Tribalism Quotes

“You can no longer see or identify yourself solely as a member of a tribe, but as a citizen of a nation of one people working toward a common purpose.”
― idowu koyenikan, Wealth for all Africans: How Every African Can Live the Life of Their Dreams

“People who think with their epidermis or their genitalia or their clan are the problem to begin with. One does not banish this specter by invoking it. If I would not vote against someone on the grounds of 'race' or 'gender' alone, then by the exact same token I would not cast a vote in his or her favor for the identical reason. Yet see how this obvious question makes fairly intelligent people say the most alarmingly stupid things.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“The Perfect Way is only difficult for those who pick and choose;
Do not like, do not dislike; all will then be clear.
Make a hairbreadth difference, and Heaven and Earth are set apart;
If you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against.
The struggle between 'for' and 'against' is the mind's worst disease;”
― Jianzhi Sengcan

“If you spend time with crazy and dangerous people, remember – their personalities are socially transmitted diseases; like water poured into a container, most of us eventually turn into – or remain – whoever we surround ourselves with. We can choose our tribe, but we cannot change that our tribe is our destiny.”
― Stefan Molyneux

“When people have tried everything and have discovered that nothing works, they will tend to revert to what they know best—which will often be the tribe, the totem, or the taboo.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“If Americans simply choose to vote for the person who has a D or an R by their name, we will get what we deserve, which is what we have now.”
― Ben Carson, One Nation: What We Can All Do to Save America's Future

“Through love, tribes have been intermixing colors to reveal a new rainbow world. And as more time passes, this racial and cultural blending will make it harder for humans to side with one race, nation or religion over another.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“There is almost no country in Africa where it is not essential to know to which tribe, or which subgroup of which tribe, the president belongs. From this single piece of information you can trace the lines of patronage and allegiance that define the state.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“Human nature favors the tribal. Tribalism engenders violence. It was ever thus and so it will ever be.”
― Kate Atkinson, Transcription

“Madeleine Albright has said that there is 'a special place in hell for women who don't help each other.' What are the implications of this statement? Would it be an argument in favor of the candidacy of Mrs. Clinton? Would this mean that Elizabeth Edwards and Michelle Obama don't deserve the help of fellow females? If the Republicans nominated a woman would Ms. Albright instantly switch parties out of sheer sisterhood? Of course not. (And this wearisome tripe from someone who was once our secretary of state ...)”
― Christopher Hitchens

“Someone told me recently that a commentator or some sort had said, "The United States is in spiritual free-fall." When people make such remarks, such appalling judgements, they never include themselves, their friends, those with whom they agree. They have drawn, as they say, a bright line between an "us" and a "them." Those on the other side of the line are assumed to be unworthy of respect or hearing, and are in fact to be regarded as a huge problem to the "us" who presume to judge "them." This tedious pattern has repeated itself endlessly through human history and is, as I have said, the end of community and the beginning of tribalism.”
― Marilynne Robinson, When I Was a Child I Read Books

“In this chapter, we’ve considered six psychological tendencies that exacerbate intertribal conflict. First, human tribes are tribalistic, favoring Us over Them. Second, tribes have genuine disagreements about how societies should be organized, emphasizing, to different extents, the rights of individuals versus the greater good of the group. Tribal values also differ along other dimensions, such as the role of honor in prescribing responses to threats. Third, tribes have distinctive moral commitments, typically religious ones, whereby moral authority is vested in local individuals, texts, traditions, and deities that other groups don’t recognize as authoritative. Fourth, tribes, like the individuals within them, are prone to biased fairness, allowing group-level self-interest to distort their sense of justice. Fifth, tribal beliefs are easily biased. Biased beliefs arise from simple self-interest, but also from more complex social dynamics. Once a belief becomes a cultural identity badge, it can perpetuate itself, even as it undermines the tribe’s interests. Finally, the way we process information about social events can cause us to underestimate the harm we cause others, leading to the escalation of conflict.”
― Joshua Greene, Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason and the Gap Between Us and Them

“Why, then, did people's perception of race relations take a nosedive after 2013? The answer is that smartphones and social media changed the speed limit of information—which in turn gave a massive competitive advantage to ideas, information, narratives, and arguments that tap into division, tribalism, and grievances. Neoracism was among the ideologies able to take advantage of this seismic change. Ultimately, this change resulted in an informational diet that is less tethered to reality, not more.”
― Coleman Hughes, The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America

“Tribalism is community for lonely narcissists.”
― David Brooks

“Once you wake up to the vastness of the world, it is impossible to revert to the tribal lane.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Visvavatan: 100 Demilitarization Sonnets

“Know your roots, know your nature,
Step out of your tribal stretcher.
You got a mind full of atomic light,
Where did you lose your himalayan vigor!”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tum Dunya Tek Millet: Greatest Country on Earth is Earth

“Sieg Heil and the rest (Sonnet 1162)

Some shout Sieg Heil,
Some shout Jai Hind.
Some Star Spangled Banner,
Others God save the fiend.

Only the language differs,
Jungliness remains the same.
Even in an integrating world,
Some maintain the habits lame.

Once upon a time,
they might have had some value.
Today they are just anachronism,
Kept alive by apes without clue.

