Who is in Your Tribe?

Guest Post by Robert Bronsdon (Hollywood Rob) May 2018

For a while now I have been watching Time Team on YouTube.  The show was on for somewhere around 20 years in the UK, and while I never saw it on BBC America, it might well have been.  It is a precursor to modern day YouTube shows where a group of people produce a show about something that they care about a lot.  Because they care, and because they are doing something that they love, not acting, you see an enthusiasm that is infectious.   These folks just love to dig up old stuff and they would do it all day every day whether the cameras were there to film it for you or not.

So this being Britain, there is a lot of old stuff to dig up.  You can’t plow a field or dig a well or a basement without finding some old Roman pottery, or a coin from the Middle Ages.  And by and large, they do spend plenty of time digging old stone walls but what they really like to find are old burial sites.  This is because they can date the burials through carbon dating and also through something called small finds.  For as long as people have been burying their dead, they have been burying them with the things that they loved and it is those things that help the archeologists to divine the date; sometimes within a very narrow range of years.

One learns pretty quickly that the way people lived in ancient times was very simple in some ways, and yet incredibly complex in others.  When your very existence depends on those around you, you put a lot of effort into cultivating good relationships with your tribe.  The people who lead your tribe are the leaders because everyone else knows that it is in their best interest to follow that guy.  You don’t have to like him to know that he will get the job done that needs to be done and that he will do it better than you.

So you do what he says.  And if he does a good job as the tribal leader, the whole tribe prospers and you prosper and it all works out real well.  You will most likely be thankful that he is standing at the head of the charge.  You will appreciate that he is really one big mean bastard when the enemy comes over the hill and you will have to admit that doing all that digging pits and walls, which took time away from hunting and growing food, turned out to be a really good idea.

You know what your tribe is.  You know who is in your tribe.  And you know that the people in your tribe will be there in good times and bad because that is what makes the tribe a workable method for organizing humans in tough times.  The tribe is one step up from a family, the simplest human organizational form.  If you have to fight somebody you know that your tribe will stand beside you.  If you screw up your tribe will support you with food and shelter.  You and your family are not alone because of the bonds of community that create the tribe.  Humans naturally form into family groups and they also naturally form into tribes because within a tribe, as within a family, it is possible to have a personal relationship with every member.

Once you move on to larger forms, States or Nations, it quickly becomes impossible to have that personal relationship with each member of your “in group.”  You no longer know the leader.  He might be big and strong and he might win battles but you will never sit with him.  You might know what he looks like because he makes sure that you do, but he won’t know your name or say hi to you if he walks by.  Decisions that affect the state, or nation, or empire, are made without you.  You don’t count.  You don’t get to have a say.  But the operations of the human mind are still those required to function in a family, or a tribe.  You expect, because humans have always expected, to matter.  You have the need to matter.  You have the instinct to matter to the tribe, and you have the expectation that the tribe will have your best interests to heart just as you have theirs.

But the actual workings of the state don’t care about you.  They have taken your tribe from you and have given you nothing in return.  You need a focus for your instincts.  You need to believe that your expectations will be met.  So to fill that void, that gap between your expectations of tribal support and the actual actions of the nation state, they provide you with the trappings of tribalism.  Call it if you like, bread and circuses.  That name tells you just how long this problem has faced those who would create states and then nations out of people who long for tribes.  What they are giving you is the empty spectacle of tribal harmony and support.  You can sit in the stands and feel the swell of pride as your tribe crushes the other tribe.  You can be sure that should you fall on hard times your food will be provided.  And yet, when the war drums beat, no one will be a member of your tribe.  You will just be one more body to fling into the confrontation between opposing leaders whom you will never meet let alone care about.  And they won’t care about you either.  They will just find a way to ensure that you do your job.

