Quotes & Sayings About Tribalism

Defeating racism, tribalism, intolerance and all forms of discrimination will liberate us all, victim and perpetrator alike. — Ban Ki-moon

The toxic mix of religion and tribalism has become so dangerous as to justify taking seriously the alternative view, that humanism based on science is the effective antidote, the light and the way at last placed before us. — E. O. Wilson

I sometimes wonder where the world would have been if we didn't have corruption, racism, dictatorial leadership, international terrorism, armed conflict, the spread of infectious diseases, climate change, poverty, hunger and lack of drinking water, the caste system, tribalism, communism, international media propaganda, the Colonial Borders of Africa created by Europeans for their own gains, the Ignorance of the Books of Machiavelli, Hegel & Darwinism (You are either with us or against us) and Lack of Domestic Leadership Education. — Henry Johnson Jr

We must be passionate and controlled but not reckless. Truth is not established by shame, guilt, or coercion or tribalism. It must be established by reason, evidence, presentation, compassion, and yes, faith. It cannot be established by ridicule, mocking, or insults of sacred icons or traditions but by disproving them or establishing their lack or veracity or usefulness. — Leviak B. Kelly

Kenya DOES NOT belong to 2 tribes only. Kenya has 42 tribes. to say that the decision of 2 tribes is the decision of the whole country is fallacy and outright dictatorship and tribalism
Akuku Mach Pep, Democracy on Trial — Akuku Mach Pep

Violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children: organized religion ought to have a great deal on its conscience. — Christopher Hitchens

The accent in England can change literally from street to street, and people have this sort of feudal tribalism whereby you can identify somebody's provenance by their voice. — Rupert Friend

the word "silo" does not just refer to a physical structure or organization (such as a department). It can also be a state of mind. Silos exist in structures. But they exist in our minds and social groups too. Silos breed tribalism. But they can also go hand in hand with tunnel vision. — Gillian Tett

Be ... suspicious ... of all those who employ the term 'we' or 'us' without your permission. This is [a] form of surreptitious conscription ... Always ask who this 'we' is; as often as not it's an attempt to smuggle tribalism through the customs. — Christopher Hitchens

Since Nigeria has refused to fully embrace the present reality as it is, that is; the importance of science and technology, the redundancy of religion, the need for pragmatic international relations, economic reforms, support of entrepreneurship spirit, etc., but rather, has continued to accept the world the way it has choose to see it, that is; the supremacy of supernatural belief over human intelligence, the sacredness of tribalism, the abuse of democratic tenets, inability to appreciate scientific truth, its desire to be lifelong importer of finished products, etc., all of which have become our reality, then one would imagine how soon we can attain self-reliance. — Tony Osborg

The genocide [in Rwanda] was not a spontaneous eruption of tribal hatred, it was planned by people wanting to keep power. There was a long government-led hat campaign against the Tutsis. — Jonathan Glover

Tribalism is a social form which can exist at any level of technology. It's a complete illusion to associate it with low levels of technology. It is probably, in fact, a form of social organization second only to the family in its ability to endure. — Terence McKenna

My identity in Christ is more important than my identity as an American or as a Coloradan or as a white male or as a Protestant. Church is the place where I celebrate that new identity and work it out in the midst of people who have many differences but share this one thing in common. We are charged to live out a kind of alternative society before the eyes of the watching world, a world that is increasingly moving toward tribalism and division. — Philip Yancey

From different perspectives, I will show how political orientations across space and time arise from three clusters of measurable personality traits. The three clusters entail opposing attitudes toward tribalism, inequality, and differing perceptions of human nature. Together, these traits are by far the most powerful cause of left-right voting, even leading people to regularly vote against their economic interests. — Avi Tuschman

The point is that racism is the product of tribalism and ignorance and both are falling victim to communications and world-around literacy — R. Buckminster Fuller

Morality binds people into groups. It gives us tribalism, it gives us genocide, war, and politics. But it also gives us heroism, altruism, and sainthood. — Jonathan Haidt

I don't think Islam has really been understood as a product of globalization. It might be one of these instances where globalism and tribalism ultimately go hand in hand. — Franklin Foer

Religion is often just tribalism: pride in a group one was born into, a group that is often believed to have 'God' on its side. — Penn Jillette

I see no way out of the problems that organized religion and tribalism create other than humans just becoming more honest and fully aware of themselves. — E. O. Wilson

