Tribalism is a "we" problem
Opinion
Hive mentality is not a novel phenomenon. Its reach, however, certainly is. Until recently, collective narratives couldn’t be amplified and streamlined by highly-tuned algorithms on a global social network. Television and radio transmissions only went in one direction, doing nothing to address our intrinsic desire for belonging and to be heard. Growing up, whenever we discussed the topic of identity, our accounts would generally revolve around core principles, individual aptitudes, and personal narratives. We had our own stories, but we weren’t the mere sum of them. We also had our own interpretations of what it meant to do right in the world. There wasn’t, for instance, a single way to be so-called “politically black.” Genuine points of divergence existed between the likes of Martin Luther King Jr., Bayard Rustin, Malcolm X, and James Baldwin, and yet they were all seen as legitimate players within the larger Civil Rights movement.
Finding our voices was simultaneously easier and more difficult back then. We weren’t being constantly bombarded with social cues via our phones; we had the space to figure ourselves out. Today, our devices grant us the ability to carry others with us at all times, serving as a partial remedy to the dreaded feeling of being alone. For better or worse, the digital landscape has incentivized us to reconstruct our identities according to racial, gender, and political narratives. This has created an environment that is ripe for the hive mind mentality. The summer of 2020 showed us how, overnight, the murder of one man could inspire millions to act in both pro- and antisocial ways. As writer Gesha Marie-Bland put it, these collective identity narratives have become so widespread that there is now a tendency to erroneously conflate them with socialization itself.
Socialization is an act of discovery and negotiation with our environment; it is what allows us to discover and create ourselves. But for this process to work, there must first be a self to find. Ultimately, we must amount to more than a composite reflection of those around us. In times of crisis, this is all the more necessary. If your identity is principally communal, there is little chance that you will possess the conviction to stand up to the tribe when you disagree.
A lot of people have a hard time with individuality. Belonging is much easier, even though it can cost us a lot—sometimes everything. There is a concept within social psychology called deindividuation, which points to a loss of self-awareness that is common in large group settings, enabling people to act in ways they wouldn’t on their own. Evolutionarily speaking, the “tribe” was at once an insurance policy against calamity and the means with which to accomplish what any one person couldn’t alone. Some of the best things humanity has ever done have been accomplished as a result of this ego suppression. Sit-ins, protests, marches, and collective action towards social and political progress have all been fueled by this sense of a larger, collective self.
However, most incarnations of this phenomenon throughout history have been terrible. The murderous legacy of the religious crusades of the past and their twentieth century secular equivalents are examples we’re all too familiar with, and they prove how easily deindividuation allows us to be captured by bad actors and bad ideas. Civilization and liberalism were meant to modulate the more pernicious aspects of this phenomenon, but they don’t negate the deeply human desires that predispose us to them. As technology and our global social networks continue to evolve, a more conscious and concerted effort against them is necessary.
Was the election of 2020 stolen? That question ought to have an empirical answer. Even a few decades ago, it would have. Today, it depends more on which tribe you belong to—as do the questions of whether masks or vaccines work, whether abortion is murder or healthcare, and whether America is irredeemably racist or unassailably benevolent. In recent history there has been a consolidation of the myriad narrative streams into roughly two encampments, and for either side of the culture war, to believe is to belong. We value our sense of belonging to a tribe so much, in fact, that we’re willing to warp reality in its service.
If this conflict is to be resolved, it won’t be the result of a decisive victory for either side, even if that were possible. Given our attachment to these collective narratives, vanquishing one or the other would inevitably be felt as a deep personal loss for roughly half of those involved, and would only create another narrative—one of victimhood and persecution—to replace it.
We won’t fix the problem by banishing social media to the dustbin of history either. We have an intense desire to understand and be understood. Social media gives us at least the impression that we’ve found that understanding, and that is far too satisfying for most of us to give up. The real issue is our susceptibility to the insatiable human need to belong, and the only real way to address this is to recognize that each of us needs to develop a strong sense of self—a reindividuation—in order to be fully realized in our personhood and avoid the hive mentality.
Another difficulty, of course, is that this looks different for everyone. For me, meditation and a healthy amount of introspection helped me find the sweet spot, where I can enjoy the benefits of belonging without falling so easily into the deindividuation trap that social media amplifies. For others, this process might be more difficult, even impossible, but no less necessary.
Selfhood is the thing that prevents us from ever dissolving into the crowd entirely. It grants us the fortitude to say no, despite the possible harms to our social standing. Having a constitution doesn’t preclude us from engaging in collective action, but it does prevent us from being swept up by it. Movements come and go, and crowds have a tendency towards caprice. There has to be a kernel of selfhood remaining when all of the communal narratives are stripped away, and only you remain. You can’t be a moral agent without it.
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"The real issue is our susceptibility to the insatiable human need to belong, and the only real way to address this is to recognize that each of us needs to develop a strong sense of self—a reindividuation—in order to be fully realized in our personhood and avoid the hive mentality."
I couldn't agree more. People who have a strong sense of belonging as part of a family or community clubs, religious, or other organizations have less need to join political or other more distant, abstract groups to satisfy belonging needs. Much of the de-individuation we see today comes, I believe, as a result of breakdown of family and community structures. Isolated in apartments/houses and experiencing social interactions primarily on-line result in people, especially teens and young adults, to subsume their identity within larger "movements." Additional fuel for the de-individuation comes from a diminished sense of purposefulness for one's life. If not committed to a provider or caring role in the raising of children, people look for other sources to give them purpose, and socio-political movements can fill that void (at least for a while).
Great read. I called it, "collective stupidity," when my boys did stupid things when with friends but would not likely do on their own. But when our culture's highest goal is to get likes/retweets instead of aiming higher (heaven, anyone?), the quest to fit in supercedes self discipline.