The Dangers of Tribalism

Kevin deLaplante

My concerns about tribalism and political polarization are largely motivated by worries over the negative impacts of these phenomena on our ability think critically and independently.

There is overwhelming evidence that this is the case. But the source of the problem is often misunderstood.

The problem isn't our tribal psychology per se. The problem is tribal psychology under the influence of extreme polarization.

What is a Tribe?

A tribe is a group of people that feel connected to each other in a meaningful way, because they share something in common that matters to them.

The connection can be based on just about anything: kinship, ethnicity, religion, language, culture, ideology, favorite sports team, whatever.

What matters is that this connection binds individuals into a group that allows them to make a distinction between US, members of the group, and THEM, those who are not members of the group.

What is "Tribalism"?

When we talk about "tribalism", what we’re really talking about is a pattern of attitudes and behaviors that human beings tend to adopt, when we come to identify with our tribes.

In a nutshell, we use the US-THEM distinction, defined by tribal boundaries, to make normative judgments:

we're good, they're bad
we're right, they're wrong
we're worthy, they're unworthy
we're rational, they're irrational
our beliefs are true, their beliefs are false

These judgments support behaviors—how we act, what we say, how we respond, and so on.

In other words, our moral psychology is very "groupish" — it follows the contours of our group affiliations.

And it’s not just our moral psychology. Our judgments about

what’s reasonable or unreasonable to believe
what arguments are persuasive
what sources are trustworthy
etc.

also follow the contours of our group affiliations.

These are judgments about the character of our beliefs and our knowledge, what philosophers call “epistemological” judgments.

If you’re not familiar with this term, epistemology is the name for the branch of philosophy that studies knowledge.

“Epistemological” is the adjectival form. It’s a long word, it has seven syllables, so people sometimes use the shorter term “epistemic” as the adjectival form, and these mean the same thing.

An epistemic judgment is an epistemological judgment; they both mean that it’s a judgment about what counts as knowledge, or justified belief, or how we come to have knowledge.

So, to parallel the claim that our moral psychology is groupish, we can say that our epistemic psychology is also groupish.

And what’s key is that these two kinds of groupishness are closely connected, at least in our psychology.

If we’re doing straight philosophy we might have good reason to keep these two domains distinct, to not confound moral issues and epistemological issues.

But if we’re trying to understand human behavior, trying to figure out how human beings actually form judgments and make decisions, it turns out that we can’t separate our moral psychology from our epistemic psychology, they both emerge from the same cognitive system.

Our tribal psychology is both a moral psychology and an epistemic psychology.

What is Polarization?

That’s tribalism. But tribalism per se isn’t dangerous. The dangers of tribalism are driven by polarization.

Polarization is a measure of the magnitude of the differences between groups.

These differences can be almost anything. Physical traits. Psychological traits. Social traits. Attitudes and behaviors.

Polarization measures how large or strong those differences are, the degree to which they vary between groups.

For my purposes, I’m interested in polarization as it relates to how we make moral judgments and how we make epistemic judgments, what I’m calling our tribal psychology.

And in that case, perceived differences can be just as important as actual differences. Two groups may actually be more similar than they think, but if they perceive each other as more different, that can be enough to drive the attitudes and behaviors that characterize tribalism.

The Dark Side of Polarization

There’s an obvious dark side to polarization. It’s not hard to see how increasing polarization in our tribal psychology can lead to serious social and political problems and a distorted perception of the world.

Consider two groups that are intermixed. They live and work together. And let’s assume that these two groups disagree on some fundamental principles. They could be liberals and conservatives, Protestants and Catholics, vegetarians and non-vegetarians, etc.

What matters for us is the character of the disagreement, how disagreement is interpreted and managed, and how that varies with increasing or decreasing polarization.

Imagine we have a polarization meter. It indicates how polarized these groups are. If it’s in the green, that’s a lower level of polarization. If it's in the red, that's high polarization.

Lower Levels of Polarization

With lower levels of polarization, all other things being equal, there’s more tolerance for disagreement.

