The Tribes Of The Rich and White

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/opinion/politics-race-white-tribalism.html

David Brooks is what counts as a "conservative" at the NY Times ... he voted for Obama twice, so he is a rich white leftist in terms of his article, a "Progressive Activist".

The report, “Hidden Tribes,” breaks Americans into seven groups, from left to right, with names like Traditional Liberals, Moderates, Politically Disengaged and so on. It won’t surprise you to learn that the most active groups are on the extremes — Progressive Activists on the left (8 percent of Americans) and Devoted Conservatives on the right (6 percent).

These two groups are the richest of all the groups. They are the whitest of the groups. Their members have among the highest education levels, and they report high levels of personal security.

His biggest takeaway from this particluar survey is:

You could say that tribalism is the fruit of privilege. People with more stresses in their lives necessarily pay less attention to politics. People with college degrees are more likely to describe their ideology as central to their identity. They are much more likely to derive moral meaning from their label, more likely to affiliate with a herd based on their label and more likely to vote on the party line.

Brooks the intellectual seems to miss that tribalism is NATURAL, it is wired into ALL of us. He could read Amy Chua, "Political Tribes and the Fall of Nations" to get a better handle on that.

On page 40-41 she does a good job of quickly covering the basic science that we already know -- "our brains are hardwired to identify, value, and individualize in-group members, while outgroup members are processed as interchangeable members of a general social category". 

"Humans aren't just a little tribal. We're VERY tribal and it distorts the way we think and feel". 

"The key to ethnic identity is that it is built around the idea of shared blood; ... For most human beings, the family is primal".

The BASIS that we select our tribe may vary, but there are really only two hopes for rising above tribalism, religion or education. Brooks is saying that "education fails" ... although he likely doesn't know what he has said. His second big takeaway is ...

My second big takeaway from the report is that ideas really do drive history. Progressive Activists and Devoted Conservatives organize around coherent philosophical narratives. These narratives aren’t visions of a just society. They are narratives of menace — about who needs to be exorcised from society. 

Historically, FAITH drove Western history, specifically, Christian faith. I'd argue that it is still faith driving history -- it is just that the tribal faith of both the rich white segments he talks about is no longer a transcendent religious faith grounded in classic historical and SHARED cultural heritage. As he says in his own roundabout way, the "Progressive Activists" want to destroy what is left of "America", and the "Devoted Conservatives" want to preserve it -- so they don't get along.

What he fails to notice is that without Christianity, all the other groups are tribal as well -- their tribe choice may not be as "well thought out" as Brooks seems to think, but that just shows he doesn't understand tribalism. Tribalism **IS** for humans, it is WIRED IN, like sweet/sour, hot/cold, pretty/ugly ... it is "pre-thought", it is emotional / spiritual.

What the "better" educated are able to do is more clearly ARTICULATE their tribalism in an attempt to call it "correct thinking about the world".