Beware of the “pull of the tribe”
In a wonderfully eye-opening article entitled “ Diogenes and Cosmopolitanism” Steven Gambardella teaches us what it means to be a “citizen of the world” and what the implications mean today when we find ourselves increasingly fractured by demogogic politicians.
I spent most of my adult life working and traveling outside of the United States. I often thought of myself as a “citizen of the world” and the photographs Gambardella includes in his article have been particularly meaningful to me.
However, pictures like these are also meaningful to all “citizens of the world”.
These photos of attacks on symbols of who we are raise a sense of kinship and loyalty in us that easily becomes tribal. Images like these arouse feelings we may never felt or even knew we could feel. We yearn to be with others from our tribe and do whatever we can to protect members of our tribe .
Many of us remember the sense of affinity we felt with all Americans as we watched images of “Operation Enduring Freedom” on CNN.
These feelings caused many of us to realize we are far from “citizens of the world”. We are much closer to being members of a tribe. Within these feelings lurks great danger that makes each of us susceptible to being affected emotionally, especially by those who might gain by arousing our emotion
“Custom regulates the whole of a man’s actions, — his bathing, washing, cutting his hair, eating, drinking and fasting. From cradle to grave he is the slave of ancient usage. In his life there is nothing free, nothing original, nothing spontaneous…, no attempt to improve his condition, mentally, morally or spiritually.” — William Graham Sumner, “Folkways”
On a very parochial level this is exactly the danger donald trump presents each and every time time he claims to advance the well being of those experiencing difficulties at the expense of others. Most likely trump cannot advance the well being of any Americans, because he simply doesn’t control the causes of their difficulty. His claims create even greater danger, however, because they set one group of Americans against other groups.
This is exactly what happened when John Kless, 49, of Florida called the Washington offices of Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, Rep. Eric Swalwell of California and Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and left a series of threatening voicemails. According to court documents each of the voicemails was filled with multiple obscenities and racial epithets.
Steven Gambardella reminds us that astronaut Willian Anders, who took several pictures of our planet from the Moon, commented,“we set out to explore the moon and instead discovered the Earth.”
While there may be nothing wrong discovering Earth and feeling like a “citizen of the world”, we live in a world of nation-states and each of us is at risk to the pull of nationalism on our emotions. We need to be constantly on guard to those who would use our emotions to their selfish advantage and take advantage of our affinity to our tribe.
