Is Humanity Doomed To Tribalism? (personal musings)

[Crossroads Inc.]

For 90% of the history of humanity, Mankind has been ruled by Tribalism.
Tiny little self contained tribes that kept them selves separate from anyone or anything “Different”
Humanity as a whole sat stuck in the mud for thousands of years splintered into countless little fearful tribes.

And then, CIVILIZATION started up. Tribes started to come together, and get bigger and better and started to really do things!
We had the dawn of cities and nations and mankind grew as never before.

And after that, well something clicked and we got the age of Empires!
Small nations started to band together to form larger and larger nations. Some times in peace, mostly in conquest.
The Mongols, The Chinese, The Persian, and of course our favorites, The Romans. For close to 2000 years Empires rose and fell.
Sometimes collapsing, but always they would rise from the ashes and a new Era would begin. The English, the Spanish, the Russians and so on.
These great Empires weren’t always the nicest or most friendly, but they controlled vast swaths of the world. Areas that would have been small squabbling factions of inter waring tribes, would come under the heel of a larger Empire.

But then, then things seemed to go horribly wrong… The great Empires began to break up…

The End of WWI was the death nail to many, and singled what would become a seriously fucked up course for mankind.
The Austria Hungary Empire, the Ottoman Empire and much of what remained of the Persian Empire were dissolved and chopped up after the War.

What was left in their wake are some of the most notoriously unstable areas in the world today.
The death of the Austria Hungry Empire led to the splitting of the Balkan states.
Croatia, Slovenia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, all of these would go on to war and feud and fight for much of the 20th century.

The decline of the Persian Empire led to the breaking up of Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and what would eventually become Pakistan.

And perhaps the worst was the death of the Ottoman Empire which led to the fracturing of the middle east.
Syria, Iraq, Jordon and most notoriously the Palestine states of what would become Israel, were all split apart.
And we all know how well THEY have got along since then…

These vast splintering led to an on going world wide trend of Nations reverting back to Tribalism. Many nations that were the remains of Empires have split, and split again. We have reached an era of man kind where Humanity seems desperate to break apart into ever decreasing sizes of countries. Countries based on not some shared sense of unity for a common good, but nations based solely upon nationalities, ethnic groups and religion. And every day we are faced with the ghosts of the fallen empires as nations divid and divid again.

The question eventually comes, what can be done? Can humanity stabilize this trend? Can we reach some point where countless tiny nations could work together and begin to come together again? Or are we doomed to eventually fade into the shadows of history as Civilization splits apart over and over again until only tribes remain?

[Esquire]

There is no such trend. For literally all of recorded history the tendency has been toward centralization, cosmopolitanism, and increasing unity. There have been only localized, temporary, and ultimately preventable exceptions. Compare the state of the world 500 years ago, 250 years ago, and 100 years ago to its state now; I suspect that any indicator you choose to measure will be better now than it has been at any point in the past.

[Crossroads Inc.]

My argument isnt that the world is "Worse off" than it was in the past.
More that the collapse of large power blocks has led to a world that is worse off than perhaps it "Might have been"

[Raw Shark]

Would you prefer empires of conquest? As our ability to communicate continues to improve, so will cultural relations as the overall trend, except for occasional dips when people insist on being bloody-minded about it. Just look at the diversity of the culture of this board: we've got people from all over the world here who are united by the agreement that debating Trek vs Wars and yelling at each other about random shit in a safe environment is a good thing. The tribes of the future will be divided more and more by things like D&D vs GURPS, or B5 vs Who, or Red vs Blue, or Science vs Woo, and less and less by killing people and taking their stuff. People increasingly agree that commerce and conversation are good things. We are still at the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, but the Age of Aquarius has a good 2,000 years left in it, and we will accomplish things we can't even imagine in that time. Things are getting better, and that is the rightful goal. Always forward.

You might say that I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you will join us, and the world will be as one.

[Esquire]

My argument isnt that the world is "Worse off" than it was in the past.
More that the collapse of large power blocks has led to a world that is worse off than perhaps it "Might have been"

A) So what? We don't live in 'might have been;' if the worst-case scenario is continual improvement, I'll take it.

B) The dissolution of the imperial systems of the early 20th Century represents a metaphorical return to equilibrium; an enforced union of many peoples with no political structure allowing them to participate in their own governance* is doomed to failure from the beginning. It's not backsliding so much as the British or Ottoman Empires were temporary expansions of centralist and cosmopolitan tendencies at the expense of popular sovereignty.

*Or, to simplify, a multinational government can not survive if a majority of its subordinate subpopulations have no stake in its continuing to do so. This is not a bad thing; it's an argument against centralizing too quickly or too recklessly.