BLIND TRIBALISM

“During decades of researching racial and ethnic groups in countries around the world—with special attention to those who began in poverty and then rose to prosperity—I have yet to find one so preoccupied with tribalistic identity as to want to maintain solidarity with all members of their group, regardless of what they do or how they do it. Any group that rises has to have norms, and that means repudiating those who violate those norms, if you are serious. Blind tribalism means letting the lowest common denominator determine the norms and the fate of the whole group. There was a time when most blacks, like most of the Irish or the Jews, understood this common sense. But that was before the romanticizing of identity took over, beginning in the 1960s... The unanswered question is why an approach with a proven track record, not only in American society but in various other countries around the world, has been superseded by a philosophy of tribal identity overriding issues of behavior and performance. Part of the problem is the ‘multicultural’ ideology that says all cultures are equally valid. It is hard even to know what that means, much less take it seriously as a guide to living in the real world.” —Thomas Sowell