Oo-gah-sha-ka
Last Monday night at 8:30 p.m., while standing on a subway platform below 34th Street and waiting for the D-train to take me home, I stumbled upon the Meaning of Life. It’s kind of a letdown, so I wouldn’t pass it on if I didn’t know that, the nature of the Meaning of Life being what it is, no one will listen to me anyway.
I was on my way home from a question-and-answer session with Sydney Blumenthal, who was presenting his new book, How Bush Rules: Chronicles of a Radical Regime. Typically, the crowd was overwhelmingly lefty, and as Blumenthal lamented the tyranny of the Bush Regime – the torture, the intimidation of the media, the disrespect for the separation of powers, the “Stalinist purges” of government professionals – the people in the audience bobbed their heads along with him and shouted “Amen!” from the back.
Certainly I agreed with Blumenthal, but inwardly I was scowling, because I knew these very same lefty people are the ones who try to explain away or ignore these very same injustices as they take place in present-day Cuba and Venezuela. Indeed, some of these people had likely tried to explain away Stalinist purges as perpetrated by Stalin himself.
The hypocrisy had descended into my stomach long ago, but now it was curdling itself into an uncomfortable, writhing cheese. The question had been nagging at me for years, tickling at the back of my mind and screaming from the pages of history and political magazines: Why don’t people make sense?
And suddenly, standing there on the subway platform beneath 34th Street, waiting for the D-train, an epiphany burst upon me, and I had a glorious vision of half-naked men dressed in red-white-and-blue, wearing elaborate masks and dancing around an enormous statue of an elephant, while nearby a similar group clustered around a shimmering donkey, hooting and chanting mendacious accusations at the elephant-worshipers.
Life is not about ideas. Life is about tribes.
A veil had lifted – like when one finally fills in a key number in a sudoku puzzle – and the world rapidly began to click into a neat pattern. Tribalism explains everything – politics, religion, neighborhoods, cross-town rivalries, Packer fans, Bears fans, soccer hooligans, punk rock, emo, Goths, genocide, Castro Street, Williamsburg, protestants, Friendster, Facebook, Myspace, racism, Marxism, unions, fraternities, sororities, brand loyalty, gun clubs, and Michael Moore.
The most overpowering instinct of humanity is not reason or emotion or love or hate or white guilt: The most overpowering instinct is the desire to belong to a group. Once one joins a group, the ideas that formed the group are less important than the group itself, and the fierce and primal desire to defend the group, no matter what, becomes preeminent.
Thus man uses reason not to find the truth, but to explain why his tribe is right.
This theory explains an unbelievable number of things about life (not the least of which being the Suma Theologica), which is why I’ve been so arrogant as to call my revelation the Meaning of Life.
For example, it explains why Evangelical Christianity in America insists that the world did not evolve, finding it more believable that God created it 6,000 years ago, and that the world’s entire scientific community is maliciously pulling our leg. It explains why the leftwing decries the tyranny of Bush, yet discretely ignores that of Castro, and why the rightwing declares moral truth to be absolute, except when it comes to torture, which these days is a gray area. It explains why a Detroit Tigers fan will come up with a million reasons why “this is the year,” and why Costa Ricans had themselves convinced they had a shot at the 2006 World Cup. It explains why the Jews always form themselves into an exclusive group, and why the rest of us always try to kill them off.
As I said before, the Meaning of Life is kind of a letdown. Imagine an ant who suddenly realizes that she’s spent her entire existence just walking back and forth. Her life’s primary determining factor, she finds, was bred into her thousands of years ago. Free will was an illusion all along.
Thus learns the ant, and thus learns the human when faced with his essential tribalness.
Neither I, nor the ant, are worried this revelation will have an undue affect on our peers. Our peers will never listen to us because they will be too busy – in the case of the ant, busy walking back and forth, and in the case of myself, busy defending their tribes. My peers will deny the Meaning of Life as a matter of course, an instinctive reaction intended to protect the tribe, whose legitimacy is newly threatened by the revelation (those few who agree with me will just form another tribe).
The Meaning of Life, it turns out, proves itself through our very reaction to it. It is a perfect theory: Simple, elegant, and unfalsifiable, just as the Meaning of Life should be.
Later on, after catching my subway and riding home in a state of shock and miraculously getting off at the right stop, I had a more soothing epiphany, which is that someone cynical enough to arrive at the Meaning of Life and believe it to be true would surely hold the ultimate tool for understanding and manipulating mankind in all its tribalness.
Thus we have Napoleon Bonaparte, Hugo Chávez, Huey P. Long, Josef Stalin, Simon Bolívar, Karl Rove, and the list continues off into the distance
Oh, and there’s me. I think I get it now too.
audendi » the end of the search wrote:
[…] Peter Krupa claims to find the meaning of life: tribalism is what matters. Not ideas, not great pie in the sky concepts or the pursuit of reason or truth or beauty, no, none of these. It’s being part of a group and then protecting that group. I tend to agree. That makes it suitable to give up now before I’ve even started, right? Because what’s the point of pushing the boulder up the hill when gravity is a constant. […]
Posted on 25-Sep-06 at 10:40 pm | Permalink
luke wrote:
Once right before a Sundahl class Dave leaned over and said to me,
“I’ve determined that all human action can be boiled down to two motivations.”
“yeah?”
“Fear of death, and a desire to fit in.”
Then I said, “Those are the same thing too; they’re both just fear of loneliness”
I still haven’t had anyone give me an example of a human action that is not motivated by a fear of loneliness.
Posted on 26-Sep-06 at 6:15 am | Permalink
John wrote:
Tribes and cash, man. Sounds good. But I worry you’re overstating the epiphany (Suma Theologica? really?). Tribe theory is helpful, but all of human history isn’t going to fit nicely into tribe theory without out some major distorting. Tribes don’t explain everything, nor does fear of lonliness.
