Thread by @waitbutwhy

We think of the 1950s as a time of relative political unity. But that’s not quite right. The 50s were a time of what I think of as “scattered tribalism.” There were Us vs Them battles taking place on multiple “tiers” simultaneously.

/1

.@JonHaidt often quotes the proverb “Me against my brothers; my brothers and me against my cousins; my cousins, my brothers, and me against strangers.”

In the 50s all 3 tribalism tiers were hot:

Intra-party warfare (brothers)
Reps v Dems (cousins)
US v Sov Union (strangers)

/2

Over the decades since, the threat of an external enemy has waned, and ideological purification of the parties has diminished infra-party warfare. American tribal instincts are no longer scattered—they’re heavily concentrated on the “cousins” battle: US right vs US left.

/3

This concentration of tribalism onto a single binary conflict is bad news. Concentrated tribalism can go to scary places that scattered tribalism can’t. And once tribalism is concentrated, that concentration can become self-perpetuating.

/4

Concentrated tribalism enables cult-level echo chambers, which in turn enable the most extreme factions to have outsize power.

Narrowcast media emerged just as this change was happening and discovered the optimal business model: stoking that singular tribal divide.

/5

These kinds of vicious cycles keep tribalism concentrated even though it’s horribly unproductive and most people don’t like it.

The way to help:

1) See the concentrated tribal divide for the group madness that it is

2) Have the courage to stop participating in it

/end