Tribalism - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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By tomskunk
#15208088
One thing that is important to recognize is the tribal aspect of human beings and how politicians use that to divide people into opposing groups so they can exploit those divisions to peel some groups off from facts and truth and get them to see the other groups as "the enemy." Trump has been a master at this. Calling facts "fake news." Exploiting the tribal aspect of human nature to view the other group as "the enemy."

Once a politician like Trump has been successful in creating a tribal mentality, he can more easily manipulate his followers and trick them into viewing facts as "fake news" given that he has successfully created an us vs them mentality. He can then use propaganda to brainwash his followers given that they will tend to view true facts as "fake news." This sort of tribal mentality leads to people more easily manipulated and brainwashed and thus leads to hate and of course, hate leads to evil acts such as war and genocide.

So, wars and genocide have as their origins politicians like Trump for example who exploit the human nature of tribalism to divide people up so they can be more easily manipulated and brainwashed so that they can gain and obtain power at the expense of their followers as well as others who might not be in their tribe. Human nature is tribal and political manipulators exploit this to gain power even at the cost of others.
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By Wellsy
#15208110
https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Opinion-formation-theory.pdf
Confirmation bias’ is a term attributed to the English psychologist Peter Wason, and expresses in psychological terms the fact known for centuries, that a person interprets every experience through the lens of their prior beliefs and is predisposed to interpret the experience so as to confirm their existing beliefs and resist interpretations which threaten their existing commitments.

This phenomenon is so well-known that it does not require proof, but I will illustrate the strength of this tendency with a study (Boven et al, 2018) of opinions on climate policy among Americans affiliated to either the Republican Party or the Democratic Party. Contrary to the beliefs of the majority of all participants, a great majority of the participants on both sides believed that climate change was real and action needed to be taken. When presented with two alternative policy statements each labelled either as being that of the Republican Party or the Democratic Party, 2/3 of subjects opposed the policy labelled as that of the opposite party and 2/3 supported that of their own party irrespective of which policy document had been presented. People interpreted the policy document in line with the preconception produced by being told whose policy it was. US politics is an extreme case, but the effect is well-known and universal in its impact. However, little is gained by dwelling on the phenomenon. The point is to understand how a person forms such commitments, how opinions and beliefs come to be associated with a commitment and how opinions are formed and changed.

There are a plethora of explanations for the failure of people to change opinions in the face of challenging experiences. This situation is a negative instance of the general process of forming or changing commitments in the face of ‘impossible’ situations, and adopting or modifying the range of opinions and beliefs that go along with that commitment.
By Rich
#15208111
Yes that's right politicians like Hilary and Joe Biden would never in the wildest dreams ever use tribalism to further their cause. When Obama launched his fake vaccination programme in Pakistan, the liberal media never for one moment allowed tribalism to give him a pass on that. When Bill Clinton was caught with his pants down he took complete responsibility for his actions and adamantly refused to use tribalism as a defence. Again the liberal median never allowed tribalism to lead to double standards.
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By tomskunk
#15208138
@Rich

Yes, just keep that tribal primitive mindset of yours and don't think for yourself or be smart. Just keep on thinking only in terms of tribe rather than an open mind that is based on true facts. Keep allowing others like Trump, to manipulate you and play you like a puppet and fiddle. Just keep on not thinking for yourself and not being your own man and being somebody else's man. Be like those Confederate traitors who fought to preserve slavery and the dehumanization of others and then lost in the end.
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By Rancid
#15208176
Rich wrote:Yes that's right politicians like Hilary and Joe Biden would never in the wildest dreams ever use tribalism to further their cause. When Obama launched his fake vaccination programme in Pakistan, the liberal media never for one moment allowed tribalism to give him a pass on that. When Bill Clinton was caught with his pants down he took complete responsibility for his actions and adamantly refused to use tribalism as a defence. Again the liberal median never allowed tribalism to lead to double standards.


Obama Obama Obama Obama

Anyway, I think those that understand that both Democrats and REpublicans are a bunch of asshole fuck faces, are a tiny minority of people. Hence we are doomed to be yanked back and forth by the likes of MAGA morons and woke fuck faces.
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By Potemkin
#15208177
Rancid wrote:Obama Obama Obama Obama

Anyway, I think those that understand that both Democrats and REpublicans are a bunch of asshole fuck faces, are a tiny minority of people. Hence we are doomed to be yanked back and forth by the likes of MAGA morons and woke fuck faces.

Now that you have understood the pointlessness of bourgeois liberal politics, it’s time for you to consider the only possible alternative way forward - Communist revolution! :)
By Istanbuller
#15208178
Rancid wrote:Obama Obama Obama Obama

Anyway, I think those that understand that both Democrats and REpublicans are a bunch of asshole fuck faces, are a tiny minority of people. Hence we are doomed to be yanked back and forth by the likes of MAGA morons and woke fuck faces.

