Tribe

As I write these words, I – along with my family – are huddled in a bomb shelter as our home in Jerusalem is under attack from Iranian missiles. And yet, despite the obvious concern we all have, not to mention the pain and heartbreak over the loss of lives in this conflict, we are in good spirits, occassionally laughing, singing off key (mostly me) and even dancing a little. I am tempted to say that we Israelis are incredibly resilient – which is true – but that’s not the full picture. All human beings are incredibly resilient. Or at least, we have the potential to be. 

***

And that brings me to this week’s installment, Sebastian Junger’s beautiful book, Tribe. At its core, this book is about what we can learn from tribal societies on matters of loyalty, belonging and the eternal quest for meaning. It is how being part of a community – a tribe – can transform our very lives and provide us with the resilience necessary to overcome any obstacle. And ironically, it is also about how those obstacles help us to develop such resilience in the first place. 

As he notes, humans don’t mind hardship; in fact, we can thrive on it. What we really mind is not feeling necessary, not being needed by others.

Growing up in a nice suburb is where his story begins. It was a place where neighbors hardly knew each other, nor needed to; after all, nothing happened in his town that required anything close to collective effort. The police … the fire department … they took care of everything. The sheer predictability of life in an American suburb left him hoping for something that might require a banding together of people to survive – and his participation in this band of brothers. How can I become an adult in society if I’m never asked to sacrifice, he thought. How do you become a man in a world that doesn’t require courage?

The journey through history, psychology and anthropology that followed fills the pages of Tribe. He notes how our modern society, in reducing the role of community simultaneously elevated the role of authority. And this alienated the egalitarian nature embedded within the human psyche. The lack of community also gave way to greater fraud and dishonesty, as people in tight-knit communities lack both the desire as well as the means to defraud one another. 

War – and other struggles – offers an opportunity for modern man to ‘taste’ the powerful communal experience of his ancient ancestors. A 1961 study of 9,000 incredibly well-adjusted survivors of various disasters concluded that large scale calamities, rather than destroying the fabric of a society, could produce mentally healthy conditions to allow them to thrive. Why that might be, he wonders. Pages later he offers a possible answer with an example from WW2 (in truth, the whole book is filled with fascinating examples).

During the Blitz in which German forces dropped bombs for 57 straight days in residential areas in London, killing hundreds of people at a time, not only did an expected mass hysteria never arrive, but psychiatric breakdowns (projected to run as high as four million people) actually went down. Psychiatrists watched in puzzlement as long-standing patients saw their symptoms subside during the period of intense air raids. Experts attributed this to two things: First, when people are actively engaged in a cause their lives have more purpose, and the millions of Londoners felt their steadfastness added to the war effort. Second, powerful, effective, egalitarian, compassionate, crime-less communities were forged in the various shelters, uniting its ‘residents’ not just in purpose, but with people. 

Junger notes that the beauty and the tragedy of the modern world is that it eliminates many situations that require people to demonstrate commitment to the collective good. Two of the behaviors that set early humans apart were the systematic sharing of food and altruistic group defense.  That set us apart from animals and gave birth to the modern world. A society that doesn’t offer its members the chance to act selflessly in these ways isn’t a society in any tribal sense of the world. It’s just a political entity that, lacking enemies, will probably fall apart on its own.

The challenge Junger’s book presents us is this: How can we access the power of tribal connectivity, which is so fundamental for human thriving, while also benefiting from all the advances modern society affords us? Obviously we cannot – nor should want – to return to a caveman existence; nor do we wish for the substitute of suffering and war. Is there a positive, affirmative way we can invite the power of community and purpose into our lives?