The Battle Lines Within - Understanding Our Tribal Instincts
“You’re either with us, or against us.” This sentiment has been expressed by countless world leaders throughout history.
What comes to mind when you hear that phrase? For me, it’s Joshua asking the “commander of the Lord’s army,” “Are you for us, or for our enemies?” Others might recall President George W. Bush or then-Senator Hillary Clinton using a similar phrase after 9/11.
Every fall in Michigan, there’s what’s known as “hate week.” This is the one week a year when families are pitted against each other. On one side, you have the Maize and Blue; on the other, the Green and White. The week of the Michigan/Michigan State football game is always marked by heightened tribal loyalty. There’s mostly good-natured teasing and many stories shared about past games. Nearly everyone chooses a side.
Loyalty and betrayal form the third set of moral foundations discussed by Jonathan Haidt.1 He proposes that these moral “taste receptors”—similar to taste buds on our tongue—include:
- Care/Harm
- Fairness/Cheating
- Loyalty/Betrayal
- Authority/Subversion
- Sanctity/Degradation
- Liberty/Oppression
Haidt argues that these foundations operate within our minds, driving our emotional intuitions as we process the world. They function like emotional taste buds. The loyalty/betrayal foundation emerged from our need to discern which tribes were friends and which were enemies. This isn’t exclusively a human trait; scientists have observed it in other species, such as chimpanzees. As Haidt puts it, “We are the descendants of successful tribalists, not their more individualistic cousins."2
Loyalty/betrayal appears to be another innate moral foundation that drives many of our emotional responses. To extend our taste bud metaphor, it’s a very strong flavor. Loyalty to our in-group provides us with pleasure, security, and connection. It drives values like patriotism and self-sacrifice. To succeed in the world, we need to form connections with others. Identifying with a particular group helps facilitate these connections.
Sports offers a clear illustration of the loyalty/betrayal foundation. When our team wins, we experience a sense of “winning,” even if all we did was sit on a couch or stand in a bar. Our cheering and support offered nothing to their success, yet when they win, we feel victorious. The next time you’re with a sports fan, listen carefully. They will almost certainly speak of their favorite team in the first person. This demonstrates how deeply we identify with our sports tribe. When fans of rival teams engage with each other, it usually involves banter. Sometimes, however, their passions can escalate to physical violence. In English Football, there are many games where visiting team fans are separated from home team fans by police.
The passions of fans are intense!
This is just sports, which, in the grand scheme of things, is utterly meaningless.
When we start discussing loyalty/betrayal in terms of politics and religion, we see the full force of our tribal identities. Religious and political loyalties cut to the heart of our individual identities, tying us deeply to others who claim the same affiliations.
These days, in particular, there’s a strong and clear sense of “us” and “them.” In the United States, we have “Red people” and “Blue people.” We have people who are “blue specs” in a sea of “red” and vice versa. Many people no longer primarily share a common identity of “American”; instead, they are finding their primary identity as “Democrat” or “Republican.” Even within each of those two major categories, there are more pronounced subcategories that create even stronger loyalty/betrayal bonds.
People who are not loyal to “our team” are often viewed as morally repugnant. If you speak with a Democrat, they may explain how Republicans are not just wrong on an issue but a threat to the fabric of society. If you sit down with a Republican, they may explain why Democrats are morally corrupt. Both view the other as evil. Both see the other as betraying their country and even morality.
When we feel betrayed, we experience emotions opposite to those of loyalty. Instead of pleasure, security, and connection, we feel anger, fear, and isolation. This drives us deeper into our tribe, prompting us to demonstrate our loyalty and find others who reciprocate it. By doing so, we can regain feelings of pleasure, security, and connection. Eventually, we may simply remove those people from our lives whom we feel have betrayed us. This, obviously, leads not to deeper connection but to greater isolation and the development of silos of perspective.
As I’ve considered how loyalty/betrayal plays out in my own life, I find that it is often leveraged to manipulate me. I’ve discovered that I have a very strong sense of loyalty/betrayal. This is rather obvious to anyone who talks sports with me (don’t even get me started on the Colorado Avalanche or Ohio State). As a result, I can easily fall into an “us vs. them” dynamic in various areas of my life. This means I have to be on my guard to avoid seeing people who hold different political or religious identities as “evil.” This doesn’t mean that all positions are equal or good. What it means is that I need to be careful not to identify the person as being evil.
Robust and civil conversation can take place between people across tribal commitments when we don’t allow our sense of loyalty/betrayal to manipulate our emotions. This means we need to take a beat and try to recognize that there is, in a very real sense, no “us” or “them,” but only a “we.” As I journey down this road, I find that I am trying to step back from certain tribal loyalties to see a bigger picture. To truly wrestle with what it looks like to hold broader and broader loyalty as opposed to narrower and narrower ones. By doing so, I find that my emotions are manipulated less, and I can be a bit more loving toward those with whom I disagree.