Denver's First Annual Word of the Year: Tribalism
Alright, I don't have a clean criterion for what types of words are likely to win my personal "word of the year" award, this year being the first award. This year, I chose a word that I have recently been made aware of as having special significance in illuminating many salient issues of the day. My word this year is Tribalism. A blurb from the wikipedia entry isn't bad (although the wiki entry for this word is really not that great overall):
"tribalism" ... is the possession of a strong cultural or ethnic identity that separates oneself as a member of one group from the members of another.
The word and definition by themselves maybe don't appear all that remarkable. What makes them so to me is the realization that tribalism is a primitive part of human consciousness that comes out of our evolution. Humans developed tribalism because it helped us complete the transition from hunter-gatherers to city-dwellers, thus aiding in our survival by encouraging us to form social units. However, ironically we see today in a global society that tribalism is a nearly vestigial sentiment that actually hinders our ability to reach out to our fellow man. It manifests itself in most of the ills that plague our society: racism, sexism, nationalism, patriotism, etc. It seemed remarkable to me that one concept rooted in human evolution could so neatly explain all of these societal ills.
The tipping point (a book which I have yet to read) makes the case that humans are physically limited in how many people (150 it claims is the magic number) they can know well. Once one fills up his/her allocation of 150 people, he/she has to resort to stereotypes and other crude models to classify others.
So the ultimate question is, should we strive to (more importantly, how DO we), rid ourselves of this likely destructive trait that is such an integral part of our brain and evolution?
"tribalism" ... is the possession of a strong cultural or ethnic identity that separates oneself as a member of one group from the members of another.
The word and definition by themselves maybe don't appear all that remarkable. What makes them so to me is the realization that tribalism is a primitive part of human consciousness that comes out of our evolution. Humans developed tribalism because it helped us complete the transition from hunter-gatherers to city-dwellers, thus aiding in our survival by encouraging us to form social units. However, ironically we see today in a global society that tribalism is a nearly vestigial sentiment that actually hinders our ability to reach out to our fellow man. It manifests itself in most of the ills that plague our society: racism, sexism, nationalism, patriotism, etc. It seemed remarkable to me that one concept rooted in human evolution could so neatly explain all of these societal ills.
The tipping point (a book which I have yet to read) makes the case that humans are physically limited in how many people (150 it claims is the magic number) they can know well. Once one fills up his/her allocation of 150 people, he/she has to resort to stereotypes and other crude models to classify others.
So the ultimate question is, should we strive to (more importantly, how DO we), rid ourselves of this likely destructive trait that is such an integral part of our brain and evolution?