Tribalism Quotes

“You can no longer see or identify yourself solely as a member of a tribe, but as a citizen of a nation of one people working toward a common purpose.”
― idowu koyenikan, Wealth for all Africans: How Every African Can Live the Life of Their Dreams

“People who think with their epidermis or their genitalia or their clan are the problem to begin with. One does not banish this specter by invoking it. If I would not vote against someone on the grounds of 'race' or 'gender' alone, then by the exact same token I would not cast a vote in his or her favor for the identical reason. Yet see how this obvious question makes fairly intelligent people say the most alarmingly stupid things.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“The Perfect Way is only difficult for those who pick and choose;
Do not like, do not dislike; all will then be clear.
Make a hairbreadth difference, and Heaven and Earth are set apart;
If you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against.
The struggle between 'for' and 'against' is the mind's worst disease;”
― Jianzhi Sengcan

“If you spend time with crazy and dangerous people, remember – their personalities are socially transmitted diseases; like water poured into a container, most of us eventually turn into – or remain – whoever we surround ourselves with. We can choose our tribe, but we cannot change that our tribe is our destiny.”
― Stefan Molyneux

“When people have tried everything and have discovered that nothing works, they will tend to revert to what they know best—which will often be the tribe, the totem, or the taboo.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“Through love, tribes have been intermixing colors to reveal a new rainbow world. And as more time passes, this racial and cultural blending will make it harder for humans to side with one race, nation or religion over another.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“If Americans simply choose to vote for the person who has a D or an R by their name, we will get what we deserve, which is what we have now.”
― Ben Carson, One Nation: What We Can All Do to Save America's Future

“There is almost no country in Africa where it is not essential to know to which tribe, or which subgroup of which tribe, the president belongs. From this single piece of information you can trace the lines of patronage and allegiance that define the state.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“Human nature favors the tribal. Tribalism engenders violence. It was ever thus and so it will ever be.”
― Kate Atkinson, Transcription

“Madeleine Albright has said that there is 'a special place in hell for women who don't help each other.' What are the implications of this statement? Would it be an argument in favor of the candidacy of Mrs. Clinton? Would this mean that Elizabeth Edwards and Michelle Obama don't deserve the help of fellow females? If the Republicans nominated a woman would Ms. Albright instantly switch parties out of sheer sisterhood? Of course not. (And this wearisome tripe from someone who was once our secretary of state ...)”
― Christopher Hitchens

“Someone told me recently that a commentator or some sort had said, "The United States is in spiritual free-fall." When people make such remarks, such appalling judgements, they never include themselves, their friends, those with whom they agree. They have drawn, as they say, a bright line between an "us" and a "them." Those on the other side of the line are assumed to be unworthy of respect or hearing, and are in fact to be regarded as a huge problem to the "us" who presume to judge "them." This tedious pattern has repeated itself endlessly through human history and is, as I have said, the end of community and the beginning of tribalism.”
― Marilynne Robinson, When I Was a Child I Read Books

“In this chapter, we’ve considered six psychological tendencies that exacerbate intertribal conflict. First, human tribes are tribalistic, favoring Us over Them. Second, tribes have genuine disagreements about how societies should be organized, emphasizing, to different extents, the rights of individuals versus the greater good of the group. Tribal values also differ along other dimensions, such as the role of honor in prescribing responses to threats. Third, tribes have distinctive moral commitments, typically religious ones, whereby moral authority is vested in local individuals, texts, traditions, and deities that other groups don’t recognize as authoritative. Fourth, tribes, like the individuals within them, are prone to biased fairness, allowing group-level self-interest to distort their sense of justice. Fifth, tribal beliefs are easily biased. Biased beliefs arise from simple self-interest, but also from more complex social dynamics. Once a belief becomes a cultural identity badge, it can perpetuate itself, even as it undermines the tribe’s interests. Finally, the way we process information about social events can cause us to underestimate the harm we cause others, leading to the escalation of conflict.”
― Joshua Greene, Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason and the Gap Between Us and Them

“We are all wrong by choosing to raise concerns, problems or matters when they only directly affect us.
If not, then we don’t care. We are not bothered by wrong things.
We are not bothered by unjust, unfairness, lawlessness, war, racism, nepotism, tribalism classism crime .”
― De philosopher DJ Kyos

“War seemed to be a must for every generation. A pageant to fortify the tribal spirit. A columnist plumped for bloodless war through the space race. Henry sympathized with the man, but it could never work. Mere abstraction. People needed casualty lists, territory footage won and lost, bounded sets with strategies and payoff functions, supply and communication routes disrupted or restored, tonnage totals, and deaths, downed planes, and prisoners socked away like a hoard of calculable runs scored. Besides, war was available to everybody, the space race to few: war was a kind of whorehouse for mass release of moonlust. Lunacy: anyway, he sure wasn't inventing it.”
― Robert Coover, The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop.

