Western tribalism shares certain characteristics with all tribalism, but it is also different. The similarities and differences will be explored here.
Tribalism has to do with group identity
versus universal identity. Pre-Modernity’s
language of universal human nature and Modernity’s language of rights give way
to the discussion of wrongs done to some tribal groups by other tribal
groups. This is partly because
Postmodernity gives up on defining the essence of what it means to be human and
focusses instead on mere existence.
Existentialism, the philosophical perspective contributing to
Postmodernity, is best described as that philosophical understanding of human
life that denies that there is an essential reality and only an existential
reality for humanity: existence precedes essence. One version of this conviction is now playing
out in Western culture: the denial of a universal human essence and a focus on
the relationship of groups. Tribal
identity is being pursued in its Western form in terms of intersectionality, identity politics, and
cancel culture. Christians, on the other
hand, maintain that all are equal before God both in terms of being created by
Him and in terms of His mission in the world.
Instead of vilifying the enemy, Christians are called to love and pray
for their enemies so that they may be like God (Matthew 5.44), who desires that
all people might be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2.4). Western tribalism uses shaming as a power for ostracism and to effect social change; Christians offer forgiveness, grace, mercy, and love.
Tribalism reasons anecdotally. Anecdotal reasoning is compelling when one
has an already constructed conclusion.
Counter-examples are simply dismissed, whereas anecdotes that confirm
the conclusion are considered sufficient evidence. One of the many expressions of Western
tribalism is an official movement, Black Lives Matter, which feeds off of emotionally
charged incidents of violence that either are or are perceived as racially
motivated abuse of black people. Several commentators on contemporary society
also produce anecdotal evidence to support their conclusion that these are
proof of a more widespread, institutional racism throughout Western,
particularly American, culture.
Racism, especially institutional or widespread
racism, would, of course fit the thesis that the problem in the
West is a Postmodern tribalism. It is an
excellent example of tribalism. This
would, however, be a far too simplistic understanding of the issues facing
Western culture. Moreover, this author
believes that, despite obvious racism in certain cases and contexts (and that
in all racial groups), it is neither systemic nor widespread.[1] The analysis that it is, however, has been so
forcefully asserted that to dispute it is considered racist. Moreover, this diagnosis and treatments for
the disease have very likely made this an additional symptom of Western
tribalism—these ‘doctors’ have compounded the disease. The claim that the primary issue is
one of institutional racism is itself a feature of Western tribalism—the
insistence on seeing the situation as an issue of tribal divisions (racism). Racism is a worldview that sees everything in
terms of race. A tribal view sees
matters in terms of immutable factors, such as race. The ‘proof’ of institutional racism is
anecdotal, but
it is a very long way from there to claiming that an entire society is
structurally racist.
Christians need to resist the pressure to see the
world through classifications that define people in groups and then values and
disvalues them accordingly. This is not
to deny that groups exist or that some groups may be worse than others—there is
such a thing as a ‘failed culture’, as we see in the Genesis stories of the
culture in Noah’s day or of Sodom and Gomorrah or the Canaanites when Israel
enters the land, or Israel itself when God sends it into exile for decades. However, Christians are called on to regard
the world as a whole, not just certain groups, as sinful and yet also as loved
by God. The message of salvation does not
deny the depravity of fallen humanity.
‘All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,’ says Paul
(Romans 3.23). The dividing line among
people is not by countries, races, and cultures but between those in Christ and
those outside of Christ. Jesus says,
‘For God loved the world in this way, that He gave His only Son, so that,
whoever believes in Him might not be destroyed but have eternal life’ (John
3.16, my translation). Thus, Christians
see the tribal and all other divisions of humanity as accidental rather than
definitive; the difference is between those in Christ and those not. As Paul says, ‘If anyone is in Christ, New
Creation! Old things have passed away;
behold, new things have come!’ (2 Corinthians 5.17, my translation). Those outside of Christ are to be seen as
persons to be invited in, through the cross, by which we are all saved.
If one were to replace the word ‘white’ where
the word ‘black’ appears on the Black Lives Matter’s website, anyone thinking
from the perspective that all are creatures created equal by God or persons God
wants to save would label it as a racist organization. There is a difference between racism in a
Modernist and racism in a Postmodernist society. In the case of white racism, the claim of
racism could be made from the universalist perspective of Modernity. Privileging one race over another, given a
Modernist assumption that Creation or nature assures us that all are equal, is
understood as ‘racism’. In the case of
Black Lives Matter, given its Postmodern, tribalist worldview, the notion
changes: those who do not privilege black identity over white identity are the
racists. To make this argument work, one
has to do two things: privilege black identity and deplore ‘white privilege’.[2] Thus, the meaning of ‘racism’ changes, and it
does so in such a way that a Christian or Modernist view would see the
Postmodern Tribalist view as racist, and the latter would see the previous view
as racist. This point has not been
appreciated as it needs to be. Most do
not think clearly enough about how virtues and values change as we move from
Modernity to Postmodernity, but this is essential to do. Racism now means not saying ‘Black Lives
Matter’ and not denouncing ‘white privilege’.
