>> You're thinking of "city" and "village" in their modern senses,
>> rather than as defined in the thread. A tribal village is a
>> self-sufficient community (whether permanent or migratory) consisting
>> of at most a few hundred people, all of whose members are personally
>> known to one another, and who have little or no contact with
>> outsiders. It is not the equivalent of modern small towns. A "city"
>> is a community so large that most of its members are strangers to one
>> another.
>
> It sounds to me like you are setting up a false dilemma -- that the
> choices are either tribalism or what I consider to be the disastrous
> experiment of modern civilization.
Actually, no choice between those two alternatives is implied or
recommended. Tribalism is not an option, barring some catastrophic event
which reduces the Earth's population by 99%% or more, e.g., a meteor
impact of the magnitude of the Yucatan strike which killed the
dinosaurs. Even then it is doubtful the human remnant would resocialize
itself in that fashion.
There is no choice between tribalism and civilization, practically
speaking. The only choice is to adapt our own psyches to the
(relatively) new social reality.
> The reality is that there are beneficial aspect of tribal life that
> you are ignoring. Living in small, safe, autonomous communities where
> everyone knew each other is a good thing, especially when considering
> the hazards of inner city life (unless you are wealthy, of course,
> where can afford to shield yourself from these negative effects, to
> some degree).
>
> We should acknowledge these beneficial ways of living and incorporate
> them into modern life, rather than discard them. Indeed, that is the
> trend now in many cities across the U.S., with the emergence of "urban
> villages".
You harbor a romanticized view of tribal life (as do most people). It
was neither safe nor economically secure. Average lifespans were
typically <30 years; infant mortality >50%%. Tribes could be exterminated
by a single year of drought, an outbreak of disease, or an attack by a
more powerful tribe. Perhaps even more importantly, it was
intellectually barren. Tribal people produce no art (apart from ritual
and decorative art), no literature, no drama, no music (apart from
ritual music), no science, and no philosophy. They do not speculate upon
and then investigate the workings of the world around them, or ponder
their own origins. Instead they create fanciful folklores which are
transmitted orally, unchallenged, uninvestigated, and unquestioned, for
generation after generation, changing only via random errors in the
retellings. The "benefits" of tribal life, if any there are, are greatly
overshadowed by its drawbacks.
> One can still maintain one's individuality while recognizing one's
> connection to the rest of the community.
Absolutely. The trick is in not mistaking the nature of that connection,
by assuming it is identical with or analogous to tribal bonds.
>> The point was that politics, governments, and the oppressions they
>> entail existed for several millennia prior to industrialization.
>
> That's true. But industrialization exacerbated the need for politics
> (control).
Nor sure what you are counting as evidence for that claim. In fact,
industrialization only began after the rise of liberalism, which
emphasized limiting the powers of government, and in those countries
where that doctrine gained the most traction, i.e., the UK and the US.
> So what exactly is your overall point? What are you suggesting we do?
Get used to the idea that modern societies are not tribes, understanding
the differences between those two social forms, and developing attitudes
and expectations reflective of the actual structure of civilized
societies.
