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Comment by sjaak | Hacker News Reader

Something else will replace it. Tribalism is built in to our ‘firmware’.

Looking at US - it’s already being replaced by political divide. I prefer Euro style ethnic tribalism to US style political tribalism much more.

Former allows to keep it at sports, lame memes and kitchen. Yet find common ground on internal politics. Even if political narratives divide, there’s still something to unite people. Meanwhile political tribalism seem to be penetrating everything with little chance for something in common.

The appearance of ostensible diversity, whilst an underlying consensus is actually present. Propaganda exists for a reason I suppose.

To take it a step further, what if the Euro style ethnic tribalism could be also decentralized, detached from any one place, to end its effect on geopolitics altogether? Unfortunately I think that'd lead directly to US style political tribalism. We may be forced to pick and choose from having localized tribes vs. politicized tribes.

Maybe if we eliminate states and administrative regions in favour of municipalities only (almost flat hierarchy with just two levels of government: municipality level and EU level), the localized "ethnic" tribes would be a lot weaker.

Like... parallel societies? Separate school, health, monetary systems? That looks like a brewing conflict once there's a conflict in meatspace that can't be solved in such style.

We don't need to eliminate states. We need to bring down remaining empires masquerading as nation states. Russia shall be divided by separating it's ethnic autonomies, Kaliningrad taken away, Crimea given back to Ukraine. Catalonia and Scotland shall be finally granted independence. Bavarian voices are rather silent nowadays, but why not.

I kinda get your point but which system produced fewer wars in the last 250 years?

Seems like they aren't simply mutually exclusive.

Big part of Euro wars were caused partially by multinational empires. WW1 - Austro-Hungary and Russian empire. WW2 - Soviet Union. Yugoslavian wars if in the middle between Serbian chauvinism and Yugo multinational empire as well.

Meanwhile US had plenty of action in this department too.

Not at all. Like most social constructs, tribalism can be learned and unlearned.

Amplified or quenched.

Applied in harmless ways like having a favorite musician or sportsball team or in very harmful ways like racism/nationalism/ethnocentrism/sexism.

Unfortunately in the West I think this might be identity politics. There is very much a "us Vs them" attitude with the whole thing. To give an example I see a lot of LGBT "allies" with pin badges, flags, etc. To label oneself as being part of that group.

Without flying the flags you are seen as an outsider.

> Without flying the flags you are seen as an outsider.

Not my sense at all.

I feel weird if I select the yellow emoji color since everyone on our internal slack is gung ho about their skin color. Same with pronouns, almost indirectly mandated at this point.

Modern identity politics in the U.S. seems like the inevitable result of telling people they are "free" but then excluding certain identified groups from social life, jobs, etc.

Over time, people will bond around their exclusion to create a more powerful bloc to assert their rights. It seems to me that the dominant identitarians of the past have largely created the current situation by not following the creed of "live and let live."

Conservatives and the right engage in extreme identity politics, but "identity politics" is most often used as a pejorative against liberals and the left. I wonder why that is. Modern identities probably wouldn't exist if it weren't for historical identification/classification and discrimination.

Identity politics would always exist.

We just called it "tribalism" in our distant past.

It can never go away. It isn't specific to the US either, it's a part of us as humans. That's the real reason there are no "free" countries. I guarantee, you look closely enough, you'll find the group in that country that is not "free". People just knock the US all the time because the group in our nation that is not "free" is pretty obvious to everyone in the world. But all the other nations are just as bad. I've been to a lot of them, so I can promise you that.

There is not shining example of non-tribalist freedom out there, and only the ready and frequent application of force would ever create such a nation. Even then, it would be against the will of many of that nation's citizens.

Your reply here comes across as reactionary and rather condescending but really doesn't address anything I said.

Nowhere did I say the U.S. is worse than anywhere else nor did I imply perfection exists or even could exist.

I was responding to someone talking about "the west," and I have a U.S.-centric perspective because that's where I'm from.

It's quite obvious that tribalism will always be a thing (to some extent), but I strongly disagree that tribalism → modern identity politics.

What is modern identity politics but a big word that academics and élites dreamed up for tribalism?

You may believe they are different because your ideology needs for you to believe they are different. But at heart, there is no difference. Using terms like "modern identity politics" just allows you to discuss the topic in academia and polite society. On the streets, when the tiki torches, rifles, and baseball bats come out, it really is just tribalism. Different tribes going at each other precisely because they are each the "other".

Yes, I thought tribalism was the better word.

> As the nearest existing equivalent I have chosen the word ‘nationalism’…

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