For Christians, privilege is recognized as a
reality. It is a neutral term, since
people may have gained what they have through corruption, advantage, and theft
or through hard work, birth, and blessing.
Privilege is not treated as negative in Scripture; it is not an occasion
for guilt and condemnation, as it might be in a Marxist ideology (cf. the Pol
Pot regime in Cambodia as an example).
Two appropriate responses to privilege are thanksgiving and
responsibility:
Thanksgiving: ‘I say to the Lord,
You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you…. The lines have fallen for me
in good places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance’ (Psalm 16.1, 6).
Responsibility: ‘Everyone to whom
much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they
entrusted much, they will demand the more’ (Luke 12.48).
Tribalism is also a constructed identity. Who is to say what membership requirements
are? In the case of Black Lives
Matter—perhaps surprising to many—their literature affirms a selection of
identities that are not logically connected.[3] It is not just about racist brutality against
black people and has virtually nothing in common with the Civil Rights Movement
of the 1960s. The movement intends to
reshape society as a whole. It is
fundamentally an expression of social Marxism (‘Critical Theory’), a Marxist revolution
aimed not first at economic revolution (though that is on the agenda) but first
at social revolution. Critical Theory in
the form of Black Lives Matter aims to reform the entire society by opposing
kinship families, the reality of binary genders (male and female), advocating
for homosexuality, transgenderism, abortion, and black identity in what can
only be seen as racist itself if one’s believes in nature or Creation as
foundational.[4] In fact, saying ‘Every life matters’ is, from
this identity perspective, racist.
Tribalism needs its own historical narrative
to justify and make sense of its identity politics. Richard West’s Tito and the Rise and Fall
of Yugoslavia points out that tribal (my term) factions in the Balkans
(especially Catholic Croat, Orthodox Serbian, and Muslim Bosnians or Kosovars)
reinforced their opposition to one another in stories, ballads, poems, etc.[5] Narratives are virtue-defining. The same virtue means different things
depending on which underlying narrative fills it with meaning, as Alasdair
MacIntyre and Stanley Hauerwas demonstrated several decades ago.[6] If so, Christians need to be careful to
distinguish their understandings of virtues and vices by the same name from
what is meant by the culture’s definitions.
To do so, they need to understand both their formative and foundational
Biblical narratives and the relationship of these to their understanding of
virtues and vices. The language of class
struggle and violent overthrow in Marxist ideology is fundamentally opposed to
the Christian narrative of the cross. Any
narrative that fails to identify the universality of sin and that does not
offer forgiveness will be oppressive and violent. Its concept of justice, lacking mercy, will
be distorted. Christian protest is
better made through the radical existence of the Church, an alternative society
or ‘third race’, as early Christians in the 2nd and 3rd
centuries would say.
Tribalism forms alliances to strengthen its
hegemony and counter opposing forces. An
example is how certain companies voice support for this or that identity, which
shuts out any dissension from within the company and hardens the alliance
around ideological views. For example,
Yorkshire Tea and PG Tips have recently stated their support of Black Lives
Matter.[7] This connection between economic resources or
the marketplace and politically correct views is described in Revelation
13.26-28. They do not want any
disagreeing with them to purchase their product. These are just the latest examples in a long
list of ‘politically correct’ (or, as the new term is, ‘woke’) companies. The power of the marketplace is being used to
enforce compliance—typical of tribal politics.
Today, Western culture is controlled through some new or altered,
compelling narratives. One is the
narrative of ‘toxic masculinity’. Another is the narrative of ‘racism’. This narrative is somewhat different today in
that it is told not in reference to the progress of the United States as
freedom and equality were increasingly extended to different groups (religious
freedom of pilgrims to America, American colonies from England, emancipation of
slaves, women’s suffrage, the sexual revolution, civil rights, and then other
applications of the narrative to abortion rights, homosexuality, and
transgenderism). Now, the narrative is
told in tribal terms, as in the Balkans.
Everyone remains—is kept—in their identities, with old hatreds stoked by
the memory of unpardonable sins in generations long past.
Because tribalism works from the goal of
identity politics backwards to any interaction with facts, it regularly
manipulates the facts. Facts must not be
allowed to undermine identity politics.
The myth supports the movement and must be maintained against any
facts. When Cornell University Clinical
Professor of Law and Director of the Securities Law Clinic, William A.
