Can civil society tribalism reduce political tribalism?

[u/KaleidoscopeOdd5984]

If we encourage tribalism in benign areas of life (sports, town pride, school pride) can this satiate our tribal instinct such that political tribalism is reduced?

Or, conversely, does tribalism of any kind inevitably beget more tribalism?

If the latter, (even benign tribalism leads to more tribalism) does more and more tribalism actually dilute each tribal identity, such that the net effect is actually less political tribalism since you're now a member of many overlapping and/or conflicting tribes, each with less power over your overall identity?

Or, conversely, with more tribal identities overlapping, do they become nested and thereby actually reinforce one another, a la intersectionality, and sum up to even starker binary divides at the top level (Dem vs. Rep)?

Bipartisan tribal identities I was thinking of might be sports teams, state pride (since most every state has at least some rural and urban centers), sometimes class (lower class Dems (POC) aligning with lower-class Republicans (rural whites), religion (again, POC in Dem party with religious conservatives in GOP).

Sport teams seems like the best bipartisan unifier, and also an interesting point to consider since sports have been all but abandoned over the pandemic, while political partisanship continued to increase.

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[u/subberroul]

I don’t think so. Sports and to some extent town/school pride are all forms of entertainment and rival fans are not seen as an enemy because we’re all unified under the same sport or competition. If the Eagles win, it does not affect my life drastically since football is entertainment at the end of the day. The same can’t be said when Trump or Biden won the election. Regardless of my political affiliation, the outcome affects my life so it’s natural to have disdain for those support someone much further on the political spectrum than me. I don’t see sports being a unifier as much as Pokemon Go would be, despite universal appeal for different demographics

[u/ImmodestPolitician → u/subberroul]

The Philadelphia Eagles are notorious for having their own version of "soccer hoodlums".

Tons of street fights seem to happen after games.

[u/AbleCaterpillar3919 → u/subberroul]

Sorry but your wrong. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sports_riot#:~:text=Sports%20riots%20occur%20worldwide.,ice%20hockey%20and%20motorcycle%20racing.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_violent_spectator_incidents_in_sports

Also Pokemon is not a sport lol

[u/subberroul → u/AbleCaterpillar3919]

Those are a drop in water when compared to BLM protests and storming of the Capitol. I didn’t say sports are peaceful, I just said they’re closer to other forms of entertainment like movies and concerts than politics.

Also Pokémon Go was an example of entertainment appealing to different demographics, not about sports lol

[u/AbleCaterpillar3919 → u/subberroul]

Ok. It's some the arguments I had on here with people who support dems have been completely insane. Like stuff Obama has done while he was potus would have them demanding a firing squad for trump if he did it. Like when Trump had Qasem Soleimani killed a guy we know for a fact he ordered attacks on Coalition forces both Iraq and Afghanistan. Guy was named a terrorist by multiple administration even obama. Dems had a heart attack about it but when Obama helped terrorists assassinate gaddafi everything is fine. Also talk to people about the nuclear deal of Obama that should never happened. It was so much stuff Obama did or ignored Iran doing to get a deal that makes no sense. We even know for a fact Iran was paying for Taliban to kill u.s troops. It was in reports by both the u.s and Brita in 2010.

[u/Wobblymatchsticks]

In my experience tribalism begets tribalism. It protects prejudice and exclusionism. It negates individual achievement and provides an excuse not to recognize the humanity of people outside the tribe.

[u/accidentaljurist → u/Wobblymatchsticks]

Great point. Tribalism in one area of life like sports may lead to a higher tendency to encourage tribalism in other areas like politics.

[u/Wobblymatchsticks → u/accidentaljurist]

Political tribalism definitely played a part when the fans stopped supporting hometown teams because players "took a knee"

[u/accidentaljurist → u/Wobblymatchsticks]

Players should be allowed to support these causes they feel compelled to support. I think that issue is, as you’ve pointed out, a matter of political - rather than sporting - tribalism.

