This is a guest post by Chris Travers.
This article represents a collection of my thoughts and views on neo-tribalism, as well as notes about what is required to make a community successful. Everyone has their own perspective, and this is mine. I offer it here in the hope that by contemplating, grappling with, and challenging the ideas herein, this article may lead folks on to greater successes.
Part 1: The Basics
Problems Faced
First of all, there are a couple of specific problems that folks run into when trying to set up tribal groups:
1. Mobile society. We are more mobile than our ancestors generally were, and if we look to very sedentary, locally-based societies for tribal approaches, we are not going to find a lot that works.
2. Impossibility of economic separation. We can’t disconnect ourselves very well today from society at large. Telephone, internet, gasoline, electricity, and other resources end up being purchased, and we are hence dependent on “foreign” currency.
Mobility of Society
We live in an incredibly mobile society, but not one which is unprecedented in this regard. People move to find work and for a variety of reasons. This can negatively affect group cohesion because it allows a level of turnover that was not possible far in the past. If we expect a tribal unit to be fully local, this causes a large number of problems that defy resolution.
However, we are not the first society to have to address this problem. During the early Bronze Age, the Yamnaya Horizon developed (probably by proto-Indo-European speakers, see The Horse, The Wheel, and Language by David Anthony). This society was somewhat nomadic, based on the wagon and the raising of cattle, and was so successful that the largest settlements in the world of the day, which were on their borders (the Late Tripolye Super-Towns), were apparently assimilated and joined in the nomadic way of life.
We don’t know how large the Yamnaya groups were as they traveled. However, they seem to have spread out quickly, and this would suggest fairly small groups which nonetheless seem to have maintained a high degree of cultural and linguistic cohesion among the larger society. Very likely the great Indo-European emphasis on hospitality dates from this era if not before (assuming that Dr. Anthony’s dating of migrations correctly corresponds to Indo-European language splits; it is not clear to me to what extent this emphasis was present in the Anatolian and Tocharian branches).
It is, therefore, possible to maintain a dispersed, federated aspect of tribalism on top of more intense, local groupings.
Economic Interdependence
The second major difficulty is simple. Economic interdependence is helpful to group cohesion and we can no longer develop the same level of interdependence our ancestors had. Most communities were largely but not entirely self-sufficient in the past. Today, achieving that self-sufficiency within a community is extremely difficult. Perhaps only the Amish have succeeded to that extent.
This problem is one only to be managed. It cannot be solved at present.
Inspirations
There are a number of groups that have maintained a fairly tribal approach despite a great deal of resistance from the internationalists in the world. I think successful approaches to neo-tribalism will need to be based in part on seeing how these groups have managed to survive as well as they have.
The Jews
The Jews have managed to survive as a distinct group despite over a thousand years of concerted attempts to wipe them out. It’s hard not to be inspired by that. Indeed, the hatred of and resistance to Jews has tended to increase their ability to survive instead of reduce it. Like all of the groups mentioned here, they are bound by tradition and commonality of practice, and have tended to have a strong loyalty towards helping each other out.
Particular elements of the Jewish approach to survival as a group have included the conviction that they are chosen for a specific covenant. Jews generally don’t see other traditions as being invalid, just that they are not applicable to Jews. In other words, most Jews see the covenant of Moses being one which does not necessarily rule out other covenants with other peoples.
The Quakers
The Quakers began in the mid-17th century as a demotic splinter of Christianity (in other words, the founder of Quakerism had no ministerial training in another denomination, so it was entirely a split of lay people). The Quakers initially faced charges of treason for not belonging to the Church of England, and were also prosecuted for a wide range of offenses, such as contempt of court (for failing to observe traditional rituals of respect for judges), disrupting Church of England services, and the like. They were a rebellious bunch as they continue to be today.
I was raised in a Quaker family and spent a great deal of time in places (like central Utah) where there were few other Quakers. This was an enigmatic experience for me as a child. When I was 7, I couldn’t have told you whether or not my parents had any religious beliefs. I could tell you they were Quakers but nothing more, simply because Quakers don’t spell out group beliefs in concrete terms. Indeed a common experience was to ask Quaker adults whether they believed in the Bible only to watch them pause, think, and answer something like “I believe there is wisdom in it.”
My parents rarely condemned other people but would usually try to teach us kids to act in “Quakerly” ways by saying something like, “This is something we don’t do….” As I have become older, I have noticed that the unspoken assumption is that there’s a difference in the mind of Quakers between what’s “right” and what’s “Quakerly” and what’s “Quakerly” is a subset of what’s “right” for a Quaker, but it doesn’t necessarily preclude other ways for other peoples.
One of the key elements of Quakerism is reliance on other Quakers. Quakers “believe” (if that’s the right word) in continuing revelation, or that “God” (if that’s the right word) “speaks” to each of us regardless of tradition, and that one function of community is to challenge an individual so as to help weed out false messages. Quakers have traditionally valued group self-sufficiency, but not valued individual self-sufficiency except in spiritual matters and then only to a moderate degree.
Quakers are organized in essentially concentric circles of autonomy. Each circle is ruled on the basis of consensus by the congregation, so local groups have a lot more freedom to experiment than regional or global groups. One typically has local “monthly” meetings (in the sense of a monthly meeting for business) organized into geographic regions with “quarterly” meetings (for business). Quarterly meetings are grouped into yearly meetings, and these are eventually grouped into national and international conventions which also meet yearly. This is fairly interesting because it mirrors the structure of Iceland (with local things, regional things, and the Althing).
