An Introduction to Tribalism for the Modern World That Has Forgotten It

https://sustainableviews.substack.com/p/an-introduction-to-tribalism-for

82•spyckie2•7mo ago

Comments

pnutjam•7mo ago

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...

tolerance•7mo ago

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.

skrebbel•7mo ago

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...

luckylion•7mo ago

"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.

skrebbel•7mo ago

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.

luckylion•7mo ago

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.

seadan83•7mo ago

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.

kevin_thibedeau•7mo ago

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

luckylion•7mo ago

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).

cdrini•7mo ago

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.

skrebbel•7mo ago

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

watwut•7mo ago

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.

cdrini•7mo ago

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.

pnutjam•7mo ago

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.

dragonwriter•7mo ago

> 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.

tolerance•7mo ago

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.

benreesman•7mo ago

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.

reliabilityguy•7mo ago

> (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.

pnutjam•7mo ago

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

zmgsabst•7mo ago

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.

lyu07282•7mo ago

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.

nradov•7mo ago

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.

lyu07282•7mo ago

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...

benreesman•7mo ago

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.

PhilipRoman•7mo ago

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).

efavdb•7mo ago

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

mantas•7mo ago

East Germany border is very very visible.

1718627440•7mo ago

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.

mantas•7mo ago

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

reliabilityguy•7mo ago

> 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.

gcr•7mo ago

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.

fidotron•7mo ago

> driven by goal-seeking behavior

This is a bad thing now?

mantas•7mo ago

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

reliabilityguy•7mo ago

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

Jensson•7mo ago

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.

reliabilityguy•7mo ago

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

pakthrow•7mo ago

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_...

OrvalWintermute•7mo ago

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

pnutjam•7mo ago

Who said exclusively?

OrvalWintermute•7mo ago

the only example being used.

micromacrofoot•7mo ago

you guys always tell on yourselves

lukeasrodgers•7mo ago

There are a lot of big claims here and literally not a single reference to anthropological research or even anything resembling it. This article is very badly argued.

i_dont_know_•7mo ago

I think there's something about the way this is written that's endemic to our time -- it basically feels right because it gives a possible explanation of current events that has some internal consistency. It doesn't mean it's right, but neither the author nor (most of) the audience care about that part.

moritzwarhier•7mo ago

The same blog has another post for you about this:

"The rise of marketing speak: Why everyone on the internet sounds like a used car salesman" :)

card_zero•7mo ago

Specify what argument is bad? I don't think it needs references. If after "The reason modern individuals agree to give up their right to personal protection is due to their belief in institutions" there was a footnote that said something like "Bigbeard, 1983" how would that help?

dcre•7mo ago

“Imagine a small village at the dawn of society.”

That part!

tolerance•7mo ago

This article is so reductive that by the end I don't know who "we" are and what "we have" to preserve and appreciate or what modern state is worth fighting for if it's the one that raised us on the rule of law that that made us illiterate to the tribal nature that this same state is reviving through its failures?

moritzwarhier•7mo ago

I think this is a good piece of writing, the only part I disagree with is the claim that these thoughts would be broadly overlooked or disagreed with.

Seems I'm pretty much alone with this, but that's OK.

I agree with other comments that it should have more links to prior philosophical and anthropological studies.

This is not academic writing or an essay arguing for a point. At least, the point at rhetorical end seems a bit tacked-on.

To me this is a stream-of-consciousness like text.

Sometimes, being reductive helps in bringing a point across.

I think that the article does this well.

The close similarity of cronyism and tribalism is pointed out especially well, too.

My critique would be that the text is a bit engagement-baity. And it uses the simplistic rhetoric so well that for the most part it feels as if the author is arguing for an abandonment of law and a return to "tribalism".

The claim that people have "forgotten" the ideas of this essay seems unneeded.

A more humble tone would maybe make this post more interesting to many readers.

AlotOfReading•7mo ago

Can it really be good writing if the central premise that we followed a tribal "law of the jungle" for all of human history, is fundamentally flawed? I'd like to see literally any anthropology work from this century advocating it.

For what it's worth, modern foragers that we can study are almost to a group stiflingly egalitarian. Being powerful and egoistic gets you quickly cut down to size in the social order. A few people (myself included, but more notably graeber) argue that other social structures were historically common and didn't survive to be recorded ethnographically. Neither of these suggest what the post is talking about.

What they're calling tribalism is actually a characteristic of warfare, usually modern. That's not a normal social environment by any means and there's probably an interesting discussion to be had on it, but the author seemingly isn't even aware.

moritzwarhier•7mo ago

I'm not sure.

I agree that the "law of the jungle" trope seems like an oversimplification.

