Tribalism

Perhaps this could be titled: The Motives of the Pilgrims Part II as it addresses the fact that the Pilgrims had found the religious freedom they sought after moving to the Netherlands from England. Their primary motive for coming to America was to prevent their children from becoming too "Dutch" instead of retaining their own culture. So they were essentially creating their own new tribe. Nowadays the word tribalism often carries a pejorative sense when it's used to describe the behavior and attitudes that stem from strong loyalty to one's own tribe or social group. There's usually a desire to maintain some sort of tribal purity, which makes it almost synonymous with the concept of provincialism which is typically regarded being unsophisticated or narrow-minded.  The problem is that the actions of a lot of people tend to corroborate the association. I'm guilty of this when it comes to food and the concept of 'authentic' ethnic cuisine. I have little doubt that it is in large part a response to a lifetime of being told by (sometimes) well-meaning friends and acquaintances things like: "I love Chinese food, especially lemon chicken" "I hate Chinese food. It's so slimy!" and I still catch myself sneering at anyone extolling the virtues of places such as Panda Express for getting Chinese food.

It's become my take that the person most offended by having the word tribal or provincial used to describe themselves is likely to be the most provincial or tribal in contrast to the person using the word. If you are familiar with Star Trek, these people have no idea that they are the Klingons. Or they're Miss Caroline responding to Scout Finch trying to explain why Willie Cunningham won't accept her quarter. Someone I really respect has spent time in Hawaii and he once told me that rather than come in and immediately start suggesting ways to improve the seemingly odd customs, traditions and behavior, the best thing to do there is to shut up, watch and listen, and the reasons behind any behavior we may initially find incomprehensible will become obvious and more importantly, perfectly reasonable. The behavior of the "ugly American" in other lands typically includes the expectation that the natives will speak English, as well as the tendency to speak louder one word at a time, as if:

"DO?   YOU?    SPEAK?    ENGLISH???!!!!!"

is going to increase the level of comprehension on the part of the native.

It seems to me that part of the reason for this behavior is some sort of need to be right, to be incapable of considering that there are alternative ways of doing things which do not incur some sort of moral judgement. But I submit that there's also an issue of focus in how we view others. I'd describe it as choosing to be more aware of the differences instead of the commonalities. I'm not saying that the differences are irrelevant. Sometimes they're very relevant - and they're not reconcilable. But if more people elected to place more emphasis on *finding* commonalities, they'd be less likely to focus immediately on the differences.