“As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach themselves.”
― James Madison, The Federalist

“To say that histories and geographies affect us is trivial. To say that they determine us is false.”
― Susan Neiman, Left Is Not Woke

“Tribalism becomes dangerous when it turns rivals into enemies, when it suppresses diverse thinking, and when it pushes individuals to do things they wouldn’t do on their own.

This type of dangerous tribalism thrives in a sea of disconnected people looking for belonging. And who doesn’t crave belonging these days? We are disconnected from our neighbors, disconnected from nature, disconnected from animals, disconnected from the universe, and disconnected from most things that make us human.

Tribes are the magnet that attracts the metal of our craving to belong. They assure us that we’re right and morally superior. They force us into a different reality where it becomes impossible to see—let alone comprehend—another worldview. We become “the Few, the Proud, the More or Less Constantly Appalled at Everyone Else,” as David Foster Wallace put it.”
― Ozan Varol, Awaken Your Genius: Escape Conformity, Ignite Creativity, and Become Extraordinary

“Over time, the tribal identity becomes our identity. Once identity and tribe fuse, we let our tribe determine what’s appropriate for us to read, watch, say, and think. We pick up social-media cues about what our tribe is thinking, and we toe the line. If our tribe hates Joe Rogan, we hate him too. If our tribe believes that immigrants are destroying our country, we believe it too. We forfeit our voice. We forfeit our choice. That warm, fuzzy, satisfying feeling of belonging trumps everything else—including thinking for ourselves.”
― Ozan Varol, Awaken Your Genius: Escape Conformity, Ignite Creativity, and Become Extraordinary

“Research shows that people are biased in their expression of empathy. The members of our own tribes get empathy. Others get a punch to the gut. We belittle them (I told you so). We ostracize them (If you’re not with us, you’re against us). We ridicule them (What an idiot). We see others, not as people trying to make sense of the same elephant from different angles, but as morally corrupt or unintelligent.”
― Ozan Varol, Awaken Your Genius: Escape Conformity, Ignite Creativity, and Become Extraordinary

“Be careful if you find yourself in a place where only acceptable truths are allowed. Taboos are a sign of insecurity. Only fragile castles need to be protected by the highest of walls. The best answers are discovered not by eliminating competing answers, but by engaging with them. And engagement happens in groups built, not on taboos and dogma, but on a foundation that celebrates diverse thinking.”
― Ozan Varol, Awaken Your Genius: Escape Conformity, Ignite Creativity, and Become Extraordinary

“Today, it's the fire of integration that lights the world, not tribe, heritage and tradition.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Visvavictor: Kanima Akiyor Kainat

“Heritage, in moderation, is an aid to growth, unmoderated, poison.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Rowdy Scientist: Handbook of Humanitarian Science

“La música es tan vasta como la naturaleza humana, y tiene algo que decir a los hombres y a las mujeres a todos los niveles de su ser, desde la sentimentalidad autocontemplativa hasta la abstracción intelectual, desde la espiritual hasta lo meramente visceral. En una de sus múltiples formas, la música es una potente droga, en parte estimulante, en parte narcótica, pero capaz de todos modos de una alteración total.”
― Aldous Huxley, Huxley and God: Essays on Religious Experience

“Tribalism is community for lonely narcissists.”
― David Brooks

“Once you wake up to the vastness of the world, it is impossible to revert to the tribal lane.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Visvavatan: 100 Demilitarization Sonnets

“Why, then, did people's perception of race relations take a nosedive after 2013? The answer is that smartphones and social media changed the speed limit of information—which in turn gave a massive competitive advantage to ideas, information, narratives, and arguments that tap into division, tribalism, and grievances. Neoracism was among the ideologies able to take advantage of this seismic change. Ultimately, this change resulted in an informational diet that is less tethered to reality, not more.”
― Coleman Hughes, The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America

“Know your roots, know your nature,
Step out of your tribal stretcher.
You got a mind full of atomic light,
Where did you lose your himalayan vigor!”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tum Dunya Tek Millet: Greatest Country on Earth is Earth

“Sieg Heil and the rest (Sonnet 1162)

Some shout Sieg Heil,
Some shout Jai Hind.
Some Star Spangled Banner,
Others God save the fiend.

Only the language differs,
Jungliness remains the same.
Even in an integrating world,
Some maintain the habits lame.

Once upon a time,
they might have had some value.
Today they are just anachronism,
Kept alive by apes without clue.

If you are still enraged,
how dare I compare
Sieg Heil with the rest!
Study the history unvarnished -
behind every tribal salute
you'll find a holocaust equivalent.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Visvavictor: Kanima Akiyor Kainat

“Monkeys come in all shapes and sizes,
Many are white, while others are colored.
Nationalism doesn't infect any one tribe,
it's a jungle virus that affects the world.”
― Abhijit Naskar, World War Human: 100 New Earthling Sonnets

“Measures of tribe ain't measures of the seer.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Divine Refugee