But the fact that cooperation was also present in pre-modern societies does not completely refute the point.

That's why they are talking about tribes, not just families or individuals.

I an not a professional historian or anthropoligist, but the scope and phenomenology of cooperation in ancient societies is not a question with a global, settled answer, as far as I'm concerned.

I'm currently reading this book:

https://www.amazon.de/R%C3%BCckblick-auf-die-Natur-Geschicht...

It deals with many of these topics, especially the transition from hunter-gatherer societies to agriculture.

It is more academically rigorous than the submission post, and it quotes other research.

Unfortunately, there are two flaws:

a) the author has transitioned to what we'd call a far-right activist prior to his suicide. He became known outside the scientific community due to his book "Finis Germania" (which I haven't read). But the book that I am reading was published much earlier, and well-received by the scientific community. The same goes for other works by him. He focused on the living conditions that allowed for a humanitarian mindset to even emerge, basically what humans do to provide the resources for living.

b) there seems to be no English translation

AlotOfReading•7mo ago

Unfortunately, I'm not fluent in German and haven't read any of his works. Can't really comment on it.

Broadly, in the English speaking anthropology community, the views you'll find are pretty well summarized by Kelly's Lifeways of Hunter-Gatherers, if you want English reading.

The vast majority of these groups probably would have been very vocally egalitarian to avoid even the appearance of status and power. Everyone's aware of it, simply to avoid it because of the social repercussions that come from the association and the fact that others can simply leave you.

moritzwarhier•7mo ago

Thanks for your reply!

The back-cover text of the book I linked explicitly says the same, but with a strong reversal of causation.

Roughly translated and summarized, it says: "Genuinely egalitarian societies must be small and tight-knit". It kind of ties egalitarianism to hunter-gatherer tribes, and even doubts the possibility of egalitarianism in industrialized (and even agriculture-driven) socieities.

I'm not here to replicate this claim, the book's contents are of course more nuanced that my summary of the cover text.

I think it even quotes Kelly, but I'd have to move my fat ass to the shelve and look up the appendix to confirm this.

It discusses many different works about pre-modern societies.

dcre•7mo ago

This is hopelessly abstract, with not a single reference to any actual historical group or political regime, let alone any rigorous research or writing. For nearly a decade I've watched people use the word "tribalism" to avoid thinking and have never seen anything to convince me of its value. Calling this high school level writing is unfair to thoughtful high school students.

dudeinjapan•7mo ago

Hey, watch it there! This article was written by my nephew.

djoldman•7mo ago

I did actually chuckle at this, so it grudgingly earns my upvote.

N7lo4nl34akaoSN•7mo ago

fidotron•7mo ago

Ironically that applies more to your reply than the comment you replied to.

ants_everywhere•7mo ago

Forgotten it? Tribalism has been one of the single biggest tropes in pop political rhetoric for at least a decade.

It's hard to find a political post on HN that doesn't invoke it in the comments.

spacecadet•7mo ago

Yes. This put what I have been saying... "every day feels more and more like survival mixed with fuck you I got mine"... into much better words and concepts. I grew up poor and got involved with "tribes" where power was the goal and we learned growing up that you demonstrated your power. Lucky enough to have escaped that and to have matured into a passivist of sorts- I am troubled by the increasing tribalism and more and more feel my patience eroding and that itch in my id to demonstrate power...

netsharc•7mo ago

I feel like tribalism is natural (as in, it's the law of nature): our prime concern is the survival of our individual selves. And then of our families. And since we are social creatures, the survival/well-being people around us. And if we're programmed to identify "people who look like me are family", then a tribalism based on appearance is pre-programmed. The next level of programming is "people who think like me and share my values are family"...

And the pessimist in me doesn't see how the tribes won't get smaller and more egoistic in this world: population is growing, the melting/burning planet provides less and less resources, and social media is building up the jealousy...

Ozzie_osman•7mo ago

This article seems to reduce the world to "fair and non-tribal" vs "unfair and tribal". These probably correlate. But it's not that simple.

For example, in many tribal societies, if a man from tribe A harms a man from tribe B, his own tribe might offer restitution to tribe B (or punishment for the criminal). In fact, disputes would often escalate to tribal leaders, who of course might be biased and only look out for their own, but not always. This was how peace was generally maintained. Otherwise, anytime someone from a tribe harmed someone from another tribe, there would be war.

seadan83•7mo ago

> "fair and non-tribal" vs "unfair and tribal".

Interesting framing. Tribalism, or 'rule-of-the-strong' is inherently not fair. "Fair" is not the driving consideration. "Rule of law" does have 'just' as a driving consideration.

