Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Razib Khan's avatar

much of this speaks to me. that being said, i do adhere to the "right" tribe because these are the people who defend me when i'm attacked and these are the people who don't want me to be materially dispossessed. if i was independently wealthy i would be much more welling to disavow tribal affinities, but those without faction do suffer materially...

Expand full comment
Dave's avatar

I'm very much tribeless, which is, quite honestly, how I like it. I don't like neat little boxes to categorize things and people with. It's too constraining. However, I've seen a multitude of sites here on Substack that seem to foster this type of person, yours being one. A movement is truly forming right now, of disenchantment with the status quo of the binary political establishment. Many people feel that neither side truly represents them, at least completely. This is good news.

I happen to live in Germany right now, and while their political system and governance has its own set of problems, I think they've got it right, when they have now formed 6 different political parties to choose from. This means that in order to form a majority in their parliament, they have to form coalitions of competing interests, forcing compromise. Nothing wrong with the lost art of compromise. This, in turn, tends to keep the political fringes at bay (and they do have them, just like the rest of the Western world), and tends to blunt their overall power a bit.

Anyhow, you're not alone. Those willing to sacrifice friendship and camaraderie over politics have truly crossed into political zealotry, which is very akin to religious zealotry. Therefore, they give in to the mania that overtakes them, and I think they tend to lose a little of their humanity in doing so. This is evident with their loss of empathy for anyone they disagree with. This is why I don't believe them when they decry "fascism" of their ideological rivals, as they themselves tend to proscribe to the same motivations and tactics of those they portend to be against.

Sorry for the long-winded diatribe. All this is to say there are others, myself being one. But there really are many more.

Expand full comment
10 more comments...

No posts