If you are still enraged,
how dare I compare
Sieg Heil with the rest!
Study the history unvarnished -
behind every tribal salute
you'll find a holocaust equivalent.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Visvavictor: Kanima Akiyor Kainat

“Monkeys come in all shapes and sizes,
Many are white, while others are colored.
Nationalism doesn't infect any one tribe,
it's a jungle virus that affects the world.”
― Abhijit Naskar, World War Human: 100 New Earthling Sonnets

“Measures of tribe ain't measures of the seer.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Divine Refugee

“And that was why the dogs were necessary. They were important, a balancing act, an interface, a safety buffer against instant, face-to-face, mortal clashes of loathsome and self-loathsome emotions, the very type that erupt in seconds between individuals, between clans, between nations, between sexes, doing irreversible damage all around. To stay it, to evade it, to push away those bad memories, all that pain and history and deterioration of character, you hear the barking, the onset of that savage, tribal barking, and you know then to wait indoors - quarter of an hour thereabouts - to let that soldiery go its way. In that manner you don't come into contact, you don't have to feel the powerlessness, the injustice, or worst of all, how you - a normal, ordinary, very nice human being - could want to kill or take relief at a killing.”
― Anna Burns, Milkman

“We need patriotism, yes we do, but not the one practiced by our ancestors. We need a civilized patriotism, one that is devoid of all sectarianism and cultural supremacy. We gotta be patriotic towards humanity, not nationality - we gotta be patriotic for justice and equality, not supremacy - we gotta be patriotic for inclusion, not the exclusive sustenance of our own dignity at the expense of the dignity of others.

We need a patriotism where there is no us and them - we need a patriotism where there is no lord and laymen - we need a patriotism where there is no savior and subject - we need a patriotism where our savior is our sense of virtue - we need a patriotism where our queen is our accountability - we need a patriotism where our constitution and gospel are our own conscience.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Making Britain Civilized: How to Gain Readmission to The Human Race

“Abandon your ancestors before you abandon your humanity, abandon your tradition before you abandon tolerance. Tradition that teaches intolerance is tradition no more, it is tradition of the animal, it cannot be tradition of the human.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Azad Earth Army: When The World Cries Blood

“The problem of politics is the problem of tribes.”
― Matt Haig, Notes on a Nervous Planet

“And since no difference is less easily overcome than the difference of opinion about semi-abstract questions, they never agreed in any opinion, and had long, indeed, been accustomed to jeer without anger, each at the other's incorrigible aberrations.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“We've evolved from the jungle, violence is in our DNA. That's not up for debate, it's a biological fact. Question is, will we continue to pass on the parasitic traits of the past, in the name of heritage and loyalty, or will we choose the path that deviates from the coward's quo of jungle tribalism into the sunlit valley of valiant peace!”
― Abhijit Naskar, Neurosonnets: The Naskar Art of Neuroscience

“Trenches don't have a right side and wrong side, they only have one side, the side of dogma and lies. Asses to asses, cheek to cheek, apes laud the apes, declaring true apehood through their half-open flies.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“It began as an agreement. In the wreckage of empires and the dust of revolutions, societies sought order. The nation-state promised administration, protection, identity. It was meant to govern the practical aspects of shared life: law, taxation, territory. But soon, it began to define the very meaning of life itself.

What had been a framework for managing difference became an instrument for enforcing sameness. What had been a structure to facilitate coexistence turned into a filter through which all belonging, morality, and memory were interpreted.

The genius of the nation-state is not its power to rule, but its power to redefine reality. It does not impose itself through domination alone. It enters the psyche through repetition, ritual, and narrative. It writes itself into textbooks, encodes itself into laws, and paints itself into the sky in the form of flags. It becomes the background condition of consciousness. Like oxygen. Like gravity. Unquestioned not because it is self-evident, but because it has replaced the conditions under which evidence is seen.

In this transformation, something subtle but monumental occurs: the nation-state ceases to be one possibility among many. It becomes the only frame through which community, identity, and truth are imagined.

You do not choose your nation. You inherit it. And what you inherit is not just a passport—it is a complete moral cosmology. It tells you who you are, what stories to remember, what threats to fear, what victories to celebrate. It becomes the narrator of your existence.”
― Adeel Ahmed Khan

“If you feel compelled by circumstances beyond your control to front an avatar of uncertainty, be uncertain inside and you've inoculated yourself against extremism. When circumstances change, get out. On the other hand, if you publicly front an avatar of uncertainty to manipulate circumstances to your advantage, shame on you. You're part of the problem. Lastly, if certainty about your righteousness is eternally genuine, you're psychologically impaired. If you're a child, growing up should dissolve the impairment. If you're an adult, get help.”
― Robert L Foster, Subordinating American Democracy: Exploring the Functionality of “Dysfunctional” Hyperpartisanship

“The real traitor is not the one who questions the state, but the one who kills for it, without questioning why.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The God Sonnets: Naskar Art of Theology

“Neurovision (Sonnet)

Mind is one big lie,
unless you examine everything.
Life is one big blind spot,
unless you question everything.

All prejudice comes with a flag,
all discrimination comes with a badge.
Nothing civilized in waving the flag,
real honor is to outgrow archaic trash.

If you must wave, wave the flag of those
who are stripped of their life and dignity.
Wave the rainbow, wave the watermelon -
lift up those thrown in manufactured obscurity.

If left to tradition, every mind
is a septic tank of superstition.
But nourish it with heart and reason,
and mind is sanctuary of illumination.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Neurosonnets: The Naskar Art of Neuroscience