Tribalism
Tribalism is the state of being organized by or advocating for tribes.
Tribalism refers to being organized around tribes or tribal lifestyles, or advocating for them. Humans evolved mainly in small hunter-gatherer groups, not in the larger, more recent agricultural societies or civilizations. In politics, the term often carries a negative meaning, describing discriminatory behavior or attitudes toward outsiders based on loyalty to one’s own group.
The word “tribe” comes from the Latin “tribus” and generally means an extended family or clan sharing a common ancestor. A tribe can also be a group united by mutual survival and preserving a shared culture. The saying “birds of a feather flock together” describes homophily—the human tendency to form friendships with people of similar jobs, interests, or habits. Some tribes live close together in villages or bands. While modern telecommunications could theoretically allow people to form tribe-like communities, digital tribes and social networks are not true tribes because they don’t inherently ensure the survival of both individual members and the group itself.
Tribalism has been defined as a “subjectivity” or “way of being” in which communities are bound socially beyond immediate family ties, shaped by face-to-face interactions and shared objects. At its core, tribalism relies on analogy, genealogy, and mythology. Customary tribes build their social foundations on these orientations, often blending traditional practices (like Abrahamic religions) with modern ones (such as money, mobile phones, and formal education). In a political sense, tribalism refers to the strong political solidarity seen in post-truth politics.
The social structure of a tribe varies widely. Because customary tribes are small, their social life usually involves few major political or economic differences between members. Social hierarchy is rare, and deep bonds form among individuals. A tribe often calls itself by its own word for “people” (for example, “Inuit” means “people”) and uses different terms for neighboring groups to mark them as others.
Tribalism involves a strong cultural or ethnic identity that separates one group from another. This identity is based on close proximity, kinship, and mutual survival. Members tend to feel a powerful sense of belonging. For a customary tribal society to exist, there must be ongoing organization, inquiry, and exchange. However, intense feelings of common identity ca
- Definition
- State of being organized by or advocating for tribes or tribal lifestyles
- Etymology
- Derives from ancient Latin word 'tribus'
- Key Concept
- Extended kin group or clan with a common ancestor
- Social Structure
- Relatively few political or economic distinctions; social hierarchy uncommon
- Cognitive Limit
- Dunbar's number: ~150 individuals; Bernard–Killworth median: 231 (about 1.54 times Dunbar's estimate)
- Negative Connotation
- Discriminatory behavior or attitudes towards out-groups based on in-group loyalty
Lore & Background
The term 'tribe' derives from the ancient Latin word 'tribus' and can be defined to mean an extended kin group or clan with a common ancestor. A tribe can also be described as a group who share the common interest of mutual survival and preservation of a common culture. The proverb 'birds of a feather flock together' describes homophily, the human tendency to form friendship networks with people of similar occupations, interests, and habits. Some tribes can be located in geographically proximate areas, like villages or bands, and although telecommunications in theory could enable groups of people to form tribe-like communities, digital tribes and social networking websites are not quite tribes in that they do not inherently provide the mutual survival of both the individual members of the tribe and for the tribe itself, as tribes do.
In terms of conformity, the word 'tribalism' has been defined as a 'subjectivity' or 'way of being' social frame in which communities are bound socially beyond immediate birth ties by the dominance of various modalities of face-to-face and object integration. Ontologically, tribalism is oriented around the valences of analogy, genealogy and mythology. That means that customary tribes have their social foundations in some variation of these tribal orientations, while often taking on traditional practices (e.g. Abrahamic religions such as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam), and modern practices, including monetary exchange, mobile communications, and modern education. Tribalism in a political sense refers to the strong political solidarity typical of post-truth politics.
Reader's Guide
Tribalism has a very adaptive effect in human evolution. Humans are social animals and ill-equipped to live on their own. Tribalism and social bonding help to keep individuals committed to the group, even when personal relations may fray. That keeps individuals from wandering off or joining other groups. It also leads to bullying when a tribal member is unwilling to conform to the politics of the collective. Some scholars argue that inclusive fitness in humans involves kin selection and kin altruism, in which groups of an extended family with shared genes help others with similar genes, based on their coefficient of relationship. Other scholars argue that fictive kinship is common in human organizations, allowing non-kin members to collaborate in groups like fraternities.
Socially, divisions between groups fosters specialized interactions with others, based on association: altruism (positive interactions with unrelated members), kin-selectivity (positive interactions with related members) and violence (negative interactions). Thus, groups with a strong sense of unity and identity can benefit from kin selection behaviour such as common property and shared resources. The tendencies of members to unite against an outside tribe and the ability to act violently and prejudicially against that outside tribe likely boosted the chances of survival in genocidal conflicts. Modern examples of tribal genocide rarely reflect the defining characteristics of tribes existing prior to the Neolithic Revolution; for example, small population and close-relatedness.
According to a study by Robin Dunbar at the University of Liverpool, social group size is determined by primate brain size. Dunbar's conclusion was that most human brains can really understand only an average of 150 individuals as fully developed, complex people. That is known as Dunbar's number. In contrast, anthropologist H. Russell Bernard and Peter Killworth have done a variety of field studies in the United States that came up with an estimated mean number of ties, 290, roughly double Dunbar's estimate. The Bernard–Killworth median of 231 is lower because of upward straggle in the distribution, but it is still appreciably larger than Dunbar's estimate.
Did You Know?
- The term 'tribe' derives from the ancient Latin word 'tribus'.
- Dunbar's number suggests most human brains can understand only an average of 150 individuals as fully developed people.
- The Bernard–Killworth median of social ties is 231, roughly double Dunbar's estimate.
- The 1954 Robbers Cave experiment involved researchers putting 12-year-old boys into groups, where they formed their own ingroups before developing hostility towards the other group.
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