We recognize that in spite of our differences there’s still a great deal of common ground between us, and we can use that common ground as a basis for constructing a social space where we can live and work together peacefully.

Our differences don’t prevent us from being respectful, and even friendly, to one another. I see you as holding different views from me on some issues, and I may disagree with your reasons, but I never question your capacity to reason, or your entitlement to be treated like a human being.

Higher Levels of Polarization

Now, as we ratchet up the polarization, it becomes increasingly difficult to manage these disagreements.

With increasing polarization, we end up disagreeing on more things, and we disagree more strongly.

We care more about the issues on which we disagree, and it becomes harder to accept disagreement as something we should just expect among reasonable people.

It becomes harder for me to accept that your disagreement isn’t a sign of a deeper flaw in your moral character, or a deeper flaw in your capacity to see reality for what it is.

As polarization increases, common ground decreases. It’s becoming harder and harder to identify areas of agreement that we can use as a basis for adjudicating or negotiating differences in opinion.

We interpret more of our differences as a reflection of incompatible world views.

The Urge to Separate and Segregate

And then we hit a point where we feel an overwhelming urge to separate.

Peaceful coexistence between the groups seems impossible. Our instinct is to adapt by segregating, carving out social and political spaces where we don’t have to interact with the other group, where we can enjoy the comforts of social interaction with “our own kind”, and the very real psychological benefits of unity, solidarity and the feeling of being a part of a collective identity.

Within these more homogeneous social groups, polarization drops back down to lower levels.

In-Group Solidarity and Out-Group Hostility

This may not sound so bad. But unfortunately what often happens is that these very real psychological benefits are bought at a cost to our relationships with other groups.

In-group solidarity tends to go up when the out-group, the group outside of us, is perceived in a negative light, as a dangerous Other, as a threat to the unity and stability of our group.

The threat is experienced as a kind of social pressure from the outside.

That pressure gets converted into social capital on the inside. (By "social capital" I mean our capacity to organize ourselves and engage in coordinated social action as a group, for the benefit of the group.)

This kind of in-group solidarity can feel awesome. But in our relations with other groups, it can lead to the worst behaviors of which human beings are capable: prejudice, discrimination, violence, atrocity, genocide.

Even if we don’t get to the point of violence, we’re still left with a public culture where our in-group/out-group relationships are dominated by suspicion, hostility, and fear.

Epistemic Tribalism is Also a Serious Problem

Another casualty of extreme polarization is epistemic.

When we cut ourselves off from other points of view, and only look to our tribe for guidance on what to believe and who to trust, we run the risk of erecting a system of beliefs that is increasingly unmoored from reality.

The moral and political bubble that we’ve built for ourselves is also an epistemic bubble. Everyone outside the bubble is biased or lying or irrational, or otherwise untrustworthy.

This is obviously a disaster for critical thinking.

I think it’s obvious that our public culture is drifting in this direction, and in some areas, like our public political discourse, it has become toxic.

The Real Problem is Polarization, Not Tribalism

The first lesson I would draw from this analysis is that the problem isn’t our tribal psychology per se. Low to moderate levels of polarization can be very good for us. We get the benefits of community and belonging and group solidarity without the disruption and risks that come with higher levels of polarization.

The real problem is polarization, and the forces that are responsible for driving us in the direction of increasing polarization.

In this respect our tribal psychology is part of the problem, because some of the forces that drive polarization do have roots in our psychology. There are feedback loops that can be triggered, that contribute to the escalation.

But they’re not the only forces. There are external social forces in play as well, like orchestrated persuasion campaigns and persuasion technologies, created by governments and corporations, that are designed to exploit these feedback loops, to exploit the mechanisms that feed polarization.

And there are broader social trends in technology and lifestyle, and geo-political tensions, that exacerbate the problem.

We need to understand all of these issues better if we’re going to have a productive conversation about what we can do to address these concerns.

Kevin deLaplante, Ph.D.

I create learning resources for the Argument Ninja community. You can learn more about my background at this link: https://www.argumentninja.blog/bio

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