I’m currently reading the book Burn by Herman Pontzer, PhD, a history of human metabolism during our last 300,000 years. What you may ask does that have to do with racism or tribalism? Well, it got me thinking about where we find ourselves today particularly in regards to BLM and Critical Race Theory. So much of what we are fed today by MSM is historically misleading, incorrect and revisionist. Pontzer discusses how certain primates managed to eventually become the humans we know as Homo sapiens. Briefly, survival of that lineage was due to a few things, particularly the ability to find FOOD and then being part of a group that SHARED that food. You’ve all heard about “hunter/gatherers”. Well that was the survival mechanism that led to “survival of the fittest”. You can read more about this in Burn, which is also about “how we really burn calories, lose weight and stay healthy”
As I’m reading the book, the thought occurred to me that much of our current social turmoil is NOT about racism alone…..it’s also about tribalism. Racism is defined as “a belief that race is a fundamental determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race”. So of course racism exists and has in virtually every culture. Tribalism is defined as “the behavior and attitudes that stem from strong loyalty to one’s own tribe or social group.” Just think about those 300,000 years of survival and evolution. Races were developing in various parts of the world ……Blacks, Asians, Caucasians, native Indians, Pacific islanders and all kinds of variation in between. Within each of these cultures were “tribes”. Countless centuries of wars and conflicts have gone on between tribes and continue today.
Think of the historical and continuing genocide in Africa. Hutus against Tutsis during the Rwandan genocide of 1994 where over 800,000 Blacks were slaughtered. The perpetual killing between gangs….Crips, Bloods, MS13…all “tribes”. The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. On the other hand WWII was a combination of racism, anti-semitism and nationalism. The Korean War? Tribalism. Same for Vietnam.
So what’s my point? It’s that a unified America is more threatened right now by tribalism than by racism. Democrats of all races and colors no longer speak with Republicans of all races and colors! Trump has been labeled as “racist” when in reality “make America great again” in my opinion was nationalistic in nature aimed at conservative values….not specific races! And Critical Race Theory? It’s a 40 year old movement in which the core idea is that racism is a social construct embedded in legal systems and policies, not just individual bias. So if it’s not about individual racism, doesn’t CRT become a tenet of a “tribe”? Black Lives Matter hasn’t reduced racism. A British study showed that 55% felt the movement had made them MORE racist! I’m not sure anyone would have the temerity to do that kind of poll in America right now!! Thus BLM has become part of one tribe’s belief system that the “other” tribe is systemically racist.
What does human history say about all of this? Written history is about the last 5000 years of the 300,000 or so years it took for us to walk upright and kill each other with clubs. That’s about 6 days out of a year! Anthropologists like Herman Pontzer, PhD tell us that the ones that made it this far were tribes that cooperated to keep each other alive. The division we’re seeing is progressive and may very well lead to a split along “tribal” lines whether by agreement, truce or Civil War II. The average “empire” lasts about 250 years historically. The United States is 245 years old. Food for thought don’t you think?………….
Spot on Doc
Thank you!!!