[u/intravenus_de_milo → u/accidentaljurist]

A lot of times if someone is coming off as completely unreasonable and trollish, their posting history will also have a bunch of sports subs too, where being a complete dickhead in defense of your team seems to be ingrained in the culture.

Which is not say it's causing it. I really don't know, but I do think if you spend a lot of time in a culture of trash talk, it will carry over into your politics.

[u/Wobblymatchsticks → u/intravenus_de_milo]

Salinas Ca high school all white football team caught stomping a black baby doll as part of some pregame tradition. Tribalism gives you permission to hate.

[u/accidentaljurist → u/intravenus_de_milo]

I don’t think that it is a cause per se but that people assume since certain kinds of talk is “acceptable” or even “encouraged” in certain spheres that it immediately means it is appropriate in other areas as well. And that is simply wrong. It’s regrettable that this kind of hostility and in-group/out-group mentality has developed in more serious areas of life in which the objective has to be that we are working towards a common good for society as a whole.

[u/intravenus_de_milo → u/accidentaljurist]

And when you point out trash-talk is counter productive, they tend to dismiss the criticism as being thin-skinned or par for the course.

Which is also to say, for many people politics, like sports, is performative . . an affectation of flying flags, showing team colors, and scoring points. There is no cause that transcends "the game."

[u/accidentaljurist → u/intravenus_de_milo]

Hear, hear! I agree with you. This kind of mentality is not only reductive, it is also divisive. It generates this illusion that people are more different than they are alike and causes people to hold preconceived prejudices of another.

[u/hi-whatsup]

Interesting ideas in your post! I’m so worried about current divisiveness. We need to figure out solutions to bring political parties under control and people to come together in good faith again.

Third parties obviously but ultimately people at the top will need to lose some control for that to happen and the more peaceful and nonviolent ways to take that power away and redistribute it, the better.

How did the ratings of the Olympics go?

[u/Unconfidence]

I think this constant push against political division, before any assessment of whether or not such division is warranted, is cart before horse logic, and I'm not sure why we continue to entertain it so heavily.

Imagine someone said about the 1960's, or 1930's, or 1910's, "What really needed to happen to fix the problems of this era was that the two political wings needed to come together for a compromise between their ideologies, so they could set aside their division and become a more politically cooperative society". How insane would it be to think that the sharecroppers in 1910 should have just come together with the anticommunists busting up their meetings? How ludicrous would it have been to say that the American Nazi Party of the 1930's should have been given a seat at the greater political table, or that the Civil Rights movements of the 1960's should have been more cooperative with folks like Bull Connor?

How then does it not seem similar to you when cannabis users are expected to come together for political cooperation with people who wanted to put them in jail? Or when women who have had abortions are expected to be bipartisan alongside those who would charge them with murder? I think we'll find that the people of the future will not regard our generation as special, and similarly to the way we generally view past generations, will not think it some great tragedy of history that the two political wings of American politics couldn't be more bipartisan. Look at the Civil War; we don't exactly come down on the Abolitionists for not being bipartisan enough.

So this premise that we need to seek some kind of political detente with people who are existentially harmful to us on multiple levels is kind of silly. Tell them to pout down the stuff existentially threatening us, then I'll have some cause to believe I should work with them. Get the horse first, then I'll consider hitching the cart.

[u/pharmamess]

It's on the parents to say to their children that yes, we love this sports team and that means we hate that sports team. Yes it really matters in the game and that's why everybody is so emotional. But it is only a game and the purpose of it is to indulge our animal instincts in an agreed upon manner so that we can get along when it counts.

Or however you get that point across to an eight year old.

I think it can go both the ways you said depending entirely on how it's framed. It's the sort of thing that should be discussed in schools.

[u/Neither_Ad2003]

Sort of, yes.

Civil society tribalism is a healthy outlet. For prosperous nations you will see a higher focus on it.

For example, during the trump years, sports ratings went way, way down. One could certainly argue that was evidence of a unhealthy / less than ideal societal change -- that energy was put into more destructive hobbies.

[u/Dr_thri11 → u/Neither_Ad2003]

I'd argue any decline in sports during Trump years is just part of a trend that was started much earlier.

