Applied constructively, nationalism is the only antidote for tribalism. People organically gather into clans, and clans into tribes. The only identity they will naturally accept above the tribe is the nation.
This is clearly understood by the people who want to divide us into tribes and keep us at war with each other for their political gain. They do everything they can to make our national identity seem repellent so that we will remain broken into tribal groups.
This is their paramount objective, reflected in everything they do - from mauling the educational system and popular culture to impugn the American national identity to playing games with language and teaching people to adopt hyphenated identities.
The hyphen is very obviously a little crowbar used to bludgeon our common national identity and peel us apart. It's no coincidence that "American" goes AFTER the hyphen, AFTER whatever other identity people are taught to embrace. We are taught to lead with whatever divides us.
The constant, lunatic changes made to our language are also an instrument of tribal division. We are made to feel confused and afraid of speaking to others. We can speak comfortably and clearly only within our own like-minded group.
Political correctness destroys any hope of a common national culture. We don't feel any sense of belonging with people who are made to seem alien and fragile, liable to take furious offense at the slightest verbal error. We are taught not to be honest with each other.
Grievance culture splits us clearly into competing tribes and pits us against each other to grab the spoils. INDIVIDUAL competition is one of the most constructive forces known to man. TRIBAL competition is bitter and dangerous.
All of these techniques are deliberately deployed to prevent the development of a common national identity. We have been aggressively conditioned not to think "American" when we look at each other. We are explicitly told that developing our national identity is evil.
Globalism is no antidote for tribalism. On the contrary, it makes people more likely to clump into tribes and view each other with suspicion, sometimes with good reason. Globalism is not a higher, nobler identity that can replace the tribal - it is the antithesis of identity.
A "citizen of the world" is a citizen of nothing. That might sound liberating to the shallow and pretentious, but the problem is that a citizen of nothing is sovereign of nothing. No state feels a duty to respect your rights or defend your interests. The stateless are powerless.
State power divorced from national identity is rapacious, greedy, corrupt, and cruel - a fact it tries to hide by loudly declaring itself enlightened, selfless, honest, and compassionate. Reverting to tribalism is a logical response to such a controlling state.
It is important to counter tribalism with a constructive and positive national identity. Examples of toxic nationalism are abundant, both in history and today. We've seen countless examples of how it can go wrong. We let ourselves be fooled into thinking it can never go right.
In contrast, tribalism almost always goes wrong, especially in an interconnected world. A rare few tribal groups keep to themselves and demand nothing from outsiders, or devote themselves to altruistic pursuits.
Most tribes aren't so constructive and agreeable - not when their leaders deliberately keep them angry and harp on grievances as a means of holding the group together and controlling its members, not when they have to fight other tribes for slices of collectivist pie.
Look at the people who have labored long to destroy our national identity and make our history seem toxic and undesirable. Look at what THEY want, understand why they see nationalism as an obstacle, and you will understand how valuable it can be to the rest of us. /end
