Just after I posted my Introduction fo Tribalism yesterday I happened to read a bit out of Factfulness, by Hans Rosling and family. And he raised at important point about tribes.
Hans was out in darkest Africa, setting up a test in a remote village, complete with blood analyzers and generators. He "was part of a team investigating an epidemic of the incurable paralytic disease called konzo[.]"
All of a sudden he realized that there was a crowd of villagers outside his tent, men with machetes, and they intended to kill him because he "meant to sell [their] blood." Hey, better be safe than sorry where those white devils are concerned!
Er, no, fellahs! We are just conducting tests!
Bit of a sticky wicket, what?
But it was all resolved by a 50-year-old woman who stepped forward, reminded the villagers about their measles shots a while back, after which the kids stopped dying of measles. Then she bared her arm, and said "Here Doctor. Take my blood." And everyone lived happily ever after.
So what does it mean?
It means that the job of tribesmen is to defend the border to the death against the tribe next door. The job of tribeswomen is to keep our kids alive.
I don't know if you have noticed. I do, now that I am older and spend a lot of time listening to women chattering with each other like magpies. They are interested in healthy food, to keep their loved ones, and especially children, alive and healthy. They are interested in clothes, in part for personal adornment, but mostly to make sure that everyone in the family has the right clothes so they won't get cold or hot or wet or sweaty or shivery: to keep people alive. And, of course, women are passionately interested in healthcare, to keep their family members, and especially children, alive.
So what was going on in that remote village in darkest Africa? The men were saying: kill the stranger before he steals from us. The women were saying: work with the stranger so he can help save our children and let them live.
So here are the basic facts of life at the tribal level. Men are fighters; women are lovers. Male honor is about bravely outdaring the dangers of the time by standing in line with the brothers on the border; female honor is about chastity, being a good little girl that does the right thing. Men are about killing the enemy, just to be safe; women are about saving lives, for the children. Men have a Culture of Insult, which I think is probably about chaffing other men and asking, hey, pal, are you really up to standing with the brothers? And women have a Culture of Complaint, which I think is all about prompting the rest of us to supply the food and clothes and medicine to keep family members alive.
I think that all this is important to realize -- to read, learn, and inwardly digest -- because this is exactly what humans were, up to 12,000 years ago. Since then, of course, things have changed radically, first with the agricultural revolution and second with the industrial revolution. But, if the settled science can be believed, we humans have not yet had a chance to evolve much beyond the instincts of the hunter-gatherer era. So that means that men are still fighters, and women are still lovers.
And that means, at the level of national politics, that men are focused on issues about defending the homeland from border-crossers, and women are mostly focused on issues about keeping us all alive and well fed and healthy. Men say, like Shakespeare's Casca: Speak, hands for me. Women say, as I argue: I can't believe she said that.
Now, in our modern era, these gender-specific instincts are no longer dispositive; they may note even be socially useful. But that is, Who We Are, and who we will be, for many generations yet to come.
This is important, for anyone interested in politics. Because in a democracy a politician has to appeal to voters based on who they are. And who they are, by and large, is tribal men and tribal women.
Hans was out in darkest Africa, setting up a test in a remote village, complete with blood analyzers and generators. He "was part of a team investigating an epidemic of the incurable paralytic disease called konzo[.]"
All of a sudden he realized that there was a crowd of villagers outside his tent, men with machetes, and they intended to kill him because he "meant to sell [their] blood." Hey, better be safe than sorry where those white devils are concerned!
Er, no, fellahs! We are just conducting tests!
Bit of a sticky wicket, what?
But it was all resolved by a 50-year-old woman who stepped forward, reminded the villagers about their measles shots a while back, after which the kids stopped dying of measles. Then she bared her arm, and said "Here Doctor. Take my blood." And everyone lived happily ever after.
So what does it mean?
It means that the job of tribesmen is to defend the border to the death against the tribe next door. The job of tribeswomen is to keep our kids alive.
I don't know if you have noticed. I do, now that I am older and spend a lot of time listening to women chattering with each other like magpies. They are interested in healthy food, to keep their loved ones, and especially children, alive and healthy. They are interested in clothes, in part for personal adornment, but mostly to make sure that everyone in the family has the right clothes so they won't get cold or hot or wet or sweaty or shivery: to keep people alive. And, of course, women are passionately interested in healthcare, to keep their family members, and especially children, alive.
So what was going on in that remote village in darkest Africa? The men were saying: kill the stranger before he steals from us. The women were saying: work with the stranger so he can help save our children and let them live.
So here are the basic facts of life at the tribal level. Men are fighters; women are lovers. Male honor is about bravely outdaring the dangers of the time by standing in line with the brothers on the border; female honor is about chastity, being a good little girl that does the right thing. Men are about killing the enemy, just to be safe; women are about saving lives, for the children. Men have a Culture of Insult, which I think is probably about chaffing other men and asking, hey, pal, are you really up to standing with the brothers? And women have a Culture of Complaint, which I think is all about prompting the rest of us to supply the food and clothes and medicine to keep family members alive.
I think that all this is important to realize -- to read, learn, and inwardly digest -- because this is exactly what humans were, up to 12,000 years ago. Since then, of course, things have changed radically, first with the agricultural revolution and second with the industrial revolution. But, if the settled science can be believed, we humans have not yet had a chance to evolve much beyond the instincts of the hunter-gatherer era. So that means that men are still fighters, and women are still lovers.
And that means, at the level of national politics, that men are focused on issues about defending the homeland from border-crossers, and women are mostly focused on issues about keeping us all alive and well fed and healthy. Men say, like Shakespeare's Casca: Speak, hands for me. Women say, as I argue: I can't believe she said that.
Now, in our modern era, these gender-specific instincts are no longer dispositive; they may note even be socially useful. But that is, Who We Are, and who we will be, for many generations yet to come.
This is important, for anyone interested in politics. Because in a democracy a politician has to appeal to voters based on who they are. And who they are, by and large, is tribal men and tribal women.
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