[u/Neither_Ad2003 → u/Dr_thri11]

we are already seeing it rebound though. You are right tho, in that for my thesis to be borne true, it would have to rebound fully (and it's still early):

https://www.sportsvideo.org/2021/08/13/ratings-roundup-nbc-receives-least-watched-olympics-in-primetime-nfl-hall-of-fame-game-becomes-most-watched-preseason-bout-in-four-years/

NFL HOF Game was up 37% over 2019

[u/geoffbraun]

Personally I think the ones that run this country are happy about the tribalism. If things were going well and people were getting along the political anointed ones do not have as much worth and purpose. Mitch and Nancy agree on more than one would think.

[u/metalski → u/[deleted]]

I feel like there's some kind of Overton window shift...it's like the republican party got so goddamned bad that the democrats are getting to play "pure as the driven snow". Sure, there's always been party cheerleaders on both sides doing that, but it's like people have forgotten every shitty thing someone has done to get where they are just because Trump was a gigantic jackass.

[u/geoffbraun → u/metalski]

Yes that’s a great way of putting it, everyone thinks politics started yesterday and ignore the previous sins of the same people simply because they hate Trump or hate Biden

[u/Own_General5736 → u/geoffbraun]

On the flip side when people got their tribalism fix in controlled outlets there was far less attention being paid to what the politicians were actually doing. While Mitch and Nancy themselves may be safe from getting replaced a lot of their former coworkers have been replaced due to the escalating political partisanship.

[u/PostUsernamism]

Well, for a little historical context, let's go back to the Roman Empire. After Christianity became the official state religion, sports like gladiator fighting went out of fashion. The most popular sport was now chariot racing, with immense hippodromes being built in Rome and Constantinople.

There were four main teams: the Veneti (Blues), Prasini (Greens), Russati (Reds) and Albati (Whites), each one backed by a demes, the Roman equivalent of a sports club.

Without any other outlet through which the Romans could back social and even political issues, these sports club grew more and more powerful, and the teams held a disproportionate influence in late Roman politics.

During the time of Emperor Justinian, only two teams, the Blues and the Greens, were still relevant. Holding a voice in everything from theological positions to claimants to the throne, they were backed by the most influential aristocratic families, and became powers to contend with for the Justinian Dynasty, shouting political demands between two races.

And then, one day, they rioted. Miscontent with the high taxes levied by John the Cappadocian, Justinian's financial advisor, the supporters in the Hippodrome of Constantinople went from shouting the names of their respective teams to a unified "Nika" ("Victory" in Greek). The mob erupted and stormed Justinian's palace, forcing him and his inner circle to flee while soldiers poured into the Hippodrome, murdering rioters by the thousands.

And that's what happened the day social tribalism replaced political tribalism: it became political tribalism itself, only, an even more violent and chaotic form of it.

[u/1QAte4]

People' hobbies oftentimes dovetails with their political views and basic identity. If you see someone flying a football flag team flag outside their homes, you can probably make a decent guess at their education level and type of profession. If someone puts a neighborhood library box outside their home, you can probably also make a good guess at their level of education and profession.

Sometimes our purchases and hobbies are the only way we can express our political preferences. Pickup trucks and Prius electric cars for example are often political identity signifiers.

[u/Neither_Ad2003 → u/1QAte4]

it depends. Not in the NFL in the U.S. NFL "fandom" according to the 538 data I have seen, essentially mirrors the demographics of the country. There are a lot of rich and educated sports fans (it's a pretty expensive hobby, really). Open to other data if you have any, but what I have seen of it, this seems more like stereotyping than anything else.

[u/MathAnalysis]

Seems like loyalty as a moral value is a big component of this. Is it ethically valid to support someone/something just because you and your family have a history of doing that?

[u/sl600rt]

Internal tribalism can only be defeated by external tribalism.

The usa always had foreigners to rally the people together on.

The end of the cold war put the us in a odd place. The sole superpower had no one to fear. So it starts attacking itself. The war on terror only worked for a few years.