Jacobson, challenged the facts of the case of a particular case in June, 2020,
he was immediately denounced. He may or may not have been correct—that is not
the point. What is relevant is that Eduardo
Peñalver, Dean of Cornell Law School, pilloried Jacobson with no
reference to the facts of the matter but with affective language focused on
outcomes: he spoke of ‘broad and categorical aspersions’, ‘the values’ of the
University (including ‘diversity and inclusion’, support for ‘racial justice’,
and the perceived conflicting values of ‘academic freedom’ and ‘job security’),
and ‘offensive’ views that were ‘poorly reasoned’.[8] Facts do not need to be assessed when all
that matters is the politically correct conclusion. Aspersions suffice—in academia. (I have no view on the matter and am just
observing how the argument was presented.)
This is the nature of a Postmodern dialogue. If truth is local and constructed, the facts
are not the focus. For Christians, facts
do matter. History matters. Science matters. Truth matters.
Tribalism has in common with other
authoritarian systems the need to tell its own version of history. Where history challenges the tribe’s
narrative, it needs to be ‘cancelled’.
Enter Western tribalism’s ‘cancel culture’. Undesirable statues and monuments have to be
torn down or defaced, not unlike the Taliban destroying ancient relics of bygone
eras. Unacceptable movies must no longer
be shown. Cultural artifacts are deemed
either good or bad—there is no mixture and no middle ground. George Washington cannot be the ‘father’ of
the United States of America and a slaveholder, even if he treated them well in
a slave culture and freed them in his will.
Today’s standard will judge all of history. Not only is the past destroyed, but the
present, street-judges of culture offer themselves as the embodiment of virtue
casting the first stone. This
utopianism, familiar to any understanding Marxism, offers itself as a false
Kingdom to the Kingdom of God.
Tribalism cannot allow free speech. As indicated in the example from Cornell
University, academic freedom of professors is a conflicting value for
tribalism. It is a holdover from a
previous era. It seems to be maintained
out of a value for keeping promises (the promise in contracts made to senior
faculty) more than the value of free speech, which was not mentioned. Yet there are many examples of an out-and-out
attack on free speech. Indeed, freedom
is not a value of tribalism, which is more comfortable with authoritarian
control of everything, including speech.
This is one of the major changes in American values. Free speech, and freedom, in the West was
largely formed from Christian values because faith was not something that could
be forced on people. People had to be
converted—come to faith. Genuine faith
was a choice. Western tribalism shares
with radical Islam the need to make others submit. A tinge of this perspective has reached
Evangelical churches in the West, where ministers place on their congregations
the culture’s narrative of racism and white privilege requiring submission in
guilt and self-castigation. This constructed narrative needs to be challenged, however, and if it does apply to anyone in the
congregation, it needs to be handled pastorally, not through politically
correct, group identity.
Indeed, in tribal society, the individual’s
identity is subsumed under the tribe’s identity. This works against Western notions of
individualism, freedom, and equality.
The tribe expects conformity, and not just passively. Individuals need to demonstrate their enthusiasm
for the community and, especially, for the leaders’ decisions in the
community. Instead of calls for the
freedom of conscience, there is a notion that ‘silence is violence’ (slogans
are also highly valued). This is
different from believing that not saying something when there is injustice is
complicity with injustice. The latter is
like God’s statement in Habakkuk: ‘You who are of purer eyes than to see evil
and cannot look at wrong, why do you idly look at traitors and remain silent
when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he?’ (1.13). The difference with tribalism is in the
external control: people are told that the agenda of the tribe is just, and
their involvement is expected more from a political than a moral standpoint:
‘If you are not for us, you are against us.’
When
exiles and slaves took over the Capitol and citadel in Rome in 460 BC, those
unwilling to participate in the conspiracy were put to the sword (Livy, History
of Rome 3.15-16; Dionysius of
Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 10.14-17). The radical group’s cause is self-righteous and
justifies violent, destructive activities.
On the other hand, Isaiah, in his experience of God’s holiness,
could only respond, ‘Woe is me! For I am
lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of
unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!’ (Isaiah
6.5). The Postmodern tribalist condemns
others in light of the tribe’s self-righteousness. Pictures of the revolutionaries during the
French Revolution, in Marxist revolutions, in Cambodia, in Rwanda, and now in
the violent destruction in America could not contrast more with Isaiah’s
experience.
Tribalism may start out passively, but it soon
becomes coercive, aggressive, and disciplinary.
It is not enough to have safe spaces designated for people to get away
from the perceived violent speech of others—which is what we heard just a few
years ago on college campuses. Now,
these others, with their perceived ‘hate speech’, need to be silenced. Violence may be used for the good cause, as
the waves of the French Revolution insisted.
All speech is political in tribal
thinking. If we think that there is such
a thing as truth, one can value free speech.
This is partly because things can get sorted out, the truth will come
out eventually, and free speech in public debate (the free exchange of ideas) helps
people move along to the truth. If,
however, there is no objective truth but only political speech, then speech is
not about truth but about power and control.
