and is– that, if we are in no position to judge others, we are in no position to protect or save others either.

For a while, World War II knocked relativism out of the cultural ring, but it kept creeping back. By the 1960s, it dominated academic discourse and was reflected in most high-school textbooks.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party of the USA was re-shaped by something known as Identity Politics. Identity Politics and Relativism eventually made a marriage of convenience that would sound the death-knell for human rights… though “human rights” continued to be solemnly invoked when convenient, and ignored when inconvenient. (Kinda like that thing called “democracy.” )

Roe v. Wade in 1972 was a stunning slap in the face for human rights. Soon, we were well and truly rolling rapidly down a cultural“slippery slope.” That much-mocked slippery slope turned out to be all too real, greased as it was by pride and greed.

Both of America’s two great political parties practiced hypocrisy regarding human rights, both internally and internationally. Because upholding human rights sometimes made their wealth portfolios skinnier. And when they had to choose between their ideals and their portfolios, they often chose their portfolios. Thus, many members of both parties won a sort of human-rights booby prize in that regard.