What is the bright side to community, order and the rest of it? Every ww2 and excessively tribal story ends badly and we need to be reminded of that.
But we always have moments in history when tribalism comes back and we will in the future. How can we use this to our advantage? Last time it came up we made some good advances in the understanding of human perception & consciousness. Can we use this power for good?
Every "excessively tribal story ends badly"...because we don't call it excessively tribal, if it ends well. If people come together to support a charitable cause or march for civil rights or resist invasion or something else we feel good about afterwards, we don't say it was a "tribal" impulse. But, if you had to rely solely on individualism to get any of those things to work, I suspect you would be very disappointed. We only call it blind obedience if it turns out the orders that were obeyed weren't good ideas.
It's somewhat similar to what gets called "populist" and what gets called "people power". If you think it was a bad idea, it looks like a mob. If you think it's a good idea, it looks like the people rising up to demand justice. The view from the middle of the crowd, at the time, may not be so different.
The good side of community, order and obedience to authority are the entire civilized world and all the goodies within it. Hospitals, electricity, cozy homes that stay cold in the summer and hot in the winter. Without the human tendency to group up and follow leaders nothing works and little gets done. Sometimes this habit goes wrong on us, and results in lynch mobs or Nazism. But overall it's still one of our greatest strengths as a species, and we need to be aware of its failure modes rather than rejecting the whole idea outright. Cooperation is one of the animal world's superpowers.
Individualism is a spirit that infects us all. It is invested in heavily by the rich and is heralded from the most credible academics and political leaders as the correct way to be or live.
Where is the line between the content of the idea individualism and the political reinforcement of the idea in the populace? It is apart of the fixed social structure already.
Is being governed by a shared idea, not blind conformity in itself?
The bright side of any community and even tribe is that if you happen to be the member of the community/tribe that “wins” at stuff (either through war, genocide, economic and cultural colonialism etc) then you’re going to have a more happy life compared to the isolated individual who isn’t part of any community/tribe and who doesn’t get to share the spoils. Of course, if you happen to be part of a “losing” community/tribe then things won’t be so bright for you, but in the end nobody cares about the “losers” (there are exceptions).
But we always have moments in history when tribalism comes back and we will in the future. How can we use this to our advantage? Last time it came up we made some good advances in the understanding of human perception & consciousness. Can we use this power for good?