University of Virginia Library

On Tribalism Today

By Ashley Montagu

—ed.

Tribalism is the practice of the belief
that one's own tribe is better than or
superior to the tribes of others. It is a
belief which is supported and reinforced
by sacred rites and secular rituals, serving
to identify the members with the group
in peace, and to unify the whole tribe in
times of stress or conflict. Not all human
populations are tribes, and not all tribes
consider themselves to be better than or
superior to other peoples.

With their highly elaborated techniques
for scapegoating and their remarkable
ability for rationalization, the
civilized peoples of the world have
scornfully relegated tribalism to "primitive"
peoples, while considering themselves
wholly exempt from such "barbarism."

The truth, however, is that the
societies in which tribalism flourishes in
its most dangerously developed forms are
the societies which are among the most
technologically highly developed nations
in the world. In no "primitive" societies
are such tribalistic excesses of belief and
conduct practised as among the great
nations of the western world, and in
civilized nations generally, whether of the
western world, the Middle East or the Far
East. The tribal gods of civilized peoples
are among the most vicious, and upon a
scale surpassing all others, the most
destructive in the world.

Tribalism is not the less tribalism
when it is called "nationalism," or when
the weak minded and brainwashed join
together to make up in quantity what
they lack in quality, and call it
"patriotism," that last refuge, as Dr.
Samuel Johnson described it, of the
scoundrel.

Tribalism by elevating one's own
group above that of others essentially
represents a denial of the humanity of
others It produces isolationism, clannishness,
and the rejection of "outsiders." It
emphasized differences in ways such that
differences becomes identified with inferiority.
It makes a virtue of exclusiveness
and institutionalizes ethnocentrism and
xenophobia. It creates and reinforces the
anxieties of the weak and the insecure by
providing them with the rationalizations
which, in a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy,
make tribalism their main defense
against the malignant and evil spirits
which are alleged to lurk everywhere, and
which threaten the tribesman's existence.

In such an atmosphere the tribal gods
not only require the ceremonial and ritual
incantations of allegiance, but they must
also be propitiated by the sufferance,
every so often, of sacrificial victims. The
witch doctors, in the form of such
demagogues as the last Senator Joseph
McCarthy, as well as the official and
unofficial bodies of inquisitors, have no
difficulty in fastening upon their victims.
The method is much the same as that
which was set out for the use of
witch-hunters in that notorious handbook
on the subject, the Malleus Maleficarum,

1490. To the question "Why a greater
number of witches are found in the
fragile feminine sex than among men,"
the answer was as simple as it was
succinct. Said the authorities, "It is
indeed a fact that it were idle to
contradict, since it is accredited by actual
experience, apart from the testimony of
credible witnesses" (Question 6, Part 1).

The accusation is sufficient evidence
for the tribalist. The evil he perceives in
the "other" represents his own insecurities
and bad conscience projected upon
the "other." Exclusion of elimination of
the other who, by his very being, and in
ways which are all the more dangerous
because they cannot be formulated,
threaten one's own existence and that of
one's tribal blood brothers.

In our own time we have witnessed
some of the horrible consequences of
tribalism among civilized nations. The
pseudo-philosopher of The Third Reich,
Alfred Rosenberg, described the tribalistic
spirit of the "Herrenvolk" in
words to which no member of the most
primitive tribalistic societies could take
exception. Said Rosenberg, "A nation is
constituted by the predominance of a
definite character formed by its blood,
language, geographical environment, and
the sense of a united political destiny.
These lase constituents are not, however,
definitive; the decisive element in a
nation is its blood. In the first awakening
of a people, great poets and heroes
disclose themselves to us as the incorporation
of the eternal values of a
particular blood soul. I believe that this
recognition of the profound significance
of blood is now mysteriously encircling
our planet, irresistibly gripping one nation
after another" (Vossiche Zeiting, 3
September 1933).

The rites, regalia, rituals, giant flag-bedecked
rallies, marches, patriotic
music, and all the paraphernalia designed
to produce the amalgamation of each in
the blood brotherhood of the tribe, was
only too tragically effective in Hitler's
Germany. This Voodoo possession that
turned so many Germans into indescribable
monsters, in the name of the
"Fatherland," constitutes perhaps the
most frightful example of the ghastliness
to which tribalism can lead.

