subject: Is The Culture & Trend Towards Tribalism Damaging Society? [print this page] It is the year 10,000BCIt is the year 10,000BC. On a shallow hill, against a backdrop of cold stone, lives a small tribe of humans. This group of humans is about 50 people strong, and all have one thing in common - they depend upon each other to survive. They also share the same interests in food, music and cave paintings.
Now, step back in the time machine and jump back through the years into the decade beginning 2010AD. More specifically, I want you to turn your computer on and take a long hard look at the internet. Not so different really is it?
Against a clean, minimalist white backdrop, lives a tribe of car enthusiasts on a specialist web forum. Their lives aren't dependent upon one another, but their entertainment is. As a cohensive group, they act in a way that fulfils the group's original purpose. This is a tribe of the 21st century.
Tribalism dissolved at historically unprecedented rates during the 20th century, as television and radio 'nationalised' pretty much everything, from music to art and theatre. Tastes within the classes were very similar. As a result, the most popular music artists in human history lived during this period, such as the Beatles, and Elvis.
Since that golden period, the birth of internet has allowed small, niche groups of individuals to cater, and thus emphasise, their own individual passions and pursuits. If you'd like to talk with like-minded table tennis fans that are as crazy about the national tour, then you'll find not one, but several different 'tribes' that you could join.
While it's fantastic that people never have to feel 'lonely' in their passion. This tribalism has several negative implications:
1. Inefficiency in providing Media.
As media has tried to cater to niches, and later, sub-niches in an attempt to capture the market, their spending has become inefficient. In order to entertain 10m UK adults in an evening, a broadcaster who, 30 years ago, just needed to produce one Saturday-night live game show, now must make several programmes, broadcast simultaneously on different channels, targeted at various niches to capture that same 10m total. As the total budget for programming has stayed the same, the amount spent on each individual programme will have fallen. This may reduce the quality of the media, which in the case of news broadcasts and other public service elements, is important.
2. Isolation.
As the immensely popular 'Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game' (MMORPG) 'World of Warcraft' has shown, bringing people together in an online format to collaborate as a community does not encourage social behaviour in the players. WOW players, with all their hours spent online communicating with others, you would imagine, should possess fantastic communication skills. We of course have witnessed the opposite to be true. (Google 'World of Warcraft' and 'lonely' to get an idea of the problem). It appears that having tight-knit groups on the internet is harming the open relationships and community of real life.
3. Identity and Hostility.
With a unique tribal identity, other tribes become the enemy. Just we see in the world around us, in terms of the relationships between countries, it is seen that when a group associate with each other, they will see other groups as an 'outsider' and will act to defend their interests more easily that cohesively work together. Leadership plays a bigger role in small tribes, as the leadership skills of one individual will more directly effect the other members, however if their heart isn't pure and intentions innocent, hostility can ensue.
It seems that as tribalism has brought people back together again, it has done so, this time in a different way. With tribes existing mainly on the interest, and through electronic reaction - the experiences, skills and feelings that man used to gain from being in a tribe are not necessarily present in the modern day equivilant.