Posted on 27-Sep-06 at 3:48 pm | Permalink
DT wrote:
Though not claiming to be “tribe-less” myself, I think the practical effects of your revelation are a bit dangerous. Karl Marx’s theory of class struggle also pitted groups of people against one another, each group using reason to its own defense. Though his theory concentrated on the economic and social power of these classes, the principles of your “tribalism” are similar. In both cases, differing groups are battling to garner power for their group.
Posted on 28-Sep-06 at 12:27 pm | Permalink
pjk wrote:
John- from what I understand, the Suma was an attempt to reconcile christianity with aristotelian philosophy… rather than just admitting that they’re different, aquinas went ahead and wrote a few thousand pages trying to find reasons they’re the same. I might be over-simplifying things, but there you go: using reason to explain why your group is right, rather than to find the Truth. I would never say tribal theory explains everything (for instance, relationships between two people, things of that nature) but anyway it only claims to deal with groups.
DT - you’re still thinking in terms of “ideas have consequences.” they don’t, and marx is the perfect example. his “ideas” are completely incoherent. it wasn’t his ideas that had consequences, but our inherent tribalness that they exploited in a rather primitive way. I’m not claiming tribalism as a way we SHOULD live, but as a way we DO live. unlike Marx’s, there is no moral imperative behind my theory, no linear apocalyptic swell of history that I claim will vindicate me one day in the misty future. my theory is simply a discription of how we are, and how we always will be. from time to time meglomaniacs come along and take advantage of that nature, whether by design or accident… my point is that those meglomaniacs are not charming us with their ideas, but exploiting our tribalness. this is why arguing with them does no good. tribalness trumps ideas.
Posted on 28-Sep-06 at 12:44 pm | Permalink
Mr.Gugg wrote:
Krupa,
Some thoughts. **WARNING** These paragraphs are not intended to flow one to another. They are merely, purely and simply: Some Thoughts.
I’m very much inclined to think that you’re right–but I’m curious to what degree (if any) you think it possible for any human to attempt to overcome our tribalism (or perhaps to redirect it).
For instance, when I read certain posts on your blog and elsewhere, regarding George Bush, neo-conservatism, American foreign policy past and present, etc., I feel myself severely discomfited–because a member or idea of the tribe with which I have thus far identified myself (The Conservative Americans, to be precise) is being attacked. But I feel myself discomfited not because my tribe is being attacked (if that was all, I’d fight back), but because I feel that the attack is justified, and am wondering whether I’m with the right tribe at all.
Although I suppose that feeling (since it’s tied to ideas of right and wrong) could simply be the consequence of a conflict between my identity as a conservative American and my identity as a traditional Christian–it’s not that your and others’ criticisms of America’s current policies have made me willing to change tribes because I’m a rational creature. Rather, you highlighted a conflict between my two identities, creating a tribal warfare inside me–hence the clenched and twisted feeling in my gut. Thus, so much for my own rationality.
I do find it interesting, however, that the monotheistic religions in particular seem to have as a common goal the transcending of basic tribalness by means of superimposing a common religious identity upon various smaller tribes. Certainly both Christianity and Islam have as their idealistic goal the ultimate realization of the ideal that all men are brothers, members of the same tribe.
In light of your realization, it’s certainly fascinating that the universalizing impulse is such a common theme of human history.
Posted on 30-Sep-06 at 5:47 am | Permalink
pjk wrote:
Very interesting Mr. Gugg, and welcome to the party. I will say two things:
First: it’s true that christianity and islam have that idealistic (and intellectual) goal of all men being brothers. it’s also true that Communism does (once you get rid of all the rich people, that is). indeed, there aren’t many ideologies that seek to exclude as part of their doctrine (although Calvinism and Jehovah’s Witnesses come to mind). But notice that these are ideals. I couldn’t write an essay on the topic off the top of my head, but my instinct tells me that in practice, christianity (for example) has, save for a few heady moments, never lived out that ideal. once again, this theory of tribalism isn’t about explaining what people think, but what they do. though there may be a universalizing impulse, it seldom rises above the status of pushing your tribe as the one that should be universal.
Second: you touch on the issue of multi-tribal membership, which I find fascinating. thinking about the enlightenment, I believe what it really did is present the notion that two opposing tribes can live next to each other without killing each other, and that while we all are members of the same political tribe (the US, for example), that doesn’t mean we have to be members of the same religious tribe. This is the really fascinating and complicated thing about human tribalness, is that it’s multi-layered and extremely complex. we can be members of a family tribe, a religious tribe, a political tribe, a commercial tribe, a geographical tribe, a municipal tribe, and a racial tribe, all at the same time and with different values in each one. it’s learning to manage all these conflicting and overlapping identities at the same time that truely makes man modern.
Posted on 30-Sep-06 at 8:48 am | Permalink
Tom wrote:
Can someone, please, for the love of God, spell “Summa” correctly!
Ah, now that that’s out of my system - I generally agree with you, Mr. Krupa. As a “fallen” conservative, I suppose you could say, I’ve become more and more amazed at the irrational loyalty that members of the left and the right pay to their respective tribes. I haven’t had any political title for myself for quite some time, and I may be tooting my own horn, but I’m glad for it. I’d rather be lonely than blindly loyal.
Posted on 09-Oct-06 at 8:48 pm | Permalink
Peter Krupa » Salon swings and a misses, with only 8 shopping days left till Nov. 7 wrote:
[…] Remember: Not ideas. Tribes. […]
Posted on 30-Oct-06 at 8:49 pm | Permalink