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Comment by pnutjam | Hacker News Reader

wow: "Why would a clan that guarantees its own justice ever yield to a system that promises justice to its enemies? To do so is to voluntarily surrender its greatest strengths: the power to protect its own, punish its rivals, and maintain its position in the world. It is not merely a loss of advantage; it is the dismantling of the clan’s very foundation."

White nationalism and conservatism in a nutshell...

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> White nationalism and conservatism in a nutshell...

Do you think people in Africa think otherwise?

I know the political climate is charged right now, but cmon people.

Yes, I find folks in other countries are highly collaborative in a way that my own country (USA) often is not.

I think the general sentiment in my country is driven by goal-seeking behavior dominated by individualistic fear, and I see less of that elsewhere. "Political charged"-ness is both a contributor and an outcome.

> driven by goal-seeking behavior

This is a bad thing now?

Huh? There’s plenty of deeply divided countries. Especially in Africa where many borders were drawn with no respect to ethnic and tribal situation.

Most of the borders in the Middle East and Asia are drawn without any consideration of the locals

That is true everywhere though, locals only have a say when they rebel and throw out their overlords. It isn't like the Irish were particularly happy about England pushing them around and so on.

Still. Afghanistan effectively rebelled, and yet they still use the British-drawn borders as the borders of their state.

As a matter of power in the global scope, sure. Locally, it's messier. The British had to concede to local autonomy across the border they drew in what is now north-western Pakistan, and that formal arrangement persisted past partition (and informally persists to this day.) See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federally_Administered_Tribal_...

Has it occurred to you that a White nationalist and conservative may be reading that same passage and bringing whatever you are to mind? Or the entire article for that matter.

This is not a novel insight. The attitude described is basically textbook conservatism, as per Wilhoit's law [0]

Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect

For a majority of HN readers (and I assume the commenter you're replying to) that in-group is their country's white majority but in other circles it's other groups. They may be groups who don't call themselves conservatives but that doesn't mean they aren't.

In other words, I agree with their claim that said quote is conservatism in a nutshell. Anti-conservatism isn't rooting for some other group, it's being against this kind of tribalism wholesale.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_M._Wilhoit#Misattribut...

That's a pretty wild definition of conservatism, I don't think even uncharitable historians/political scientists would define conservatism in that way. And in fact it's not a textbook definition; looking at the link you posted seems like that quote is from a composer's blog in 2018.

It’s actually from a composer’s comment on someone else’s blog but yeah fair point :-)

It is wild ... but pretty accurate observation on their actual behavior. It is exactly how conservatives define law and order. It is about hierarchy and alliances. Their friends on the top get protection and enablement regardless of what they do. Their enemies and those on the bottom get obligations and punishments.

For that matter "cruelty is the point" might also be a slogan, but is also very correct observation.

Based on that last sentence I'm not sure if this is meant to be a serious argument or if you're being sarcastic. But assuming good faith, I would argue that there's nothing inherent to conservatism as it's defined that would logically lead the to the things you are describing. What you're describing is effectively corruption and authoritarianism. I think those things are elements that arise from overly centralised power and power imbalances. That is why one observes those things often in extremist governments where a large amount of power is centralised. It exists on a different axis to conservative vs liberal. Looking back on the 20th century, we can see both liberal and conservative governments that have had those traits.

For reference, here is the Wikipedia definition of conservatism:

"Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in which it appears."

Overall: I would argue that conservatism is a confounding variable in the events you're observing. What's actually causing the things you're observing is centralised power and authoritarianism.

> But assuming good faith, I would argue that there's nothing inherent to conservatism as it's defined that would logically lead the to the things you are describing.

It's exactly what "conservatism" has always been as a political ideology since it emerged as a coherent thing as the reaction against liberal/left politics (originally two different names for the same thing in different places, though they have since diverged in common use somewhat).

> I would argue that conservatism is a confounding variable in the events you're observing. What's actually causing the things you're observing is centralised power and authoritarianism.

Conservatism is (in relation to any of the societies in which it has existed since it emerged, not a hypothetical way the term might be used in some other context) retaining and reinforcing the centralization of power in established elites against the pressure from liberalizing forces to distribute power outward.

You're talking about conservatism. He's talking about American Conservatism. It's just a name, like "Pro-Life" or "Death Tax". It has no bearing in reality. Similar to how the National Socialist Party was not Socialist and most of the world's Communist parties ceased to be Communist long before the stopped calling themselves communist.

"Some random 59 year old from Ohio wrote this, so it's well known that that's conservativism in a nutshell" is a strange stance.

> Anti-conservatism isn't rooting for some other group, it's being against this kind of tribalism wholesale.

Do you have any examples of that? I've never seen someone who doesn't go mild on people who share beliefs he holds dear and judges harshly those who don't.

The ACLU was pretty anti-conservative in the past (before they got captured by the regressive left). Eg they helped protect the right of free expression of nazi groups, stuff like that.

ps. Fair, I agree that it's weird to elevate one random blog commenter's words to a "law", though this particular one is widely quoted because, I think, it resonates and hits the nail on the head. I do feel that "tribalism" is a better word for the concept, but "conservatism" isn't far off since every conservative group I know of (at least in the US and Europe) support this kind of tribalism to a fair extent.

We'd have to see how ACLU-members react/reacted to transgressions of friends or allies vs opponents. Would they not be affected when evaluating e.g. corruption charges? It'd be very rare.

Defending both left and right against the government is another story, I think. There are more tribes than just left and right, and even left and right I'd see more as meta-tribes, tribes made up of other tribes. Depending on the issue you're looking at, alliances shift, e.g. on Ukraine or Israel where the fault lines are not the typical left/right divisions in most Western countries.