> For example, in many tribal societies, if a man from tribe A harms a man from tribe B, his own tribe might offer restitution to tribe B (or punishment for the criminal).

I'd suggest the restitution is offered because either tribe A & B are of equal strength, or tribe A is weaker. In both cases, tribe A is "offering tribute" to show subservience, to show they are weaker. If they do not, tribe B is forced to show they are stronger; lest other tribes think that they can take similar advantage of them.

Hence, it is a lot more of a "I'm sorry - please don't hurt me!" rather than a "well, it is only fair that we compensate you". In tribalism, if you are strong, then you don't offer the compensation.

> In fact, disputes would often escalate to tribal leaders, who of course might be biased and only look out for their own, but not always.

Is it not always? The reason to offer restitution to a stronger tribe is so that the stronger tribe does not retaliate.

> Otherwise, anytime someone from a tribe harmed someone from another tribe, there would be war.

I think this is overlooking the case where tribe A is actually stronger. In tribalism, if tribe A is stronger then there would be no recourse for tribe B. By showing dominance over tribe B, tribe A is sending a message to all other tribes that they are not to be messed with.

Ozzie_osman•7mo ago

> rule-of-the-strong

I'm not sure this is what tribalism is. It's more loyalty to a group rather than to a nation, laws, etc. In fact, a tribal person might consider modern capitalism "rule of the strong", in that, you can do a lot with money.

seadan83•7mo ago

I'd say it's more about interactions and accountability rather than loyalty. Loyalty in Tribalism is essentially intrinsic to the power structure.

Really two dimensions:

(1) Prevailing power structures (is there a functional government that can physically enforce laws? If no, then is 'rule of power')

(2) intrinsic motivations based on world outlook (am I at peace with my enemies because of laws, or because of projection of strength?)

The article does define terms, but the term 'tribalism' is perhaps more properly called 'rule of power'. [1] While the terminology is tortured, nonetheless it is illustrative to understand 'rule of power' and that 'rule of law' can break down into 'rule of power'.

From the article:

> To understand tribalism, we must start at the beginning. Imagine a small village at the dawn of society. When a man is murdered for his property and there is no police to call, what happens? Without the threat of punishment, the profitable nature of violence becomes clear, and a simple, terrifying logic takes hold. You quickly realize that your safety depends not on your virtue, but on your ability to project a credible threat. You need allies. You need a tribe.

> This is the foundational axiom of this world: Tribalism is the logical response to a world where the only check on power is other power. In this system, actions are not judged by their morality, but by how they shift the landscape of power. For instance, a powerful clan demanding tribute from weaker villages isn't seen as committing extortion; it is establishing the price of stability and reinforcing the regional order.

> In fact, a tribal person might consider modern capitalism "rule of the strong", in that, you can do a lot with money.

I think the way to look at it is based on the two dimensions. First, is modern capitalism functioning within 'rule of power' (or 'rule of the strong'), or 'rule of law'. If a company does whatever they want, who holds them to account? It is debatable..

Second, the intrinsic motivations. A tribal person will assume the others are going to do whatever they can to get ahead. The tribal person will for example send lobbyists to influence laws either (1) because they can, and (2) because they assume others are going to do so as well.

[1] https://farmdocdaily.illinois.edu/2020/09/the-rule-of-law-vs...

cjfd•7mo ago

One can present these two systems as equal alternatives but there is a very big difference. The system with the rule of law leads to much more prosperous societies than the tribal one. Corruption is economically extremely expensive. Like, one it really gets going, it can easily decrease GDP by a factor of 10. The same with dictatorships. As long as the dictator makes somewhat reasonable decisions it is more or less okay but any dictatorship is only a few bad decisions away from becoming much poorer. And when it depends on the good judgement of a single person these bad decisions are certainly going to come.

igor47•7mo ago

The problem as usual is the tragedy of the commons. We might be collectively better off under rule of law, but the tribal law of the jungle system produces concentrated winners, who will use their winnings to continue to subvert rule of law.

rayiner•7mo ago

I’ve changed my mind on dictators. Name one asian country that became prosperous without a phase where it was ruled by a highly authoritarian ruler?

Even in the west, the civil institutions that underpin democracy were mostly created under “enlightened despots” (or so I learned in AP Euro). You probably need a dictator to break the familial and clan ties and organizer the country around individuals interacting with the civil organs of the state.

