Let’s see. October, 2019, finds a couple of regions embroiled in struggles for autonomy: Hong Kong and Catalonia. Makes me think of what has happened over the, say, last ten millennia or more. Tribal lands become nations. Generations pass. Nations start to break up into tribal lands. Happened in the United States, too. Think Civil War. And that, too, makes me think of a story.
A colleague of mine and I took college students on a field trip. At one location, we were on a precipice that had a low wall along its edge. My colleague had once fallen from a cliff and had to be hospitalized until he recovered. As we gathered, a group of elementary school children ran chaotically toward the low wall, one child even crawling on it. We’re talking a couple hundred feet of cliff. Behind the students a few parent-teacher-chaperones walked slowly toward our position. Seeing the danger the children were in as they jostled one another, my colleague yelled, “Who’s in charge here?”
Of course, you, a reasonable person, are thinking that that was a desperate call for help by an adult concerned for the welfare of the children. You would think that if you didn’t even know about his near-death experience. Not so the parent-teacher-chaperones. They took offense. And here’s where that tribal thing comes in. Even after my colleague told those adults that the children could fall, their only response was, “Where are you from?”
You see, we were in the mountains of a southern state. When my colleague, not knowing why they would ask such a question, said, “Pennsylvania,” guess their response. No, don’t guess. I’ll tell you. They said with seeming disdain, “Yankees.”
It seems that more than a century after the end of the Civil War, some (the parent-teacher-chaperones) were still fighting that war. And that conflict of long ago that was fought before their grandparents were born, was more important to them than the safety of the children playing wildly on a precipice, for not one of those parents-teacher-chaperones said, “Children, come away from the edge.”
Now, as you read about or see video on the protests and riots in Hong Kong and Catalonia, or as you see various “tribal” groups fight in the Middle East or in Africa—or any other place—you should note that they are not much different from people not only everywhere, but also everywhen.
We try every so often to unify ourselves, but disunity seems to be our steady state. We appear to wage war as a matter of course, to diverge as soon as we merge. Yet, there are those with the pipe dream of unity. God bless them! They mean well, and sometimes they succeed.
Sure, we should probably keep trying to merge, to unify, to think in terms of John Lennon’s “Imagine.” There are those brief moments of unity, times and places when and where people have bonded, but that glue isn’t permanent. It appears that the best we can hope for is a brief respite from tribal strife, usually in a relatively small area. So, after the Hong Kong and Catalan turmoil ends, there will be more turmoil as once unified groups dissociate.
A colleague of mine and I took college students on a field trip. At one location, we were on a precipice that had a low wall along its edge. My colleague had once fallen from a cliff and had to be hospitalized until he recovered. As we gathered, a group of elementary school children ran chaotically toward the low wall, one child even crawling on it. We’re talking a couple hundred feet of cliff. Behind the students a few parent-teacher-chaperones walked slowly toward our position. Seeing the danger the children were in as they jostled one another, my colleague yelled, “Who’s in charge here?”
Of course, you, a reasonable person, are thinking that that was a desperate call for help by an adult concerned for the welfare of the children. You would think that if you didn’t even know about his near-death experience. Not so the parent-teacher-chaperones. They took offense. And here’s where that tribal thing comes in. Even after my colleague told those adults that the children could fall, their only response was, “Where are you from?”
You see, we were in the mountains of a southern state. When my colleague, not knowing why they would ask such a question, said, “Pennsylvania,” guess their response. No, don’t guess. I’ll tell you. They said with seeming disdain, “Yankees.”
It seems that more than a century after the end of the Civil War, some (the parent-teacher-chaperones) were still fighting that war. And that conflict of long ago that was fought before their grandparents were born, was more important to them than the safety of the children playing wildly on a precipice, for not one of those parents-teacher-chaperones said, “Children, come away from the edge.”
Now, as you read about or see video on the protests and riots in Hong Kong and Catalonia, or as you see various “tribal” groups fight in the Middle East or in Africa—or any other place—you should note that they are not much different from people not only everywhere, but also everywhen.
We try every so often to unify ourselves, but disunity seems to be our steady state. We appear to wage war as a matter of course, to diverge as soon as we merge. Yet, there are those with the pipe dream of unity. God bless them! They mean well, and sometimes they succeed.
Sure, we should probably keep trying to merge, to unify, to think in terms of John Lennon’s “Imagine.” There are those brief moments of unity, times and places when and where people have bonded, but that glue isn’t permanent. It appears that the best we can hope for is a brief respite from tribal strife, usually in a relatively small area. So, after the Hong Kong and Catalan turmoil ends, there will be more turmoil as once unified groups dissociate.
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