Bah. I think it is time we write something about ethics here. Ethical codes older than those most people now use. Because it seems a subject for confusion all too much now.
This is well written. You know we agree with you. I'd like to add that "modern" here really would mean non-third world, the post-Christian West. Most of the planet still *is* tribal: Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and so on.
Even those societies are being... blurred. They may still act that way to their own, but they're learning, in many cases, to be a lot more open and accepting of members of the 'great white tribe' who bring them food, medicine, education, and other benefits of modern industry. It's changing their definition of "worth."
Enough of their native culture winds up getting left behind out of convenience that a lot of what's left is significantly meaningless. It then opens the way for a cutlure of dependance and a confused search for cultural identity that isn't based on another culture.
Tribe. Yeah, I guess you do have to go back to that level to understand how I can callously not give a damn about most of the rest of the world. However, we have drastically altered the dynamics of family and tribe in this era, preferring to choose both rather than meekly accept what we are born to, whether trustworthy and valuable or not.
I'm not so sure it always *is* choice. But yes, there is often choice involved. To the benefit of those of us who hold, however much or little, to this type of code. Mostly, because in a place where this *isn't* the dominant ethincal code, without a tribe who does, at least to a degree, subscribe to this sort of a thing, it is hard to survive.
I've seen, more than once, the effects of people who don't understand this kind of code running into those who hold to it, and it isn't pretty. They often don't realize that there *are* a set of ethics, or a code of conduct behind the behavious. And that leads to misunderstanding, confusion, and nasty accusations. Partially why I decided to write on it.
No, it's not always a choice. Most of the tribal cultures, however, still included the ideas of banishment and abandonment where a member could be kicked out for not living up to expectations or leave a group that didn't live up to theirs. (Such situations were rarely reversible
( ... )
As to the first bit. Yes. Banishment and such indeed. If such a situation was reversible, it generally required the individual to have done some great service to the group, or otherwise proved themselves, above and beyond what might be accepted of an outsider trying to get in.
Your discussion on Texas friendly, actually reminds me of the old celtic laws of hospitality. And while that kind of friendly can make me nervous at times, that is more because I don't like the weapons of *anyone* I don't know well to be anywhere near my direction (this includes law enforcement).
Hmmm. I don't see it so much as people being trusting of strangers overall, at least, not in my experience (as often on the giving end and even sometimes on the receiving end of that suspicion). On the other hand, I do think people tend to automatically place trust in others who are "like" them, or of the same "group", whether those people are trustworthy or honourable or not. I've seen it in the Otherkin, I've seen it in the multiple community, hell, I've seen it within my own blood family. I wonder sometimes if this peculiar blindness is brought on by a need to "belong", to be part of some group identity.
While I agree in principal with the concept of loyalty to tribe, even "tribe" doesn't necessarily bring loyalty. In the modern age it seems to me that it should be something we're choosing instead of something we're born to, in a world where honour, loyalty, and devotion have become the rare and the precious.
I agree that it isn't actually trusting of strangers overall, I just couldn't find the words for it at the time. I think it may be some kind of "instant tribe" phenomenon, where it is perfectly normal for someone to belong to several tribes at once, which also dilutes loyalty in many cases. Not that in the more organic sense of tribe one didn't find some people who belonged, to differing degrees, to more than one, but not often as many tribes at once as can be seen today.
I'm not against the modern "choosing" of a tribe. In some ways, it does then require people to prove their worth, their loyalty, honour, and steadfastness. Granted, when people choose a tribe, there are often those people who are on the fringes, or even the outer circles for a while who do not prove worthy, but there have always been exceptions.
While I agree in principal with the concept of loyalty to tribe, even "tribe" doesn't necessarily bring loyalty. In the modern age it seems to me that it should be something we're choosing instead of something we're born to, in a world where honour, loyalty, and devotion have become the rare and the precious.
I agree about choice to a large extent (using a very free definition of choice, and not getting into the questions of will and intention, etc.. Most of the people I consider my "tribe" are chosen, rather than given. For myself, the distinction is between a virtue-based ethics (honor, loyalty, devotion) versus a pseudo-relativism that's embraced by most Americans.
Comments 12
Reply
Reply
Reply
Enough of their native culture winds up getting left behind out of convenience that a lot of what's left is significantly meaningless. It then opens the way for a cutlure of dependance and a confused search for cultural identity that isn't based on another culture.
Reply
Reply
I've seen, more than once, the effects of people who don't understand this kind of code running into those who hold to it, and it isn't pretty. They often don't realize that there *are* a set of ethics, or a code of conduct behind the behavious. And that leads to misunderstanding, confusion, and nasty accusations. Partially why I decided to write on it.
Reply
Reply
Your discussion on Texas friendly, actually reminds me of the old celtic laws of hospitality. And while that kind of friendly can make me nervous at times, that is more because I don't like the weapons of *anyone* I don't know well to be anywhere near my direction (this includes law enforcement).
Reply
While I agree in principal with the concept of loyalty to tribe, even "tribe" doesn't necessarily bring loyalty. In the modern age it seems to me that it should be something we're choosing instead of something we're born to, in a world where honour, loyalty, and devotion have become the rare and the precious.
Reply
I'm not against the modern "choosing" of a tribe. In some ways, it does then require people to prove their worth, their loyalty, honour, and steadfastness. Granted, when people choose a tribe, there are often those people who are on the fringes, or even the outer circles for a while who do not prove worthy, but there have always been exceptions.
Reply
I agree about choice to a large extent (using a very free definition of choice, and not getting into the questions of will and intention, etc.. Most of the people I consider my "tribe" are chosen, rather than given. For myself, the distinction is between a virtue-based ethics (honor, loyalty, devotion) versus a pseudo-relativism that's embraced by most Americans.
Reply
Leave a comment