OgsyedIE•7mo ago

Isn't the rebuttal that these states merely were able to kickstart the import substitution process and could not produce endogenous economic progress without a developed country to borrow memes from?

rayiner•7mo ago

I don’t think that’s a rebuttal but instead an orthogonal point. Lots of countries are stuck in dysfunctional situations where they can’t even copy progress from developed countries because of corruption, civil unrest, etc. A dictator can help cut through that.

dudeinjapan•7mo ago

Post-WWII Japan did not have a dictator, which was its period of greatest rise in prosperity.

paleotrope•7mo ago

Douglas MacArthur though.

dudeinjapan•7mo ago

MacArthur was there till 1952 and was tasked with rebuilding, establishing a viable democratic government, then exiting. The majority of growth came after him.

Compare to Mao, Stalin, and other dictators of the era.

rayiner•7mo ago

McArthur did way more than that, including things like land reform, welfare programs, censoring media, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Commander_for_the_Alli.... In some ways, he was a “good authoritarian” like Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore.

rayiner•7mo ago

Japan was like several european countries in having a monarch in the 19th-early 20th century who developed a modern centralized state, and then having war lead to democracy in the 20th century. Then you had McArthur rule as a dictator for seven years during which time he imposed major government reforms, including land reform and welfare reform: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Commander_for_the_Alli.... After the end of occupation, a single party, LDP, held power for almost 40 years, from 1955-1993.

hollerith•7mo ago

Some say the Catholic Church broke the familial and clan ties in Europe by putting its considerable influence towards stopping cousin marriage.

pchangr•7mo ago

That really just means dictatorships are a common form of government in Asia IMHO. Progress is orthogonal to the form of government, I think.

rayiner•7mo ago

India is the biggest democracy in the world. Bangladesh was a functional democracy for a good stretch until last year. At least on paper, Afghanistan and Iraq were democracies.

pchangr•7mo ago

Afghanistan was almost never a democracy tho. It was mostly monarchies until 1973.. then a totalitarian state from 1978-ish until 1989… then mostly in civil war until 1996.. when it was again mostly a totalitarian state.. then it got invaded by the US in 2001.. until 2021 when it got again under a totalitarian state.

mathiaspoint•7mo ago

Only tribes that value rule of law can sustain it. Many tribes prefer to form states like Mexico or India so they must be excluded if you want to maintain the rule of law.

PicassoCTs•7mo ago

Eh, the west has forgotten it. The rest of the world, played along and embraced it. The middle east- genocided flat along tribal lines. 99% shia, 99% sunnis, the rest all gone or about to go, copts, zhorotastrians, jesidi, druse, alewite, jehudi - and the genocide is still going on, burning its way through sudan.

Nobody cares about it, its right there in public, in the population statistics of the middle east- provided by the UN who never made a single resolution against it.

China is a pure ethno-state where every minority dwindles and vannishes - and some are kept around for a happy Disney dance around the reservation.

Turkey has thrown its proxxies ISIL/HTS into syria to continue the genocide on the kurds, driving them out of the towns towards the mediterranean, after its ally to the east has driven the armenians into retreat in mount kharabach.

Russia is deeply tribalist, the moscowian throwing the other minorities into battle to capture new minorities to throw into battle.

Its a grim world out there, once you rip the western centric googles from your eyes. Nobody cares about the law, about the west and about morals or history books.

seadan83•7mo ago

I think many of the comments in this discussion are confusing the concept of "tribes" (in-groups & out-groups) with 'tribalism' - the form of civic society. This article is about the civic society called 'tribalism'. The contrast to 'tribalism' is 'rule of law'.

Tribalism is essentially a belief that the only reason others won't bully you is because they can't. Bully or be bullied. Rule of law instead says that it is the civic code who is the arbiter of right. 'Tribalism' vs 'rule of law' are both essentially frameworks of society and government.

marssaxman•7mo ago

Have we really forgotten it? What this author describes as "tribalism" sounds like what I think of as "the way things really work, underneath the fancy idealistic stories", which are ultimately propaganda meant to keep people from rising up and overthrowing the wealthy, for whose benefit those stories were made. There is no justice; there is no fairness; the law is a coin-operated cannon. Once you see this, much of what it does stops seeming so outrageous, and looks more like the predictable consequences of a thin abstraction layer over a system fundamentally built on violence and expropriation.

rayiner•7mo ago

The word “modern” is misleading and confusing. Most “modern” people are tribalistic. What the author appears to mean is “western european.” People who have weak inter-familial ties, in comparison to most other people in the world, who organize themselves into tightly knit extended families.

lucas_membrane•7mo ago

J. K. Galbraith identified a solution to this problem utilized in the USA. A theory of countervailing power that relied on strong and stable institutions each doing a decent job of nonviolently representing the various interest groups at work. That time is gone; this too shall pass.

PestoDiRucola•7mo ago

For a pretty good book on this topic and why western societies managed to break from tribalism I recommend: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_WEIRDest_People_in_the_Wor...

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