Conformism is essential to the group coherence and 'spirit.' The whole impetus behind tribalism of this kind is conservative: Belonging to the tribe is defined by opposition to other tribes. Our tribe, and its traditional ways, is superior to other tribes because it is ours. — Russell Smith

We reject the charge of tribalism, particularly from those whose theologies serve to buttress the most nefarious brand of tribalism of all - the omnipotent state. The church is the one political entity in our culture that is global, transnational, transcultural. Tribalism is not the church determined to serve God rather than Caesar. Tribalism is the United States of America, which sets up artificial boundaries and defends them with murderous intensity. — William H. Willimon

Human nature, as manifested in tribalism and nationalism, provides the momentum of the machinery of human evolution. — Arthur Keith

I understand working-class culture, tribalism and the ethos of violence, so I make films about these things. — Nick Love

To run an effective political party you need a degree of tribalism, it's the glue that holds everyone together. — Charles Kennedy

Unfortunately a religious group defines itself foremost by its creation story, the supernatural narrative that explains how humans came into existence. And this story is also the heart of tribalism. No matter how gentle and high-minded, or subtly explained, the core belief assures its members that God favors them above all others. It teaches that members of other religions worship the wrong gods, use wrong rituals, follow false prophets, and believe fantastic creation stories. There is no way around the soul-satisfying but cruel discrimination that organized religions by definition must practice among themselves. I doubt there ever has been an imam who suggested that his followers try Roman Catholicism or a priest who urged the reverse. — Edward O. Wilson

I think even nation states should be and will be obsolete. I think nationalism will be seen in the future as a form of tribalism and I think what we call "Democracy" will be "Netocracy", where people, globally, can work on issues. — Deepak Chopra

We need to radically and intelligently reduce human populations to fewer than one billion. We need to eliminate nationalism and tribalism and become Earthlings. And as Earthlings, we need to recognize that all the other species that live on this planet are also fellow citizens and also Earthlings. This is a planet of incredible diversity of life-forms; it is not a planet of one species as many of us believe. — Paul Watson

His Kingship, precisely because it is so broad, so total, is doomed to be rejected by anybody who is still into tribalism, or small belonging systems. We don't really like the big Kingdom if it gets in the way of our smaller kingdoms, and it always does. — Richard Rohr

It is time we accept there's no Cronkite moment for Afghanistan. Perhaps it's time we value the hearts and minds of our own over distant Afghan tribes. — Tiffany Madison

The Perfect Way is only difficult for those who pick and choose;
Do not like, do not dislike; all will then be clear.
Make a hairbreadth difference, and Heaven and Earth are set apart;
If you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against.
The struggle between 'for' and 'against' is the mind's worst disease; — Sengcan

The modern tribalism of the left demands that each person choose a group and then agree with everything that group agrees with. And anybody who leaves that group is stoned to death. — Tucker Carlson

There is almost no country in Africa where it is not essential to know to which tribe, or which subgroup of which tribe, the president belongs. From this single piece of information you can trace the lines of patronage and allegiance that define the state. — Christopher Hitchens

Parents and schools should place great emphasis on the idea that it is all right to be different. Racism and all the other 'isms' grow from primitive tribalism, the instinctive hostility against those of another tribe, race, religion, nationality, class or whatever. You are a lucky child if your parents taught you to accept diversity. — Roger Ebert

You have to look at the history of the Middle East in particular. It has been one of failure and frustration, of feudalism and tribalism. — Alexander Haig

In a neurotic society, insane ideas can become 'normal', the current triumph of tribalism is the result of rabid global anti-intellectualism. — Martijn Benders

Perhaps the most powerful cause of the breakdown of the closed society was the development of sea-communications and commerce. Close contact with other tribes is liable to undermine the feeling of necessity with which tribal institutions are viewed; and trade, commercial initiative, appears to be one of the few forms in which individual initiative and independence can assert itself, even in a society in which tribalism still prevails. These two, seafaring and commerce, became the main characteristics of Athenian imperialism, as it developed in the fifth century B.C. And indeed they were recognized as the most dangerous developments by the oligarchs, the members of the privileged, or of the formerly privileged, classes of Athens. — Karl Popper

For the developing world, the past half-century has been a time of recurring hope and frequent disappointment. Great waves of change have washed over the landscape, from the crumbling of colonial hegemonies in mid-century to the recent collapse of Communist empires. But too often, what rushed in to replace the old order were empty hopes-not only in the false allure of state socialism, non-alignment and single-party rule, but also the false glories of romantic nationalism and narrow tribalism, and the false dawn of runaway individualism. — His Highness The Aga Khan

