One thing I read in Sapiens that has stuck with me is that a natural group/tribe size is only 40 or so. Anything above that needs a common belief/god or a common enemy. God/religion served that purpose for a long while, then philosophies like communism/capitalism/marxism/liberalism/conservatism, etc. took over. Hitler/nazism is an example of a common enemy uniting people. More recently, and more relatable, you can see how lemmy itself grew exponentially because of the common enemy reddit. All this to say, tribalistic behavior can never be overcome as far as homo sapiens are concerned, because that is what defines us as a species.
this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2023
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Asklemmy
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I think using a political philosophy or a common enemy to unite a society is more harmful than it is good, since those things will inevitably be held sacred, and it becomes impossible to think rationally about them. Religious people are able to disagree on things like economics because the things that they hold sacred are supernatural sky gods, instead of things which are of this world (Americans are an exception due to the polarization of the two-party system and the compelling force of American Civil Religion, which makes freedom, democracy, and the Constitution into sacred things), but people who hold a political ideology like Marxism or Liberalism to be sacred (Tons of people, many of them on this very website) cannot tolerate disagreement and will ignore facts that might disprove their ideology. This is manageable when it involves nothing more than a sky god, but when it involves the very basics of how society should operate, it gets bad, quickly, which is how you get thousands of dead dissenters and a permanently stagnant society. Using a common enemy is even worse since it leads to an irrational hatred of said enemy that drives people to do horrible things to eachother, with the most infamous example being the Holocaust. The Nazis also held their political ideals to be more sacred than their religious beliefs, coincidentally.
That’s an interesting thought, I never thought of it that way. I agree we shouldn’t replace god with philosophies, but I don’t know if we can put the toothpaste back into the tube at this point.
I believe that something resembling religion will reappear in society (American society, I mean) in the future, maybe even the near future. Political substitutes for religion have given meaning to people's lives, i.e made them feel apart of something greater, but they have not provided them with physical community, a path toward self-improvement, a guide for how to manage interpersonal relations (Apart from "don't offend people", in the case of progressivism, I guess?), or any compelling reason not to be afraid of death.
Traditional religion's staying power came not from oppressive power structures or whatever people think these days, but because of all of that. Just having an oppressive power structure and none of the other stuff has generally led to religions/philosophies dying out within a few generations, like Nazism or communism. Both of those had their time to shine, completely ruined the societies they took over, and are now viewed as jokes by most people today. Meanwhile Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc, which offer way more than ideology ever has, have been around for millennia and are on track to stay around for millennia more.
The late rapper, "Eyedea" of Eyedea & Abilities had a really memorable verse in a song that always comes to mind when I hear this discussed.
Grinding my teeth as I’m peddling uphill / The fight against ape-hood is fate versus free will / We think we've advanced but there's nowhere to go / Mammals stay captive to animal actions / So slowly we climb up this DNA brick wall / Addicted to emptiness, anger and pitfalls / Desire for space, territory, or lust / We'll eventually turn this whole planet to dust
Outside perspective. Only when we meet another other.
There's a book I read a few years ago named "Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging" that delvs into this a bit and why humans are so tribal instinctively. Would highly recommend.
I just finished this one today! Introduced me to a lot of new ideas and contexts. Good read
The "Us vs. Them" mentality is also called the "in-group bias", in which you tend to align with other members of a perceived group (with little to no logical reason, it can be as simple as belts vs. suspenders). Like many other fallacies or biases, it is a built-in feature of our caveman-brains that no longer benefits us. When used in propaganda, it is often paired with the "strawman fallacy" to build the perception of an enemy that is barely even human.
You can learn to recognize these biases in yourself and in others - This is called critical thinking. I recommend the podcast "You Are Not So Smart" to everyone to get more insight on this subject.
The way I see it that instinct is the cause behind so much suffering and injustice in the world.
That's just what they want you to think.
I think we could if enough effort was put forth into making it happen. The problem is that very same "instinct," or rather the plethora of different experiences and ideals held by individuals seems to make it harder if not impossible to ever come to a global united consensus on anything.
No
The news feeding propaganda over and over isn't helping.
Not unless the fundamentals of human psychology change. Forever is a long time to say that won’t happen but certainly not in the foreseeable future.
That doesn’t mean it can’t be worked on or mitigated. But it’s not going away completely.
This current version of humans? No. But could it ever happen? Absolutely, if we assume our future evolutionary human descendants survive and provided we can supply everyone's needs.
Yes ...and the name will have to change from Homo sapiens to something else.
Homo Evolutis
I've heard from other evolutionary biologists that the next gen will be homo sapiens sapiens, and we'll be renamed something else.
interesting ... so I looked it up here :
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_taxonomy
...and "homo sapiens sapiens" is not well defined for now at wikipedia - - maybe not the best source I know.
Do I read it correctly that you are an evolutionary biologist ?
No, I just watch content from evolutionary biologists, because it's something I'm interested in.
It may not be that our version of the species will be renamed, but since species delineations are somewhat arbitrary (where does one generation stop and one start, when it's actually a gradual process?), future generations of biologists may decide that we are something else. Either way, we won't be around to know!
Bold to assume that it's an instinct and not a taught and learned behavior.
It will never happen as long as there is injustice in the world. Also, there isn't a perfect world where justice is 100% served. A good book to read about that (political book, but goes through the us vs them) is "why we are polarized" by Ezra Klein.
No. There will always be another “them”. That’s what makes humans so great, but also so destructive. We never settle, and will always look for division, even if we need to create it.
I don't think it's an instinct, because it can absolutely be taught.
I encourage my kids to get along with everyone, but at the same time I can see how some of their peers are taught to be racists and other clique behaviours from home by parents who are just like that and don't even think about it when they pass it on.
But by default, nobody is like that from birth. Babies aren't racists or afraid of different kinds of people. The fear of others is taught.
It will take many generations to change.
No. That is human nature. In order to overcome that, we would have to evolve into a different species, which I would argue is less appealing than it might sound on the surface.
Instead of trying to overcome it, it makes more sense to build a society that directs that energy in a positive direction.
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I hope so. Knowledge and curiousity feed intelligence feed knowledge feed curiousity. A highly educated society with healthy education sytem and good working socioeconomy (concurency in news coverage) can theoretically get over "us vs. them". Until we someday maybe lose it as evolutionary trait.
I don't think it needs to be overcome, just applied differently. A more global "us" vs problems like global warming or poverty would be fantastic.
It's also a self preservation instinct - sometimes there's just too much going on and you gotta narrow your focus to the people around you.