You can go for another way. Vote for Libertarians, for instance.
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By Rancid
#15208181
Istanbuller wrote:You can go for another way. Vote for Libertarians, for instance.


Libertarians are fucking morons too. Their faith in that markets can save us all like Jesus is irrational.
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By tomskunk
#15208231
@Potemkin @Rancid

Nation states are built around the concept of tribalism. People who are members of a tribe, share a common language and some similar values. But manipulators can pit groups of people within the tribe against each other too though so that they can get power within that tribe. Human beings can be aggressive and violent because evolutionary speaking as humans evolved, resources were scarce, so their was fierce competition for resources. And because their were scarce resources and competition for those resources, tribes were formed and violence was used against other tribes to gain access to resources. Violence paid. Look at bullies at school. They use violence to pick on others because violence pays (and they choose weaker targets or what they think are weaker targets for bullying).

People respect the bully and reward the bully. At least in the short term they do. In the long term though, bullying doesn't pay. In today's modern world, though violence might sometimes, under certain circumstances, pay in the short term, it might not pay in the long term and can have serious long term consequences for those who use violence. And respect garnered from bullying others and violence is the wrong kind of respect. People should strive for the sort of respect that comes from being somebody who works hard, is well educated, treats others well, is wise and doesn't use violence to get respect or status within the group (tribe).
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By Unthinking Majority
#15208244
Political tribalism is hard to avoid.

Tribalism based on race/ethnicity/language/religion is also very tricky. Multiculturalism is still in the experimental stage. Thus far it has failed when it has been tried in the West in many cases: Scotland vs Northern Ireland vs England, Quebec vs English Canada vs Aboriginals, white vs blacks etc in USA, catholics vs protestants vs muslims etc. Governments need to respect minorities and let them live without being repressed by the majority. Even in cities different cultural groups segregate into their own areas.
By Rich
#15208289
Tribalism and partisanship often get conflated. We evolved to be tribalistic in relatively small groups. People throughout civilisation have felt that politics is messed up. And that's because it is. Human's have not evolved to deal with social groups beyond an absolute max of 400 people. These small groups would make their decisions in a democratic manner. And they were just to small to have the hierarchies controlling speech and expression that we see with Nazi Germany, modern China, YouTube and Twitter.

Prejudice, bigotry, confirmation bias and partisanship are also evolved traits. We evolved to make our decisions through partisan debate. We evolved to polarise on issues and to resolve them through the partisans putting the best case forward. I would suggest that the British adversarial legal system is the classic example of this.
By Istanbuller
#15208370
We would be living in feudal societies/dictatorships if no political tribalism existed. Our sharp differences and divisions is what makes politics beautiful. That is called an ideology.
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By Rancid
#15208375
Rich wrote:We evolved to polarise on issues and to resolve them through the partisans putting the best case forward.


Historically speaking. Things were general resolved with violence.
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By Unthinking Majority
#15208377
Rancid wrote:Historically speaking. Things were general resolved with violence.

If we assume the group that's larger in any country will more often than not win most wars among the other smaller groups, democracy replaces war with majority rules voting so we aren't always killing each other over politics but the end results are typically the same...minus the violence. That's basically genius.
#15208379
My grandfather said people need religion because it prevented people from behaving like animals. I think he was right. Let's all go back to church and start feeling guilty again for sinning instead of going all realpolitik on each other.
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By Rancid
#15208381
Unthinking Majority wrote:If we assume the group that's larger in any country will more often than not win most wars among the other smaller groups, democracy replaces war with majority rules voting so we aren't always killing each other over politics but the end results are typically the same...minus the violence. That's basically genius.


True, this is why we see war deaths at all time lows. Russia is setting up to give us a bump though.
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By Rancid
#15208464
Unthinking Majority wrote:UN is broken. This shouldn't be happening.


Would it really be possible to have a fixed UN?
By late
#15208466
Istanbuller wrote:
We would be living in feudal societies/dictatorships if no political tribalism existed. Our sharp differences and divisions is what makes politics beautiful. That is called an ideology.



The ideas and values of the Enlightenment is was fathered the modern idea of democracy. In which differences and divisions can be handled by elections, and democratic governance.
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By Potemkin
#15208468
late wrote:The ideas and values of the Enlightenment is was fathered the modern idea of democracy. In which differences and divisions can be handled by elections, and democratic governance.

Any sort of democratic system presupposes the existence of internal divisions and conflicts within society. Otherwise, why would you need it? If everyone agreed with each other, then politics as we currently understand it wouldn't exist; there would just be something which we would perceive as a "benign dictatorship".

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