The tribalizing power of the new electronic media, the way in which they return to us to the unified fields of the old oral cultures, to tribal cohesion and pre-individualist patterns of thought, is little understood. Tribalism is the sense of the deep bond of family, the closed society as the norm of community. — Marshall McLuhan

Above all, we must avoid the pitfalls of tribalism. If we are divided among ourselves on tribal lines, we open our doors to foreign intervention and its potentially harmful consequences. — Haile Selassie

I am extremely conscious of my tribalism. And when you talk about tribalism, you talk about living in a black and white world. I mean, Native American tribalism sovereignty, even the political fight for sovereignty and cultural sovereignty is a very us versus them. And I think a lot of people in this country, especially European Americans and those descended from Europeans don't see themselves as tribal. — Sherman Alexie

In America, tribalism is alive and well. There are four kinds - class, ideology, region, and race. First, class. Pretty easy. Rich folk and poor folk. Second, ideology. Liberals and conservatives. They don't merely disagree on political issues, each side believes the other is evil. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

In a cycle as old as tribalism, ignorance of the Other engenders fear; fear engenders hatred; hatred engenders violence; violence engenders further violence until the only "rights", the only law, are whatever is willed by the most powerful. — David Mitchell

The fact that so many people choose to live in ways that narrow the community of fate to a very limited set of others and to define the rest as threatening to their way of life and values is deeply worrying because this contemporary form of tribalism, and the ideologies that support it, enable them to deny complex and more crosscutting mutual interdependencies-local, national, and international-and to elude their own role in creating long-term threats to their own wellbeing and that of others. — Margaret Levi

The mentality of who is your uncle - an ethnocentric way of thinking, is one of the leading causes of South Sudan's internal conflicts. — Duop Chak Wuol

From Senegalese chauvinism to Wolof tribalism, there is but one small step. And consequently, wherever the petty-mindedness of the national bourgeoisie and the haziness of its ideological positions have been incapable of enlightening the people as a whole or have been unable to put the people first, wherever this national bourgeoisie has proven to be incapable of expanding its vision of the world, there is a return to tribalism, and we watch with a raging heart as ethnic tensions triumph. Since the only slogan of the bourgeoisie is "Replace the foreigners," and they rush into every sector to take the law into their own hands and fill the vacancies, the petty traders such as taxi drivers, cake sellers, and shoe shiners follow suit and call for the expulsion of the Dahomeans or, taking tribalism to a new level, demand that the Fulani go back to their bush or back up their mountains. — Frantz Fanon

So quickly does nationalism surface in the heart of a man who thought he was above such tribalism. — Orson Scott Card

When people have tried everything and have discovered that nothing works, they will tend to revert to what they know best - which will often be the tribe, the totem, or the taboo. — Christopher Hitchens

"X-Men" is not really about mutants; it's about humanity. I think it's about the human race. We're an absolutely destructive race. It seems that we can't seem to get beyond this level of tribalism that has been around for thousands of years. Anything we fear we tend to destroy. — Michael Fassbender

Culture makes lies plausible through exposure to time. It makes prejudice seem like physics intergenerationally. It is therefore the most dangerous opponent of philosophy, because it feels the most credible to the average person. — Stefan Molyneux

All around the world, there is corruption, tribalism and division, as many find it easier to pick on those that are different, which is why we need to hold tightly to the good in this world. — Ger Duany

We must put behind us the tribalism and divisions seen in the referendum between Leave and Remain and focus on defining our place in the world, healing our wonderful nation and putting core Conservative principles and values into action. — Priti Patel

Tribalism has become trendy. — Louise Burfitt-Dons

Religious warriors are not an anomaly. It is a mistake to classify believers of particular religious and dogmatic religionlike ideologies into two groups, moderate versus extremist. The true cause of hatred and violence is faith versus faith, an outward expression of the ancient instinct of tribalism. Faith is the one thing that makes otherwise good people do bad things. Nowhere do people tolerate attacks on their person, their family, their country - or their creation myth. In America, for example, it is possible in most places to openly debate different views on religious spirituality - including the nature and even the existence of God, providing it is in the context of theology and philosophy. But it is forbidden to question closely, if at all, the creation myth - the faith - of another person or group, no matter how absurd. To disparage anything in someone else's sacred creation myth is "religious bigotry." It is taken as the equivalent of a personal threat. — Edward O. Wilson

