Here's an argument I've not seen before: “What’s needed is
more tribalism, not less”.
It's the subtitle and crucial point of Richard Landes's “How
Thinking Right Can Save the Left” (2015). I keep urging we do more analysis
using a tribal optic, but mostly for purposes of decreasing tribalism. Landes
uses a tribal optic here, but for a contrary purpose: He sees virtue in urging
that a particular kind tribalism be increased.
The article focuses on Jewish responses to the jihadi
terrorist attacks in Paris in 2013. His starting point is to identity a
paradoxical "split in Israeli discourse about the Paris attacks". The
split is between Jews who hold tribalist views of what's going on and what to
do, versus Jews who hold universalist views. The paradox is that Europe is
mostly full of universalists who feel an affinity for the Jewish universalists,
but, says Landes, their views only make Europe and Israel more vulnerable to
terrorism. It's the tribalists who have the more accurate views.
Here's what Landes writes up front about the paradox, before
analyzing one view as tribalist, the other as universalist:
“In a deeply disturbing and
repeating 21st-century, paradox, however, the approach of Israel’s generous and
selfless ones [i.e., the universalists] has worked to the benefit of most
regressive forces on the planet — while on the contrary, the voice that
awakening Europe needs most to heed in the current crisis is that of those
self-centered Israelis [i.e., the tribalist] who relate European woes to their
own pain. The failure to understand this paradox explains both why Western
elites are so poor at resisting global jihad, and why, for a disaffected youth
— Muslim by birth or by choice — it makes sense to join that jihad. Indeed,
this split in Israeli discourse about the Paris attacks illustrates the
disproportionate impact of a peculiar Jewish dispute on the current cognitive
disorientation of the West."
What makes this apropos for this series is that Landes then
turns to contrast two types of thinking. First up is the tribalist type:
“But first, let’s explain our
terms. Let’s call the first response the tribalist approach. It is centered on
the self, preoccupied with defending family, clan, group; suspicious by default
of others, especially of strangers; and easily rendered defensive by
threatening behavior. Tribalists think in terms of “us vs. them”; they treat
“their own” differently from others, and when they feel sufficiently
threatened, they will lash out. They think of their own pain and feel anger at
hypocrisy (in this case against the French for their 15-year-long indifference
to the pain of their Jews). This mindset historically favors vengeful attitudes
— “they deserve it” — and rough justice.
“Politically, these folks appear on
the “right” of our spectrum, and they remind us of historical periods when
people with power lacked empathy and used it cruelly, a political culture of
rule or be ruled, that democracies hope to have outgrown. Tribalists are the
zero-sum folks: “I only win if they lose,” and, “they only understand force.”
Like Huntington, one of their intellectual heroes, these tribalists tend to
look for enemies. They find reasons to be belligerent, to provoke war, they
“invent the enemy.”
I think that's a good accurate description of how the
tribalized mind works.
Here's what he says next about the universalist:
Here's what he says next about the universalist:
“Let’s call the second response the
universalist: considerate of others, self-abnegating: “This is not about
Israel.” These are the positive-sum folks, the ones who make friends, who build
on trust, who come up with mutually beneficial projects from which everyone
profits, who look for the voluntary win-win rather than the coerced win-lose.
They reject the selfish me first, the invidious us-them, the tribal my side
right or wrong.
“These folks appear on the “left”
of our political spectrum. They empathize with the “other” and embrace
diversity. They can and want to trust. In renouncing the win-lose, they become
capable of granting dignity and freedom to others — the fundamental social
contract of a successful egalitarian culture. They imagine themselves as
inhabitants of a future diverse, civil, and peaceful global community, where
racism and xenophobia are no more."
Again, that's a fair description. And it hones in on the
dichotomy behind the paradox that concerns him in both Israel and Europe:
“This dichotomy between tribal and
universal sheds light on the current paradoxical situation in Europe, where the
most extraordinary cognitive disarray rules.”
The article then becomes long, offering an intricate analysis
of Jewish and European perspectives. I'm going to skip over that, in order to
provide you with Landes' hard-hitting conclusion. It's about why Europeans
should heed the Jewish tribalists, for they are better than the universalists
at understanding the enemy and thus at knowing how best to defend the future of
democracy:
“What has this got to do with the
two Jewish-Israeli responses with which I began this discussion? Ironically, it
suggests that those tribal Jews/Israelis that Europe deplores are fighting not
only for themselves, but for a decent democratic and egalitarian culture the
world over, against a deeply regressive, triumphalist Islam. The “left-wing”
Israeli responses that disdain tribalism, and promote lofty universalist
values, dismiss this Israeli tribal voice as paranoid, conspiracy-minded,
xenophobic, Islamophobic. Yet, in so doing, they contribute to the cognitive
disorientation of the outside nations and peoples. In their eagerness to
confess Israel’s sins, to consider Palestinians innocent and Israel guilty,
they shield outsiders from hearing the much harsher jihadi voice that
explicitly targets not just Israel but them.”
Landes usually focuses on honor-shame dynamics in the Middle
East, as well as on the kinds of cognitive warfare that result from this. This
2015 article is one of the few where he explicitly focuses on tribalism per se.
For that, I'm delighted to include it in this series of readings.
To read for yourself, go here:
http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/195279/terror-right-left
[I posted an earlier write-up of this reading on my Facebook
page, on April 19.]
No comments:
Post a Comment