SabotageGoodActually t1_j2ar7qf wrote
The characterization of “tribal instincts” as being antisocial is an extremely biased starting point. Hundreds of thousands of native tribes all over the earth lived just fine with each for most of human history. Human beings with different social grouping of a wide diversity can live just fine with each other. The social and economic constructs that portray “tribalism” as strictly antisocial are also the main causes behind the major problems we want to overcome. To put it clearly, the issue is not tribalism; it’s capitalism, colonialism, and the state.
AureaLumia t1_j2b8hwd wrote
I completely agree. Even just the profit motive is a more definable, more accurate, and more broadly applicable problem than “tribalism.” Native Americans weren’t harmed by tribalism, they were harmed by bourgeoise property owners who employed racism/colonialism to secure wealth and political power. The systems of capitalism, colonialism and racism that Are the modern state are what’s to blame here.
SabotageGoodActually t1_j2bm51p wrote
I’m glad you understand what I was trying to say! Not just that it’s offensive language, but that it’s a flawed concept. I can be in one tribe and you can be in another, and there is nothing about this “instinct” of close community that says you or I will not help each other’s tribes when the other is in need, that it must always mean conflict and greed. It’s just as likely, or more likely without capitalism, that one tribe would help to feed another. This idea of a negative kind of “tribalism” being the true human nature is pure propaganda.
redditaccount003 t1_j2bm6y3 wrote
Precolonial societies weren’t exactly peaceful, though. They had ethnic conflicts, wars, and massacres just like everyone else. There were even empires like the Aztecs.
SabotageGoodActually t1_j2bn8z5 wrote
That’s missing the point. I wasn’t just speaking on pre-colonial peoples, but on all human beings. The point is not that pre-colonial peoples lived in some kind of utopia where there was no conflict. The point is that two different groups of close knit communities are, in reality, just as likely to help each other than to engage in conflict. This negative idea of “tribalism” is just another way of phrasing the “human nature” argument which is literally just capitalist colonialist propaganda.
VitriolicViolet t1_j2fposa wrote
this, cant have people realise its a lack of being willing to share thats the problem, its different people!
the promotion of hyper-individualism is the entire problem here, that only you matter and the rest are just in your lifes way as obstacles to overcome or use.
the fact that you are heavily encouraged to screw over pretty much anyone in your path and minimize any and all social and financial obligations coupled with media worship of the people that do is destroying us.
Grizzleyt t1_j2bnzxr wrote
Agreed. "Tribal Instincts" seems like an obfuscating term at best to refer to global human systems that are not only social but political and economic as well.
If only people, communities, companies, and countries would stop pursuing their own self-interests all at once! If the was fundamentally different than it is, and we all behaved differently, we could achieve a different outcome. Gee, what a concept.
SabotageGoodActually t1_j2bq95c wrote
If I put ten people in a room with only enough food for eight people to survive, and forced them to fight over it, meanwhile I am sitting there with enough food to feed everyone on earth, claiming it as my “private property” which I control, then you would have to be some kind of an asshole to believe that this situation really portrays the same universal “self-interests” of everyone involved.
And there are very certain things the ten people in the room can do to change the outcome of this situation, but they don’t end well for me who is hoarding the wealth.
VitriolicViolet t1_j2fq10a wrote
its a shame that in a such a small scale scenario the problem would never even develop (gonna have a hell of a time convincing those 10 people that you somehow dont have all the food once they all start talking) yet once you hit a large enough population you have enough abstraction that the man with 90% of everything can just convince half the population that other half have taken it all.
people decry China's media as being controlled and dominated but how is US media being owned by 3 people who are wealthier than entire nations any better?
SabotageGoodActually t1_j2fs1mq wrote
100% that’s exactly what private ownership is, an abstraction. What does it mean to own something? How can someone claim to own the land, or the food that grows on the land, or the things that were made by someone else’s labor? People in our society are raised to take these questions for granted, like the laws of physics, when in reality it is just an ideology.
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