6.1 Using the best of tribalism against the worst
Tribal fundamentalism, which for tens of thousands of years blessed us with survival and success, has now become our most dangerous curse.
I wrote this book to help activists do what they can to…
Disarm that curse.
I’ve focused a lot on tribal boundaries because they can be so…
Bloody, bitter, and brutal.
If we can’t transcend these boundaries, they’re going to be the death of us.
But we don’t have to be passive victims of our tribal operating system. If we go all the way back to our beginning years, what we see is that inside our hunter–gatherer tribes was…
Nurturance.
And it was remarkable.
We created a disciplined culture in which we took care of each other day by day without fail. We created a way of life that was not just cooperative but super–cooperative. More than anything else, it was our mutual caring that made us the success we were for so many millennia.
From early on in our tribes, nurturance was…
Primary.
And it was…
Primal.
Because it was a matter of life and death. It was the key to our survival.
Lots of people think of nurturance as a…
Lightweight.
They consider it sweet and accommodating, and…
No match for brutality.
But the nurturance our ancestors practiced was gutsy and resilient and muscular and determined and fierce.
That’s why it could sustain us against the odds. If our nurturance had been wimpy, we wouldn’t be here now.
People talk about the life force, meaning the biological drive for survival which evolution put inside all living things.
We humans have that and we have something more. We have our super–nurturance which is absolutely a force to reckon with.
We activists get to call on it and embrace it and champion it and rally people around it.
Throughout our history, nurturance has kept us going strong. It’s been our saving grace. And it still is. It’s still…
The best thing we’ve got going for us.
So…
We get to be passionate about it.
There’s something in liberal and progressive circles that says we’re supposed to be…
Decorous and restrained and measured and polite and reasonable and nice–guys.
We’re supposed to be dispassionate, which means devoid of passion.
Where does this come from? I’m thinking of all the times the powers that be have said to people who were hurting…
Don’t get so emotional. Be reasonable.
Which means…
Be quiet and don’t cause us trouble.
And I’m thinking of all the times men have said that to women who were hurting. And all the times parents have said that to children who were hurting.
But if you listen to anyone who’s hurting and you listen deeply with your heart open, aren’t you going to want to do whatever it takes to stop that hurting?
Which might mean radical action. And might mean transforming the way of life that’s causing that hurting.
Maybe we activists don’t want to get accused of being unreasonable. Maybe we don’t want to get discounted in that way.
Or maybe it’s that the nihilists, the right–wingers, the MAGA people, are so crazy in their compulsive rage that we really don’t want anyone to say we’re like them.
But we have every right…
To be passionate about what’s deepest in our hearts.
And this is a…
Moral passion.
“Moral” has become a battleground word. The haters claim they own it. They’ve filled it with their ugly nihilism. For them it means, “Do what we tell you to do. Obey us and don’t ever make your own decisions.”
So it’s no wonder the rest of us want to shy away from it.
But “moral” really means…
How we make our people decisions.
It’s about…
How we want people to treat each other.
How we want people to live together.
How we want people to come together to take care of each other.
How we want our species to get its act together and do what it can to save itself.
These things are so very serious, why would we settle for being timid about them? Why would we want to strike a pose of restrained reasonableness, when passion serves us so much better?
Why would we want to be a talking head instead of…
A vibrant, vigorous, visceral moral presence?
We get to make a distinction. At first glance, the rage of the right–wing haters might look like passion given how intense it is. But I don’t want to call it that, because it’s…
Compulsion.
It’s mindless and careless and destructive. It’s a surrender to death.
And so it’s very different from our passion for nurturance, which sustains life.
I want to make passion our word. I want us to take it back. I don’t want the ragers to steal it from us. They routinely take all the best words—freedom, liberty, rights, morality—and poison them.
If you’re an activist working hard to make things better, you get to put your whole heart into your work. Which means you get to be deeply and intensely passionate. You don’t have to hold yourself in check.
And you get to let your passion show. You get to let people see it….
You get to let your light shine.
And if someone accuses you of being too emotional, you can take a stand for yourself and counter with credo statements like…
I believe in fighting for people who are hurting. And you can count on me to put my whole heart into this.
I believe in fighting against nihilistic rage. And you can count on me to put my whole heart into this.
I believe in doing everything we can to save ourselves as a species. And you can count on me to put my whole heart into this.
Notice what taking a stand on behalf of nurturance does. Given that this is a scary, dangerous world, very many people are living deep in fear. And that being so, why would they listen to us if we’re only reasonable?
By contrast, if we’re passionate about what we believe, and we show that passion and we’re not ashamed of it, but are proud of it, if we are out with our passion, that will change our activism, because…
A passion for nurturance engenders trust.
How could people trust us to help them with their biggest fears if we don’t have inner strength and if we’re not fierce in our caring?
Sweet reasonableness cannot counter ugly brutality.
And here’s something to keep in mind…
Passion can be contagious.
If people see us taking a stand for nurturance day after day in our activist work and in our lives, that might inspire them to dig deep, to dive down to the bottom of their own hearts and maybe find a passion for nurturance there, and release it.
Passion can be a blessing. Instead of standing there cringing while being verbally battered by the rage of a right-winger…
You get to be fiercer in your love than they are in their hate.
You get to play offense. You get to fight fire with fire. Instead of making careful intellectual arguments, instead of doing strategic “messaging,” you get to tear loose and respond from the passionate depth of your moral soul.
Finally, there’s this. If, as I believe, tribal fundamentalism is driving us down the road to extinction, then when we oppose it…
We’re striking right at the heart of what’s killing us.
What could be more serious? What could be more meaningful? And really…
What could be more fun?
