Some thoughts about tribes, set off by BelleDame’s post

I find the whole idea of tribes, and of the way people categorize others into tribes, fascinating. Part of the reason for that is that I’m very much aware of my own tendency to divide people that way. It isn’t in the way most people do, though, and that’s what keeps me interested in the whole subject.
Take the thing I posted a few weeks ago about sexuality and orientation. I think the main reason I posted that, and that I continue to muse over the whole issue, is that I feel like I belong to multiple tribes, not just one, and sometimes I feel like a couple of those tribes resent my not identifying only with them. There seems to be an all or nothing vein that runs through both feminism and socialism, and I don’t like it. I don’t think it’s healthy for either movement, not only because sole identification with one political tribe leads to groupthink and all of it’s unpleasant mutant offspring, but also because it’s a terrible recruiting tool. What sane person wants to join a movement that demands 100 percent allegiance? Who is such a blank slate that, if they did, it wouldn’t immediately create conflict with all the other parts of themselves that they value?
Part of the reason I’ve been thinking about this so much recently is that my favorite band were here, and I went to two shows. Yes, I know that some of my online buddies who I met via the feminist and socialist forums are rolling their eyes at this point – feel free to bypass the music stuff if you like. Anyway…this band that I’ve loved for a very long time has a fan-base that is distinctly tribal in nature. Sometimes this is a good thing – when I flew to Arizona I was picked up at the airport, driven around, and generally taken care of by a woman whose only real connection to me was an ad I put on craigslist looking for concert buddies in Arizona. It all worked out, as we got along well and generally found plenty to talk about, but it got me thinking. Why would either of us assume that we would get along just because we love the same band? Why would either of us be willing to risk meeting a stranger that way, putting our safety in their hands?
The answer is tribes. Tribal loyalty, tribal allegiance, whatever you want to call it. I was willing to put myself in this woman’s hands, and she was willing to take time out of her schedule to drive me around, on the basis of tribal allegiance alone. That’s interesting. Normally I’m pretty friendly, but not necessarily the most trusting of people – there were other people who answered the same craigslist posting offering to drive me around, even offering a place to crash, and I said no, because none of them felt like part of the tribe. She did. On that alone, we were willing to trust each other.
On some level that’s a very illogical response. Why should either of us assume that our belonging to the same tribe means that we’ll both be decent people who might be able to get along with each other? And yet people make those kinds of assumptions all the time.
Another thing to ponder is the issue of tribes in relation to subcultures. I suspect that when the person who Belle was quoting talked about tribes he/she was referring to something on a more macro level – race, or political party, or class. In other words, I suspect that he/she was talking about those tribes that we belong to by birth, not by choice. What’s interesting to me is that I have no particular sense of loyalty to or personal affiliation with those tribes that I belong to by birth, but the ones that I chose of my own free will? You bet I feel a sense of affiliation.
I wonder how this works for other people. The vast majority of the population probably has no ties to any particular subculture, but everyone belongs to the macro tribes whether they like it or not. Even if one has no interest in classifying oneself that way others will be more than happy to do it for you. How does the tribe thing work for people who aren’t connected to any subculture? Do they then identify primarily as “male” or “female”, or as “white” or “black” or “Irish”? Is that the source of all those knee-jerk reactions based on things like race and gender that never seem to make any sense to me? Did my early immersion in all kinds of subcultures break those bonds, or did my parents just somehow manage to raise me without them? Or is the way people relate to the macro classifications simply a matter of individual personality?
Back to why my concert-going experience prompted this little moment of introspection. At the second show I ended up in the middle of a crowd of Asian-American teenagers, most of whom were either Korean or Japanese. There was one girl who was maybe fifteen or sixteen who for whatever reason I ended up talking to, and then somehow temporarily bonding with. The crowd was getting a little rough, and she ended up clinging to me, head buried in my shoulder and one hand clutching mine. She also kept talking to me in Japanese, which was kind of funny since she was Korean and I’m very clearly not Japanese. I speak enough Japanese that I could understand what she was saying and answer, but it was odd nonetheless. It got me thinking about why this girl who was half my age and from a completely different culture would for some reason cling to me as a source of safety in the crowd.
I think the answer, once again, is tribes. And I don’t really know how to explain that, probably because on an intellectual level it makes no sense. Why does subculture trump race, culture (I’m British not American, remember), and age? Why is it that those people involved in subcultures see others involved in the same subculture as their tribe? And what does it mean for my identification as a feminist and a socialist when I see so many members of both groups who I don’t identify with at all? When the visible face of both movements looks nothing like me?