In Defense of Tribalism

Like you, I have spent a lifetime living under a withering attack from the multi-culturalists. It is hard to see the forest for the trees when everyone around you has an ax (and a heavy dose of indoctrination during their childhood) and are hyper-focused on cutting down any tree or truth that stands in their way, completely unconcerned about who might get crushed these loonies don't even have the courtesy to scream, "Timber!"

I have had the pleasure of spending time with people who, for all intents and purposes, have walled themselves off from others to one degree or another—I am talking about in-your-face tribalism. Of course, I thought they were nuts, even as I could admire their obvious success. After all, as a member of the poly-whatever: recovering from Catholicism, matrilineal Jew, philosophical (and secular) Quaker raised in the multi-cultural center of the world, and married to someone from a different "race," I am the very definition of ENLIGHTENED. And tribalism is not. But my fairly unique experience of living a long life, much of it in close proximity with Orthodox Jews, Old Order Mennonites, Muslims, Schwarzentruber Amish, and Fundamentalist Mormons flies in the face of all of my formative indoctrination, not to mention all of the nonsense I subject myself to on the internet.

It is and has been my consistent observation that the tribalists have more children, longer marriages, suffer far less addiction/suicide/fatal car crashes/self-destructive behaviors—and in short are just plain happier—than the multiculturalist busybodies and the officious and intermeddling progressives. (If you doubt this, I invite you to attend an Orthodox Jewish wedding and a Feminist political rally and compare these experiences both in the moment and the results over a lifetime. To LIFE!) And to add insult to injury, they appear to me to be better off financially (with the notable exception of the Silicon Valley folks. See? Life is not fair and it's still okay!).

I watch, with extreme sadness, as the French take to the streets in protest. Hurting people and destroying private property won't solve the problems that they seem to have identified. Going home and making love, having babies, and reestablishing economic freedom by dismantling the regulatory state would. But THAT would require recognizing the individual as the political unit, the family as the social unit, and the community as the social safety net. You know, living like a—gasp!—tribalist. Perhaps the French can stop burning cars and look to a working solution that is staring them right in the face in the form of Israel. We never see the Israelis rioting in the street. They are too busy raising children and continuing their culture. Envy does nothing to help the intergenerational survival of a culture, but producing well-adjusted children and forming them into functioning adults does. And the French don't even have to like Israel! You can learn lots of neat stuff from people you don't like.

Multiculturalism on this side of the pond seems to manifest itself by holding guns to people's heads to bake cakes they don't want to bake and to join cultures and belief systems they don't want to join. Of course, that this use of "violence by proxy" (original to me, but feel free to use it early and often) is inherently evil and has the uncanny penchant of turning on those who wield it is of little consequence to those who know they occupy the moral high ground with Truth, Beauty, and Justice by their side. That's the thing about Authoritarianism, Feminism, and Collectivism. They are "always one execution away from Utopia."

I have a new book coming, tentatively "Stones in the Garden," the second in the series that began with "Seven Years of Famine." It is jolly good fun as the (near) end of the world could ever be as it critically examines all the things we are not supposed to talk about. Dystopian, but without the roving hordes and gang violence favored by Hollywood. With good people trying not to repeat the mistakes of the past as they reconstruct civilization from the ground up.