Opponents must not simply be silenced but also denied, denounced, and
removed. University professors who do
not toll the line are either silenced or dismissed. History, for that matter, must be rewritten.
A tribal take-over of another group involves
totally remaking the other society. If
the others are not put to death or enslaved, they must be made to conform. The coerciveness of tribalism was famously
described in George Orwell’s 1984. The
winning tribe will define speech and rename things, just as masters in ancient
Greece would rename individuals they purchased as slaves. In more contemporary times, cities and
streets and airports must be renamed.
Statues are torn down. Whether
one might be happy to see some such changes or not, the key characteristic of
‘revision’ is in the air, and the group decides what to denounce. In the French Revolution, the days of the
week were even renamed.
Tribalism is not, of course, democratic. The powerful exert their power over others. In Western tribalism, the mob is currently
the power—it has anarchist and anti-authoritarian characteristics that may well
be exchanged for totalitarianism in short order. Either way, there is no voting on whether
this or that statue should be removed: those assuming power and allowed to roam
the streets with immunity simply seize the power. This denies individuals the freedom to be
moral (or immoral) themselves: they are given no choice. There is no concern, as Immanuel Kant said
that there should be, for the willing of good actions if they are to be
moral. Intentions are unnecessary; the
tribe tells you what is to be done.
Christians, on the contrary, recognize that the problem of sin is not
just actions but the heart—the entire Bible is the story of the need for God to
change the hearts of sinful men and women.
Trying to make bad people do good things, as the social justice movement
(e.g., Walter Rauschenbusch) in the early 20th century intended to
do, is a recipe for more evil. When the
need is for changed hearts, coercion cannot make bad people good but will only
make people in charge worse.
While Western tribalism shares so much in
common with other forms of tribalism, it is notably different in its
combination of power with victimhood.
Victimhood has become a source of power in the West. This would not work in other societies, where
those with power make others the victims.
The difference might have something to do with a history of
entitlement. The logic runs, ‘If my group
was previously not in power and felt abused or actually was abused, we were
victims of others. Therefore, those in
power must be removed and the victims given power.’ One additional piece is needed for this
perspective: it is not just a matter of politics but also of ethics. If in Africa there might be an old adage,
‘It’s now my turn to eat’ when a previous regime is overturned, in the West the
concept of justice has become, ‘The marginalized are the just.’ Look, however, at the corrupt regimes that have replaced
past colonial powers: wicked people simply exchange chairs and reap the
benefits. Righteous opposition to
colonial powers has never translated into righteous rule by post-colonial
powers.
What is so amazing is the difference between early Postmodernity, with its values of diversity and inclusivity, and late Postmodernity, with its tribalism. If this trajectory progresses, the next stage is a tyranny of an oligarchy or of a tyrant. It need not be an atheistic, Western form of tyranny. In some parts of Europe, it may well be Islamic. Currently, however, the Western, post-Christian utopia is forming along anti-Christian lines from an atheistic worldview.
[1] This is not part of my argument,
however. I leave it to others to make
this point, as they have so well—persons such as Thomas Sowell, Walter E.
Williams, and Victor Davis Hanson.
People may need to repent of racism—if they are guilty of this, it would
be good to confess and repent. The claim
of widespread or institutional racism, however, would need to be argued over
against such scholars, not by dismissing them.
[2] Barbara Applebaum, Being White,
Being Good: White Complicity, White Moral Responsibility, and Social Justice
Pedagogy (Plymouth, UK: Lexington Books, 2011).
[3] Readers who are not aware of this
might benefit from a quick overview by Albert Mohler, Jr., ‘Black Lives Matter:
Affirm the Sentence, Not the Movement,’ Public Discourse (June 18, 2020);
online at: https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2020/06/65132/.
[4] See https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/did-you-know-black-lives-matter-supports-abortion-homosexuality-anti-family-agenda?utm_content=buffer83456&utm_medium=LSN%2Bbuffer&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=LSN&fbclid=IwAR3-Ca0OXQ_KUNE6gomG4P4gWx9dvajU05U0i3hzCaqwYCgro_XW9MfyDEA.
[5] Richard West, Tito and the Rise
and Fall of Yugoslavia (London: Bloomsbury House, 1996). See chapter 1.
[6] Cf. Alasdair MacIntyre, After
Virtue: A Study in Moral Theology, 3rd ed. (Notre Dame, IN:
University of Notre Dame, 2007; 1st ed., 1981) and Whose Justice?
Which Rationality? (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 1988);
Stanley Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics (Notre
Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 1983).
Both authors have written much on the subject, but these are some of the
key works for someone beginning to explore their arguments about narrative and
virtue.
[8] The language is from Dean by Eduardo Peñalver on Cornell
University’s website: https://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/spotlights/Statement-on-Prof-William-Jacobson-and-Academic-Freedom.cfm; accessed 6/12/2020.
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