In Africa, in which so many new
independent nations have come into
being, tribalism if rife. The tragedy of the
Congo, and the genocidal war of Nigeria
against the Ibo of Biafra are terrible
object lessons in the schrecklichkeit of
contemporary tribalism.

The tribalism of the whites in South
Africa and the whites of Rhodesia has
become a way of life for whole
populations. Here, the whites have, by
force of arms, elected themselves the,
"Superior Race," and have relegated all
nonwhites to the sub status of the
"Inferior Race." Racism is, of course, a
form of tribalism.

It is here very necessary to make the
point that not all tribes are tribalistic.
The Bushmen of South Africa, the
Australian aborigines, and the Pueblo
Indians, for example, were each constituted
of a number of tribes, but they did
not engage in intertribal hostilities or in
super patriot displays of ferocity.

Tribalism exists when a people or a
group elevates itself of distinguishes itself
in such a manner that it declares all
others "off-limits," rigidly enforcing its
exclusiveness, and by saber-rattling and
jingoism warning all others of the dire
consequences to them of any infringements
of their rights. The Tribalistic
psychos was perfectly enshrined in that
patriotic ditty, so popular during the
heyday of the British Empire:

Very few tribes have ever achieved the
tribalism of the British during the height
of the British Empire. It is significant that
with the deliberate breakup of that
Empire the British have become among
the least tribalistic of peoples. There is,
perhaps a lesson to be learned here: When
the tribal gods decay, and their power to
whip the people up into a patriotic frenzy
is lost, the people are content to live at
peace with themselves and with their
neighbors.

It is usually a small but powerful
group, with not the least interest in
peace, but with a hunger for power, who
are responsible for beating the tribal
drums and arousing the people to the
proper pitch of excitement, of patriotic
fervor, that is to tribalistic mania.

Perhaps the most tribalistic people in
the world today is the American.
Americans have more tribal gods to
worship and more holidays during which
to burn incense before their shrines than
any other people in the western world
and probably any people anywhere in the
contemporary world. With the bogeymen
of the Russian and Chinese communists

to bedevil them, Americans are not more
tribalistic than ever, so that any opportunistic
self-seeking demagogue can whip
them up to the most calamitously
destructive behavior. Vietnam, it may be
safely predicted, will no more prove a
lesson to Americans in the futility and
wickedness of tribalism than will the next
contrived assault upon "our external
enemies."

The tragedy of tribalism is that it is
not the creation of external enemies but
of internal enemies, of tribal "leaders,"
"fuhrers," who have generally achieved
their position of "leadership" by means
not genuinely designed to present the
people with a fair choice. The result is
"leaders" who achieve power by the
abuse of power, and continue to abuse
that power upon an even larger scale once
they are in office.

Witch-doctors sometimes have this
power thrust upon them, as among the
Chukchee of Siberia who, often unwillingly,
qualify for the office of Shaman by
the development of some hysteria form
of behavior. Others seek such power out.
In any event, the frequent history of such
witch-doctors, whether in "primitive" or
in civilized societies (when they are called
"Statesmen") is that however corrupt
they may have been before achieving
office, they tend to become further
corrupted by the power that is placed in
their hands.

Tribalism is just what such "leaders"
batten on. One has only to read Hitler's
Mein Kampf, reeking as it does from
every page with cynical contempt for the
masses, to wonder what it is that makes
those who believe in "group solidarity"
thirst to abdicate their will to that of a
"leader."

Erich Fromm gave the most cogent
answer to that question years ago in his
seminal book, Escape from Freedom.
Those who are afraid of freedom who are
unprepared to accept responsibilities,
would much rather have someone else
assume those responsibilities for them,
would much rather lean on a group as a
rod, and draw the strength that they
individually lack vicariously from membership
in the group. Hence, the popularity
of such groups as the American
Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Mason,
Rotarians, Daughters of the American
Revolution, and innumerable others of a
similar sort.

Whatever the external causes the
"joiners" adopt tribalism, in one or other
of its forms, as a means of fortify
themselves. They may be the "superiors"
who reject the "others," or they may be
the "inferiors" who feel rejected. In
either case they will often feel forced to
elevate their separateness into a shrine at
which they can worship their tribal gods.

An example of tribalism into which