Becoming Tribeless
Ever since I’ve began speaking my mind more openly—and publicly, I’ve also become more hyper-aware of the impact this might have on how people in my immediate radius might perceive me.
Do I reassure them that I’m not a conservative? Do I vouch that I’m a long-time liberal? A classical liberal at the very least? Tell them I’m a raging conservative and have fun with it? But why should it even matter? Perhaps it’s best to just let people think what they want to think.
The truth is that these days, I identify mostly as tribleless—it’s a growing demographic. I have no allegiance to anything but to ideas and thoughts—and I reserve the option to change my mind on anything if presented with better information or arguments. I borrow freely from socialism, libertarianism, and I’m sure from conservatism too. Whatever works best and aligns with my principles. I don’t belong to anyone, let alone a political group.
Truth be told, most of my life was spent in a pretty liberal bubble—especially working in journalism and the entertainment industry. That said, I’ve always been fairly open about conversing with people who held different views, even if we disagreed. I found it refreshing. But I didn’t often have the opportunity. Recently, I’ve had many more such opportunities and have made an extra effort to engage and follow people with whom I don’t always see eye to eye.
But the truth is, I was never particularly political. I still don’t consider myself to be. I had opinions on things, but I never much thought about what parties or politicians they might align with. What I’ve cared about—and still do—are the things that affect individuals in their daily lives. But perhaps I find myself caring a bit more these days. Not only that, I’ve found myself more willing to speak publicly about what I believe.
It didn’t happen overnight. I had crippling fear and anxiety, for years. I felt lonely. Until I began to speak honestly with others, I didn’t know that many others had felt the same.
But eventually I found myself increasingly unwilling to be silent about the things that others were also thinking but were too scared to vocalize. My openness gave them permission to do the same.
Now, I wish I could tell you that ever since then I’ve felt this absolute freedom and each word that I utter or write is carefree. But that would be a lie. The truth is, even when I tweet something that could be considered slightly provocative or contrarian, I tend to panic and check to see who unfollowed me and if it’s someone I might know in real life. Sometimes it is, and it stings. Sometimes when I’m being especially open in person and someone’s expression changes or they don’t talk to me as much anymore, I can’t help but wonder if it’s because of something I’ve said. Perhaps it is. Perhaps not. There are people who are no longer part of my life because I don’t feel like I can be myself around them. There are situations that give me great anxiety. The key, of course, is to keep going. It does get easier.
And, I hope, that the tribe that remains, the people that stick around after I’ve said both all the things that they agree and disagree with…a new tribe forms—the kind that I can breathe freely around. I hope that I’m building a new tribe—a free, tolerant, brave—and “tribeless” tribe.
Are you “tribeless”? Leave a comment below.
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Politics is shifting from left/right divides to authoritarian vs libertarian divides. But the new tribes aren't really political. I don't know for sure that you're tribeless.
I think the tribes now are "If you aren't with us you're against us" and "I'm open to listen and debate and think even if I disagree so long as you don't step on my neck." And it's more cultural in that regard than political. It's why you see odd coalitions or conversations. Jimmy Dore on Tucker Carlson, that kind of thing. The people who want to get at the truth and see even their opponents as human are united against those who want to force you into conformity.
It might be worth considering that classical liberal may be referencing something distinct in that it may ground the liberalism in a solid understanding of classic Greek and Roman literature (and its derivatives). Perhaps if you concieve of 'tribe' as a political designation, you'll misaprehend the world. We need a tribe but we do not need politics as framing or as function. We may need diplomacy, intimacy, historical grounding, virtues, values, cooperation and sacrifice, but politics is a less useful designation for understanding our world. Tribes help us to communicate when we disagree, they provide a way to disagree without rejection, to test our ideas without overly harsh judgement, to exist in a space where being us is OK.
Perhaps being locked in a political frame, like 'left' means that we lose all tribe, we are stuck in a boundariless land where we never had approval, only assumption of similarity which was never confirmed by spoken word or judged action. Lack of negative signal is not a positive (aspirational) signal, so it lacks and important component which we need to cohere together, that thing, outside of ourselves, which we can agree to come together on. This is in opposition to that thing which we both identify against, which isn't a tribal commonality at all, but a mark of similarity which is illusory. We can disagree on the why, but agree on the 'no' and perhaps that is insufficient.