So who is in your tribe?  Who stands beside you when the going gets tough?  Who says hi to you when you walk past?  Do you have any semblance of a tribe around you or are you a small family in a vast empire?  Some feel that their needs are met through their family.  Their family is all the tribe that they need.  Some think that they are a member of the tribe of the NRA, or the tribe of the democrat or the tribe of the republican.  But even at these small sizes, it is very unlikely that the NRA, or the democratic party or the republican party will ever be coming to your aid.  (By the way, spell checker wants me to change democratic party to Democratic Party but it is perfectly happy to have republican party just as it is.)  The people who run these large organizations know that they don’t have to have your back.  That isn’t their function.  Their function is to give you the illusion of participating in a tribal condition.  Just like the football team in your city or the basketball team, or any of the myriad of distractions from your lose of tribe.

You have lost your tribe.  You don’t even know how to find one and yet, the security of your tribe is likely to be the most important relationship you can ever have after the one with your family.  And they both have been taken from you and replaced with the illusion of tribalism – and now even that is being stripped from you.  Nationalism is bad.  Tribalism is bad.  We are now the new world order where none of your deepest needs are met and yet you no longer have to fear.  No animal is large enough.  No foe is powerful enough.  And all you have to give up is your personal relationship with your tribe.  Is that too much to ask?  But what does it mean?

It means that you don’t have anybody to rely on.  It is you against the world.  It is you against the government.  Any group of people who do have a tribe; be it the thin blue line of the armed government workers, or the army of pussy hatted lunatics, will be able to defeat you easily.  They have each other’s back.  The black block is there for the single social justice warrior.  The Marxist hoard is there for each and every oppressed minority, at least until they raise to power and then of course most of them will be shot in the back of the head.  But you, you have no backup.  You don’t even want it because you are very comfortable living your cushy life in your recliner safe in the knowledge that you understand the world far better than they do.  You know what is right, and what is wrong.  You know why the world has gone off the rails.

Well great.

But knowing all of this is not going to make the world a better place.  In fact, knowing this isn’t even going to make your world a better place.  In all likelihood, even writing down your vision of what is wrong with the world is a futile empty gesture.  Until you find a tribe to join with you, to have your back, you are but one lonely brain in a bone box crying out your frustration for anyone who will listen.  And some might listen, but they won’t have your back.  They won’t be in your tribe.

Do you know why Tommy Robinson has been banned from twitter?  How about Milo?  They got banned because enough pissed off pussy hat wearers managed to complain to twatter.  They all heard the call and responded to silence the evil that they saw.  You don’t see them as righteous, but they see themselves as righteous and in being righteous they took action as a group.  They have a tribe.  A pussy hat wearing tribe.  And you don’t want to be a part of that tribe, but what do you want to be a part of?  Are you happy to be a Patriots fan?  That makes you a patriot doesn’t it?  How about a fan of the Cleveland Indians, they are a tribe aren’t they?

You see, by saying that you are a conservative, you are making a statement about your image of yourself, but you are not joining a tribe.  It used to be that being a conservative meant that you were a republican, but now that the uni-party has taken over both branches no longer have your back.  Why would they?  You don’t give them any money, hell, you probably don’t even vote.  What possible reason could either branch of the uni-party have for standing beside you in a confrontation?

Without a group of people, your tribe, standing beside you, you are that one lonely wildebeest facing the lions.  As a member of the herd your chances of being eaten are extremely low but as a single animal, your chances of being eaten are 100%.  You are defenseless against the predators and the pussy hats.  Your tribe was taken from you deliberately and by force a long long time ago.  Those who would rule do not take your weapons from you first.  That comes much later.  First they take away your tribe.  Without your tribe you are no threat as those that they array against you will most definitely have a tribe.  They will descend upon you in their thousands with spears or assault rifles and shotguns and you will cave because nobody will stand with you.  They will have meetings with their tribe mates to discuss how to take you down.  You will have no meetings for you have no one to have a meeting with.  You have no tribe.

So enough of this brow beating and prattling on; you see my point.  If you want to accomplish anything other than to rant about the injustice or the heresy of it all you are going to have to find your tribe and you are going to have to have each other’s backs.  It didn’t take all that many people standing beside Cliven Bundy to back down the armed government workers.  But once the crowd got tired and went home those AGWs were still there, still getting paid, and they had a meeting and decided what to do.  So they waited until the people who thought that they had won all went home and then they drove out to his house and arrested his ass, just like they are going to arrest your ass unless you have a tribe that is going to stand beside you forever.

Who is in your tribe?

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