That "law" probably resonates with lots of people who aren't fans of conservatives, but that's a low bar to clear and doesn't say much about whether it's true and only conservatives form tribes (calling everything conservative that forms a tribe would turn it into tautological reasoning). Every political movement I've ever witnessed was tribal at its core. I'm not sure it's impossible to have a cohesive movement without forming a tribe, but it doesn't seem to be easy or we'd see it more often.

I don't think 'Tribe' is really defined as merely a "political" group in the OG article. It's more a system of government rather than political affiliation. In tribalism, it is rule-of-the-strong, dominance over the weak; it is not 'rule of law'. Any group that believes in rule of law rather than dominance of the weak is not tribalistic. The article posits that the shift of tribalism comes about as a group can tear down the barriers that the rule of law provides - at which point society readily devolves to tribalism.

The libertarian stance leans toward magnanimity over those who don't share one's own beliefs. Provided their conduct doesn't interfere with others.

That's true, but aren't they still tribal in practice? Granted, that's getting into very broad strokes, but libertarians don't feel different in e.g. defending transgressions of other libertarians, their reaction is tribal (like everyone else's).

That's not a moral failure in my view, it's just the default state of humans. Possibly connected to self-interest, everyone tends to view others from "his tribe" favorable, people from random unrelated tribes somewhat neutral, and people from enemy/rival tribes more negative.

That doesn't change much, but more wealthy / free societies create more elaborate tribes than just genetic relationship or age. Now you can join the iphone owners, console gamers, or flat earth believers, or you can join the dog owners (cat owners are a rival tribe, but they'll band together if you're from the pet-hater-tribe), bmw-drivers, or one of the linux-user subtribes (and look down on the windows- and macos-tribes).

The scary thing is that if we take that (misattributed, but interesting) definition ("There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect") into consideration then its interpretation could be employed by whoever conservatives are supposed to be to describe the contemporary ideals of whoever isn't a conservative (or at least they don't call themselves conservatives but that doesn't mean that aren't).

And I don't think that the grandparent comment portrayed anything like anti-conservatism as you've defined it.

There's pots and kettles here clanging and banging against each other fighting to get the noose around the other's neck the quickest.

The tribes in the United States used to be called Yankee and Dixie. Now they're called other things, sometimes "red" and "blue", sometimes "MAGA" or "woke", but the geography (Mason-Dixon line), the sympathies, the prejudices, all very visible to this day.

Americans have no trouble seeing tribalism or clannish behavior when its in the Middle East, or in Africa, but seem to think America is differentnt (a phenomenon that also has a name: American Exceptionalism).

In my view, the Yankee/Dixie tribal cold war combined with American Exceptionalism is some pretty stiff stuff indeed.

Not american and have no idea what the situation there is like, but from election county maps it seems that the divide is much more fine-grained than you make it sound (nowhere near the sort of thing you see in Germany for example).

Yes geo-wise it’s often urban vs in USA. What’s it like in Germany?

East Germany border is very very visible.

You mean the border to West Germany. /s

Sorry, but I couldn't resist to point that out. But after all it is just a matter of perspective.

Hey, borders with Poland and Czechia are clearly visible too!

> (a phenomenon that also has a name: American Exceptionalism).

I’m not American by live in the US, and I agree. This inability of Americans, on average ofc, (regardless of the degree, social status, race, etc) to accept that people in other countries may view A THING differently than what Americans think these said people think is mind boggling.

Americans see tribalism just fine: we’ve been discussing since Malcolm X how the tribal sentiments of minorities are utilized by a political party in the pursuit of power.

And the primary division these days is urban vs rural, with the secondary PMC vs working class. Woke vs MAGA maps onto that divide more cleanly than anything else.

I think its much more useful to think of those divides as artificial or manufactured creations, as a tool for pacification, divide and conquer. You can also see that expressed in US foreign policy, the sunni/shia/kurdish divide in Iraq after the war, that too was an artificial creation by the US ruling class.

US foreign policy might have exacerbated some tribal or sectarian conflicts but historically those groups have never gotten along very well. There is a long history of violence stretching back centuries before the US even existed.

I think you downplaying it, but I understand the need to defend the US at all times. A source on the matter for example:

> "This analysis paper begins by examining how the U.S. occupation effectively dismantled the Iraqi state post-2003, paving the way for sectarian conflict and allowing for armed groups and sectarian elites to fill the resulting gap. It explores the weaponization of sect and identity and its devastating consequences for the country. The second part focuses on the Baath Party-enforced political and institutional order to explain how the former regime was able to constrain the space for group identities."

> "Sectarianism would not have become the powerful, destructive force that it did were it not for the weaponization of identity and sect by the exiled opposition and a series of disastrous post-conflict reconstruction policies"

https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Sectari...

I think John Dolan's take is the ruthlessly honest one: some neighborhoods are rougher than others, and that's not a parochial or imperialist sentiment a-priori the way some would try to paint it (the Troubles are far too recent to think that white/Empire-descended people have forgotten real sectarian conflict).

Saddam Hussein was siting on top of one of the most complex and high-intensity sectarian fault lines on Earth (not unlike other Baathist proto-commies-turned-strongmen who have since been replaced by Islamist hardliners) and he kept order with the kinds of brutality that keep order when salients like that are in play.

I don't know what the long-term humane solution will be, but it won't be sanctimonious twittering on the heels of an Arc Light strike. I think self-determination is an easy talk to talk but a harder walk to walk for cultures like America.

Exactly my point, this has been going on in America for a long time.

Despite your clumsy attempt to tie tribalism exclusively to white conservatives, there are many other groups far more tribalist across the spectrum.

Who said exclusively?

the only example being used.

you guys always tell on yourselves

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