“Beyond good and bad, there is a field, I’ll meet you there.”
– Rumi
Human societies are so diverse that it is very difficult to make truly universal generalizations from comparative studies of cultures. Regularities and similarities in evolutionary form exist in different societies. Constantly, societies evolve over time. This evolution is not only reflected in its institutions (for example, the government) but also in individuals. According to Elman Service (1915-1996), a renowned American cultural anthropologist, one of these human evolutions is tribalism, which is a social organization based on ‘kinship’.
Many believe that the primary form of human social organization is tribal. The tribal aspect of peoples and the dynamics of power between them have drawn attention in the study of societies. Many argue that one of the means to study power is through tribalism. Although there are different definitions of tribalism; this can be defined as loyalty to their “own people”. In simple words, people tend to favor other people who share the same values, lifestyles, or languages (kinship). This tribalism allows having a certain social order. This order can be reflected through various practices, such as feudalism, communism, or capitalism.
The study of tribalism in societies is a fascinating thing. In cultural studies, at the beginning of the 19th century, most academics associated tribalism with people’s behavior, largely linked to the race of said people. It is Franz Boas (1858-1945), the great German anthropologist, who argued that behavior is not anchored in the race or biology of people but in the environment. According to Boas, behavior is socially constructed to the core, a product of the context in which the person develops.
It is in specific social contexts where tribalism is strengthened through an order based on ‘unified’ behaviors. Formerly, those who dictated the behavior of a group were the leaders of the community, with the aim of maintaining a certain social order. These leaders were usually the elders of the clan. In order to achieve this social order, people experienced what Ernest Gellner (1925-1995) called “the tyranny of cousins.”
The tyranny of cousins refers to the power that leaders, in small hierarchies, exercised over others. These leaders were considered the elite and this elite decided what one did, who one married, where one lived and basically dictated any major life decision. The willingness to follow these rules determined whether members of the society were welcome in that community or not. Being a part of the group implied approval and support from the community. Violating the rules of the “cousins” tyrannically led to shame, ridicule, social expulsion, or death.
The importance of understanding the concept of the tyranny of cousins lies in the fact that people seek approval. Since human beings are organized in social hierarchies, recognition is often relative rather than of absolute value. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831), a German philosopher, called this need for recognition “the struggle for recognition.” The desire for recognition is an intersubjective mental state through which a human being recognizes the value or status of another human being.
Consequently, this desire makes the struggle for recognition fundamentally different from other types of struggles. For example, the struggle for economic exchange, since the conflict is zero-sum rather than positive-sum. In other words, the recognition of one person can only come at the expense of the dignity of another. In disputes over social status, there are no “win-win” situations, as in trade (Fukuyama, 2011).
Currently, the struggle for recognition can be observed in “identity politics”. Identity politics is a political approach in which people of any ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, social origin, social class, or other identifying factors develop political agendas that are based on these identities. Today, people assume multiple identities. People fight not only for individual recognition or respect, but also on behalf of other groups who want to be recognized.
However, this recognition, as mentioned before, is given at the expense of the dignity of others. At the foundation of the phenomenon of recognition are the judgments about the intrinsic value of other human beings, or about the norms, ideas, and rules that other human beings create. This struggle for social recognition has made the tyranny of cousins resurface in modernity. That is, it is displayed in the new set of rules or patterns of social behavior that the members of a community are expected to comply with over time.
Today, “the cousins” are no longer the economic elite, the elders, or the clergy. Today, the cousins are in different hierarchies. What this means is that anyone can spontaneously exercise rules within any society, supported by the loyalty of the tribal group they identify with. This tyranny of cousins can be clearly observed on the internet or in social media. The internet is the new domain for the discussion about language, politics, and identities. Any deviation from the expected behavior of any person is received with anger or condemnation.
Today, even seemingly innocent comments on social media can lead a group to unite in screams of indignation. The mobs on the internet play games of virtue to dominate others. The recognition is granted to the players who comply with the rules of the group, both inside and outside the group with which they identify. These crowds throb with the horrible power of the “cousins,” The mob mocks, humiliates, accuses, coerces, or threatens everyone who is not willing to comply with the rules of the cousins. We are experiencing what anthropologists call the “tribal battlefields of the XXI century” (Storr, 2021).
On these battlefields of the new century, virtue or morality plays a very important role for individuals. Biologist Richard D. Alexander (1925-2018) mentioned that social pressures forged by the effects of a good or bad reputation underlie the evolution of morality. People see themselves as virtuous, and that reputation, according to Alexander, matters greatly. However, reiterating, this reputation can only come at the expense of the reputation of others. For you to be considered morally good, for example, someone else has to be considered bad.
The problem with moral behavior in a group as a whole is that moral behavior benefits some people at the expense of others. As a result, if an act is perceived as good, it will depend on who performs that act and why. Individuals constantly monitor the behavior of others, so, before public opinion, some behaviors have much more value than others. It is based on this assessment that the tyranny of cousins resolves who deserves all the social benefits – according to behavioral patterns – and who is condemned to ostracism.
Everything seems to indicate that a new type of power is being experienced at this moment. A power battle between small hierarchies or tribal groups. A struggle in which reputation, recognition, and social behavior, based on unified rules, play a central role. A type of power with a remarked paradox. On the one hand, the new tribal groups fight to promote cooperation and justice. At the same time, they seek to impose their will on others through social shame, humiliation, and/or harassment. However, it is important to remember that reputation and social recognition do not make sense if this is imposed. After all, the admiration or respect of a free individual is much more satisfactory than the reverence of a slave (Wrangham, 2019).
References
- Fukuyama, F. (2011) The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman times to the French Revolution. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
- Storr, W. (2021). The Status Game: On Human Life and How to Play It: On Social Position and How We Use it. London, UK: Harper Collins Publishers.
- Wrangham, R. (2019). The Goodness Paradox: The Strange Relationship Between Virtue and Violence in Human Evolution. New York, NY: Pantheon Books.