Nationalism and socialism as actually lived and applied in the 20th century are the same thing (and in the 18th and 19th century, nationalism was often a force for classical liberalism!). It's all a kind of reactionary tribalism (another "ism" which becomes poisonous quickly as you up the dosage). When you nationalize an industry, you socialize it. When you socialize an industry you nationalize it. Yes, international socialism rejected this formulation. And that's why international socialism failed! People wanted to be Germans or Russians or Italians and they wanted to be socialists. Even the Soviet Union embraced national-socialism (socialism in one country) because that 'workers of the world unite' crap wouldn't fly. After Stalin, no Communist or socialist regime failed to exploit nationalism to one extent or another. — Jonah Goldberg

What are the final lessons learned? I came to the conclusion that the most powerful human motive by far is the striving for attachment to loved ones in perpetuity. Humans will do anything for this, including blowing themselves (and others) to pieces. I learned that tribalism is universal. It may start with the attachment to another (typically, the mother and disinterest in those who are not her), and it may be furthered by the division of in-group as those we recognize and out-group as the rest, but our capacity for symbolism established in- and outgroups in us all, and we view their actions completely differently. We need, if we are to survive, a sense both of humanity as a tribe and of humanity's potential for radical violence. If we delude ourselves that we are the civilized entity we appear to be on the surface, we are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past, only with more powerful and devastating weapons. — Donald G. Dutton

Understanding America for the Non-American Black: American Tribalism In America, tribalism is alive and well. There are four kinds - class, ideology, region, and race. First, class. Pretty easy. Rich folk and poor folk. Second, ideology. Liberals and conservatives. They don't merely disagree on political issues, each side believes the other is evil. Intermarriage is discouraged and on the rare occasion that it happens, is considered remarkable. Third, region. The North and the South. The two sides fought a civil war and tough stains from that war remain. The North looks down on the South while the South resents the North. Finally, race. There's a ladder of racial hierarchy in America. White is always on top, specifically White — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Nationalism: the love of tribal fictions inspired by the hatred of social realities. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

I'm supportive of practical nationalism, like the kind we need in Canada to avoid being absorbed into a much larger country. The kind of nationalism I despise as destructive and infantile is really just tribalism writ large. — Steven Heighton

The true cause of hatred and violence is faith versus faith, an outward expression of the ancient instinct of tribalism. — Edward O. Wilson

Religion divides us, while it is our human characteristics that bind us to each other. — Hermann Bondi

Tribalism is an addiction that is driven by false beliefs that need to be reflected back to be perceived as true. — Stefan Molyneux

Scientifically speaking, there is tribalism and group bias, but there cannot be any such thing as racism. We are all one. — Bill Nye

Tribalism never prospers, for when it does, everyone will respect it as a true nationalism, and no-one will dare call it tribalism. — Ernest Gellner

People who think with their epidermis or their genitalia or their clan are the problem to begin with. One does not banish this specter by invoking it. If I would not vote against someone on the grounds of 'race' or 'gender' alone, then by the exact same token I would not cast a vote in his or her favor for the identical reason. Yet see how this obvious question makes fairly intelligent people say the most alarmingly stupid things. — Christopher Hitchens

The Republic of South Sudan does not belong to a particular tribe - it belongs to all tribes of South Sudan; those who think so should think coherently. The truth is, tribalism kills and destroys. — Duop Chak Wuol

Karl Popper, in The Open Society and Its Enemies, made a comment that sounds almost prophetic now: that the happy, primitive society (which, by the way, never existed) is lost for all those who have eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. The more we try to return to the heroic age of tribalism, Popper warns, the more certainly we will reach the Inquisition, the secret police, and a romanticized gangsterism. But once the existential problems of the individual, who is good by nature, can be blamed on the "evil" society, nothing stands in the way of sheer imagination. The definition of the benevolent society free of all power is only a question of fantasy. — Paul Watzlawick

Well, I think the worst part about tribalism is its tendency to fundamentalize, and if I can fight fundamentalism in any of its forms I'm happy. — Sherman Alexie

Tribalism is the most powerful force in the world. — Patrick Dixon

I loathe nationalism. It is a form of tribalism
the idolatry of the 20th century. — Cornel West

Ethnic differences exist; of course they exist on the African continent. They are not necessarily political differences, however. They don't necessarily cause people to kill each other. They become so-called 'tribalism' when they are politicized in a particular framework. And in post-independence Africa they have been politicized largely by sections of the so-called African elite. — Walter Rodney

