Warning: This post is a discussion that includes politics and current events. I do not normally do this, but I can no longer be silent.
What Does Your Tribe Mean to You?
My dad described himself as a “proud conservative and a man of reason.” Those ideas described the tribes he affiliated with.
That was why he said he was “socially liberal and fiscally conservative.” He did not want society to spend money on things other people “should be able to afford.”(I explained that as soon as he said he was fiscally conservative, that he was also socially conservative. Because money talks.)
Yes, he wanted public safety, reliable garbage pickup, and clean water. (And a lot more societal good.) In contrast, he installed seat belts in our cars before they became mandatory. Why? Because we could afford them. (We were distinctly middle-class. Not upper middle, middle-middle.)
If other people could not afford those things, he thought they should work harder. Definitely not expect other people to pay for them. Because all people needed was an opportunity, and wasn’t opportunity available to everyone?
Opportunity Is Not Equal
My dad believed and practiced equal opportunity. He hired women, people of color, and I’m pretty sure a couple of people we would now consider trans. If they could do the job, he hired them. (I learned a lot from him.)
But because he hired anyone who could do the job, he could not believe—literally—that many other hiring managers would not hire the most capable person. He could not believe that hiring managers would be so stupid as to avoid merit and competence. Why would people do that? It was not in the organization’s best interests.
That was why he called himself a “man of reason.”
Even when I explained my career choices and how hiring managers had discriminated against me and lowballed my compensation, he could not believe it. That was unreasonable. Why would anyone think like that? It did not make sense.
I explained that not everyone was a person of reason. And that reason is not the primary way we make sense of the world.
Reason Is Not Sufficient for How We Make Sense of the World
Several years ago, after watching too much conservative television, he said, “I just do not understand why children need a free lunch. Or free Pre-K (Kindergarten). Or free after-school.”
He was revving up to get to community college, so I stopped him.
I asked him if he understood the current buying power of current salaries, as opposed to the salaries when he worked. (I used reason.)
“Well, …” he said. Then he closed his mouth. I could see his conservatism persona struggle with his man of reason persona.
I went in for the close. “You and I both know about the value of risk management. We spend a little more today to avoid significant problems in the future. That’s what feeding hungry kids does. So does Pre-K. And so does after school for kids who can’t afford it.”
I offered him some personal stories about the number of families in my middle-class neighborhood who wanted after-school care and could not afford it. (I volunteered for the program so we did not have to pay, and saw exactly what a middle-class income could and could not buy you in the 1990s.)
I’m not sure I changed his mind. His tribal affiliations were so strong that he had trouble considering my perspectives. But our conversations always returned to the role of society and how much we chose to extend the common good, regardless of ability to pay.
What is the Role of Society?
I want a society that offers me a balance of individual responsibility and a community that creates a common good for all of us. I suspect that how we think about that balance between individualism and community is what “divides” us into conservatives and liberals. (See Geert Hofstede’s work about culture, especially an individualistic culture.)
The more we want people to take individual responsibility for their lives, the fairer society needs to be. Otherwise, we need to depend on each other to live.
My father thought society was fair. I have personal experience that society is not fair and has never been. (Yes, even as a consultant, where I did not expect to deal with discrimination because of my gender.)
My experience differed from my father’s in many respects, but especially in the supposed fairness and equal opportunity. When our experience is different from our beliefs, what do we trust?
That’s why seeing and agreeing on our current reality matters so much.
See Our Reality
That brings me to current events.
I do not know how anyone can see the shootings in Minneapolis and think anything except this: We have thugs on our streets who have the freedom to randomly murder people they don’t like. And worse, to evade their responsibility when they do so.
How can we see this as anything but state-sanctioned murder?
This is not a “left” or a “right” perspective. Watch the videos. (I’m not linking to them because you can easily find them.)
Thugs gunned down civilians. The civilians’ “crimes?” Exercising their rights to free speech. It does not matter which tribes you affiliate with. In the US, everyone expects their right to free speech. (My dad certainly did.)
You might want to make excuses for these thugs. You might even think they were “just following orders.” That did not work in Nuremberg, and it does not today.
There is no excuse for random murders. That’s not how society works. It does not matter which tribes you affiliate with.
Vigilante justice is not justice. It is murder. That’s the reality. It can only work when we, as a society, allow these murderers to separate us.
Separation is the Point
Have you noticed how this is all about “those people” as opposed to “us?” (I am doing the same, calling these people murderous thugs.)
The more they can separate us, the more likely we are to adopt their perspective.
Here’s how the separation works:
- First, they come for people of color.
- Or the people with “funny accents.”
- Or the people hanging around Home Depot.
See the First They Came For poem. It’s all about making “us” and “them.” That’s the tribal problem.
But here’s the kicker. There is always someone who will be next. Eventually, that someone will be you and me.
Right now, it’s by state or city where there is a strong Democratic party. Who knows what the next separation will be?
The more the thugs think they can separate us, the more fear we’re supposed to have, and the less power they think we have. And make no mistake—these murderers think that power-over works. (It can, but it’s only temporary.)
When the state seeks power over instead of a more equal societal goal, everyone loses. Except for the very few people at the top. They somehow keep gaining. Until society collapses. (How shortsighted.)
We can choose again. We can choose something useful, such as community.
Consider Community As a First Choice
What’s the opposite of separation? Community. And not just one—many possible communities. Minnesota is showing us that in real-time.
The more we create communities, the more we can manage our fears and concerns about separation. Even better, communities can help in several ways:
- With and for the people who are in the crosshairs of these murderers. Protesting in the streets. Offering food to people afraid to leave their homes. Transporting children to school and/or setting up alternative schooling. These are on-the-ground things you can do right now.
- Call the people with power, the congresspeople of your district and state. Consider call-in campaigns. Calls are particularly effective because they have an outsized influence on the people in your congresspeople’s offices. texts and emails might be okay. I can’t tell if social media has any use because most of the time no one knows who their posts will reach. But calls interrupt the sanctity of the congresspeople’s offices. That’s why the phone is so useful.
- Create small-world networks that amplify the power of each community. For example, maybe your religious organization has affiliations with other religious organizations in your town or state. Some murderous thugs are afraid of religious people. Or you have a little community in the North end of town, and you collaborate with the South end. Or you set up phone banks that allow independent communities to collaborate on phone campaigns.
You can probably think of even more ways to use community.
Remember, these murderers want us to be afraid and then to be alone. Don’t allow them to do that. Instead, find other like-minded people. This is not about your tribe. We are way past that.
Choose Something Useful
We are at the point where we need to choose: Do we allow murderers loose on our streets? Or do we take back our society, one small step at a time?
I want a future where we can discuss policies about how to improve society and for whom. But we can’t do that until the murderers are off our streets.
Let’s forget the tribes. Instead, I hope you help me build a little more community in whatever ways work for you. Let’s choose to do something useful together.