Manipulatvie Minority

Their are those that seek to exploit the tribalism that can be so prevalent. I am not speaking of some shadowy unknown group of world leaders. Rather advertisers and political strategists. The more people they can find a common thread between and "define" as a single group, the more they can benefit. Soccer Mom's are an example. Or tweens. Hispanics are another. The last example is an effort by the Nixon strategy team to lump all central and south American folks into a single group with the goal of getting them to vote en-mass in their favor.

The forging of sameness in likes and dislikes, identifiers, values and consumption is just an advertisers job. However we make our selves trivial by tribalizing. In seeking a tribe to belong to we lose our own sense of right and wrong. In fact, there is a way of looking at the world that professes this paradigm as reality. Truth must be subjected to our cultural norms to be understood, and therefore becomes relative. In other words, there is no reality only an experience. The experience is then validated by numbers. The larger number of people that share it, and like it indicates how good a given experience is.

Some agree with utility equalling worth. This line of thinking is always a prelude to despotism. A tyranny that justifies the murder of others for the purpose of consolidating power.

An alternative view would be seeking identity in belonging to a group. Again we see political, religious and scientific labels that seek to define these groups. We can add to the mix at this point fashion generational identifiers and status cymbals. We find value in the "clubs" we belong to. Be it a prestigious school, a type of clothing or behavioral trends that indicate our club, it is a neo-tribalism that finds power and value in how many people we agree with. One irony that emerges is the way that some seek to be anti-tribal becomes it's own club. For example, guys who wear their hat backwards, or people who like independent music and films. They are all trying to be different in the same ways, and so then they are creating a new tribe.

First Steps

Principals are closely intertwined with other pieces of our intellectual constructs. For example political schools of thought (liberal or conservative) or religious thought (Budist or Christian) or even scientific (Gradualism or Catastrophism). All of these things influence the others, and all claim to be a set of principals. However, if these are the places that we start we are starting with the circumstances and are working back to a principal. In other words we are reacting and then seeking a rational to support such a reaction.

Our thoughts and views then are becoming a product of the reactions that we take. Our emotions drive our actions, which drive our thoughts. If this is the case we are behaving as though we subscribe to "what I do is who I am." This reduces personhood then to a history of performance. The individual is then simply one set of functions, and can be reduced to what ever utility that function may provide to others.

A starting place

Do we chose to think, or simply react? Why would one choose one over the other? The weakness of thinking first is the never ending rabbit whole that leads us to conclusions like there is now way to know anything, or the only way to see the right and wrong is my way. To react only has obvious problems as well. One of it's strengths is the immediacy of action especially in perilous times.

So we must find principals. A well thought rational and set of values that govern not just reactions but also further thought. What principals one chooses are Critical.