I think, tribalism is a mental prison ... and pride of identity coupled with arrogance is one of the leading factors that limit one's ability to abandon it. — Duop Chak Wuol

Tribalism reflects strong ethnic or cultural identities that separate members of one group from another, making them loyal to people like them and suspicious of outsiders, which undermines efforts to forge common cause across groups. — Rosabeth Moss Kanter

But in some great souls, who consider themselves as citizens of the world, and forcing the imaginary barriers that separate people from people ... — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

There are many theological trappings of monotheistic religions that insist that we will never completely experience or know God as the most high of existential truth which insists that the closest we can hope to comprehend of Him is only through an emphatic rapturous recognition that transcends the mere human mind. Yet, this concept of understanding is a chronic symptom of an internal, subjective limitation of consciousness concluded and shared by the forefathers of our faiths which have, unwittingly, prejudiced and influenced our churches, synagogues' and mosques and should be questioned vigorously less we continue down the path of ineffective tribalism and spiritual division. — Jason Versey

What I do is look at ancient African tribes, and the way they dress. The rituals of how they dress ... There's a lot of tribalism in the collections, — Alexander McQueen

I'm a military man, I did what I did only because my country had to be saved from tribalism and feudalism. If I failed, it was only because I was betrayed. The so-called genocide was nothing more than just a war in defence of the revolution and a system from which all have benefited. — Mengistu Haile Mariam

I have mentioned the qualitative difference between Christianity as an ethic and Christianity as an identity. Christian ethics goes steadfastly against the grain of what we consider human nature: the first will be last, to him who asks give, turn the other cheek, judge not. Identity on the other hand appeals to a constellation of the worst human impulses. It is worse than ordinary tribalism because it assumes a more than virtuous "us" on one side and on the other a "them" who are very doubtful indeed, who are in fact a threat to all we hold dear. — Marilynne Robinson

I never learned to say shit before a lady. I don't believe in progress in quite the way you seem to. You believe in it more than Grandmother did. As for those purely cultural patterns of convention you think I ought to escape from, they happen to add up to civilization, and I'd rather be civilized than tribal or uncouth. — Wallace Stegner

Someone told me recently that a commentator or some sort had said, "The United States is in spiritual free-fall." When people make such remarks, such appalling judgements, they never include themselves, their friends, those with whom they agree. They have drawn, as they say, a bright line between an "us" and a "them." Those on the other side of the line are assumed to be unworthy of respect or hearing, and are in fact to be regarded as a huge problem to the "us" who presume to judge "them." This tedious pattern has repeated itself endlessly through human history and is, as I have said, the end of community and the beginning of tribalism. — Marilynne Robinson

Ethnicity and tribe began, by definition, where sovereignty and taxes ended. The ethnic zone was feared and stigmatized by state rhetoric precisely because it was beyond its grasp and therefore an example of defiance and an ever-present temptation to those who might wish to evade the state. — James C. Scott

Tribalism isn't a bad thing. If you're a Facebook user, or Twitter user or Foursquare user or LinkedIn user, those are all tribes ... and they may even have sub-tribes. It's not pejorative, it's declarative. — Peter Guber

In the larger world, tribalism is an enormous problem, as it ever has been: both strength and idiocy borne from belonging. — Jane Hamilton

Mine mine mine. That was the curse and power of human beings - that what they saw and loved they had to have. They could share it with other people but only if they conceived of those people as being somehow their own. What we own is ours. What you own should also be ours. In fact, you own nothing, if we want it. Because you are nothing. We are the real people, you are only posing as people in order to try to deprive us of what God means us to have. — Orson Scott Card

He himself felt defeated because he was fighting against something he did not hate, because he did not understand the fratricidal hatred between the sons of Araby and Israel, and because he loved and knew and appreciated and wanted to save the merits of their cultures, although not the cruelty of their powers; he knew and loved the fountains and the gardens and the patios and high towers of al-Andalus, the nature that has been made more beautiful by man for man's pleasure, not for his mortification. — Carlos Fuentes

Tories must end tribalism and divisions. — Priti Patel

You'd never know that listening to people in the UN but tribalism is the father of racism. — Stanley Crouch

The Lone Star of Africa Land of the free, on your beach and sacred forests loves flourished. You, Liberia, you my love to echo, the scream of freedom, holding tight and will never let go. O beautiful land, The Lone star for decades has survived wars and tribalism the elders who keep the ancestral treasures that resulted in Vandalism. When will morning break for great leaders to stand for what is right Mother Liberia? — Henry Johnson Jr