Tribalism, Nationalism, vs the Desire to not be disrespected

Photo by Nate Steele on Unsplash

When you read the word "tribalism" you likely, like I do, have a negative view of the word. In some circles I read that most historical conflicts, religious or otherwise, can be boiled down to grotesque version of tribalism.

When you read the word "nationalism" do you think of Nazism? I do. Its not the only thing I think of, but its one of them. Which again, evokes loads of negative connotations. 

Some might say that nationalism is just tribalism on world scale. And no doubt, this rhetoric is backed by the idea if you shun people before they ever join your club, your tribe, then your tribe may have lost a valuable member. Or worse, that this feeling of non-acceptance, will fester in the rejected, causing all kinds of feelings of hate or malice or worthlessness...or worse.

But what is good about the motivation is the hospitality. The idea that you are welcome. The idea that you have a place. Those are the good qualities of why there are negative connotations to nationalism and tribalism.

But we tend to forget that there are positive connotations to nationalism and tribalism. NO! I am not talking about the extreme cases that lead to war and persecution. I am talking about this:

This is tribalism!

See reddit opened this sub called r/place and everyone gets one pixel per 20min cycle. If you are an established user, you get one pixel every 5 min cycle. And so you get with your communities, someone proposes a coordinated effort, and then you push into the fray.

Now you cannot see from this larger view where my involvement was. Nor at any point can you really tell how involved I actually was. But for about 5 hours I helped r/cryptocurrency try and implement their native token, the moon. I wont go into a long schpeel about crypto, but basically this community talks about crypto, and wanted to make a mark on this map.

To do so meant that you would undoubtedly push some other peoples art out of the way. I was in at the beginning so I can tell you that the people wanting to do this were not being malicious. They saw an unused portion of a giant poo emoji and thought, no big deal, it's a color scheme match, lets try and push in there.

It was very much an effort of attrition. Gaining very little ground over large swaths of time...but if your community supports you and you support them...

Yesterday it looked fantastic. Today, not as distinct.

But here is the lesson I learned.

1. Some people just want to watch it all burn to the ground. They don't care about your tribe. And if we all subscribed to that axiom, then the entire canvas would just be noise.
2. Being involved with a tribe doesn't mean that you embody all that they stand for. Look right next door to the left. Megaman and Israel? Unlikely allies, (as far as I know.) But there is a mutual, live and let live mentality inherent in every tribe. Again, this doesn't mean that you support them with all your being, but it does mean that there is cause for the other's existence. 
3. While I would describe redditors at large as being, "global minded," somehow we all still find cause to maintain beauty and hard work despite 1. So we maintain the French flag, the German flag that seems to border and cross the entire picture. Shoot we even seek to maintain ficticious flags like:

the triforce of power.

So why do we do it? Why maintain a flag that gains me no benefit? And I think it is from a desire to NOT be disrespected.

That XMOON that participated in cannot even be seen from the larger picture. Yet somehow, without being told that it is right or affirming or obligatory, I get no reward for doing so, nor does any other reddit user...yet we maintain boarders. And we don't disrespect our neighbors.

Yet as you can see from the XMOON photo, we have couple of anime people creeping into our logo. We could push back, but then to do so at this point is committing to an act that would no doubt receive retaliation.

And that is the good part of tribalism and nationalism. Not allowing the blatant disrespect of your flag, logo, or anime meme.

I am not asking that you agree with me that the USA is the greatest country that ever existed, but I do ask that you maintain those boarders that made, if anything, that made something beautiful. The right to free speech is beautiful. The right to not have your government tell you who to worship is beautiful. The right to defend yourself is beautiful.

Yes, all of these can be taken to the extreme...but if you're not free to be so extreme that you get thrown in jail...than you're not free.