The Anabaptists (Amish and Mennonites)
The Anabaptists were a group I learned something about as a Quaker because they seem to have been the original inspiration for the Quaker traditions of Conscientious Objection. These groups are extremely insular (more insular than Quakers). They also emphasize individual self-sufficiency to a much larger degree.
Amish, in particular, are very strict about defining their community. An individual may choose to leave the Amish lifestyle but in so doing leaves his or her family. Prior to baptism (done by Anabaptists as adults), it’s acceptable to experiment with other ways of life. After baptism, much of this is considered to be sinful.
Common Elements
All of the groups above share a common outlook, namely that they have a tradition which defines their group and an acceptance that other people may have other traditions. The difference is not between some sense of universal right and wrong (as it is in internationalist religions such as mainstream Christianity and Islam), but rather between “our traditions” and “their traditions.” This mindset is the most important thing to cultivate. I don’t think one can have a cohesive tribe if the motivation is opposition to others instead of the well-being of the group.
SOLUTIONS
I think successful neo-tribal attempts today will have to be based on our changing world. I don’t see a Neo-Pagan group equivalent to the Amish ever working out too well. Well, maybe someday it might. But not today. Instead the proposed solutions here look at the groups which have provided inspiration.
The Internet
The Internet poses both challenges and benefits to attempts at neo-tribalism. In addition to being a distraction par excellence, it’s also a very useful tool for coordination of both local and non-local groups. The internet allows people to telecommute so they can live in areas of their choice regardless of occupation, and it also enables the discovery of like-minded folks nearby.
The internet additionally allows coordination of affiliated groups over a dispersed area (worldwide). In the long-run we’re going to have to really master both types of community interaction.
Exclusivity
Groups need to be fairly exclusive. The public may be encouraged to attend some gatherings, but individuals of the public should be required to apply for membership, and it’s reasonable to put them through a probationary period of some sort. In my view, applications should be generally subject to consensus of local groups. Other federated groups might not have veto power over the admission of members, but it might not be a bad idea to give them an opportunity to respond nonetheless. Furthermore, the group must have a way to remove truly problematic members (probably again on a consensus basis).
Travel Infrastructure and Directories
In my opinion, hospitality is a value we should take advantage of here. One way to do this is to allow members of federated groups to join travel directories, stating that they are willing to bring into their homes traveling members of other federated groups. This is scary for a lot of people but it can help build ties between groups.
As with fosterage, opening ourselves up to some risk is necessary to build strongly cohesive groups.
Fosterage
Another way we can build cohesion is by having our kids stay for periods of time with other members of the community.[maybe mention that this is an age-old Heathen custom? Same for hospitality above, both important Heathen values.HL]
Simple Living
Group cohesion isn’t possible if we are spending our time obsessing about the latest consumer craze. I think it’s important for people to expect that prospective members of the community are trying to live consciously, buying what they feel really adds to quality of life and not just buying things due to rampant consumerism. This helps separate the group from the undifferentiated masses of consumers, and it helps free up resources that can be used for group projects.
Federation
I can see basically two models for federation: the alliance model and the Quaker/Icelandic model. In the Quaker model, groups are organized into locally autonomous groups, which get together in progressively larger groups progressively less frequently. In this model, the federation is a fairly fixed structure into which groups enter. The group has local autonomy, but no choice in who they federate with – it’s either the whole group or nobody at all.
The alliance model is just that: locally autonomous groups deciding to engage in federation with other specific local groups. This could become far harder to work in practice, but it allows the local group autonomy in who they federate with.
I suspect in the long run, larger federated units will exist in both ways.
Part 2: What the Internet can Teach Us
Internet-based communities are both like and unlike communities of people who meet and have to deal with each other face to face. The internet is clearly not a replacement for neo-tribalism; however, in some cases online communities can have similar functional requirements, particularly when there is a high degree of economic interdependence, as there might be in an open source software project. These projects in particular have a great deal to teach us about running successful tribes today.
Open source software is of particular relevance here, because it is a form of communally developed software, where the development efforts and rights relating to the results are spread throughout the community. It is not the only way that software might be communally developed, but it is the predominant method today.
Open source software has a couple of specific defining features which make it relevant to the study here. The first is that the software is made available to the community to use free of charge, and the community is also given permission and means to modify the software and continue to develop it. The second is that the dynamics of contribution to the joint project (when it is successful) is such that the contributor is economically better of sharing the contribution widely than keeping it to him or herself. This builds community ties of a sort that don’t exist in many other forms of software development.
Open Source Projects as eTribes
A typical open source community is actually a conglomeration of commercial entities (often individual consultants, but corporations are often represented as well), which work together on a common purpose. Contributions are freely shared both within the community and to the general public, though sometimes some restrictions exist on that sharing (for example, one popular copyright license, the GNU GPL requires that non-copyright holders to the main project refrain from changing the license when they make changes).
The number and complexity of such communities typically exceeds those of normal joint projects. For example, the LedgerSMB project (which I helped to found) has at its core four individuals representing four businesses, but the larger contributor community is probably around thirty different business entities, and the active user community (in terms of communal support) has several hundred members. The silent, extended user community is estimated to be around a thousand businesses, and there are projects out there with extended communities likely reaching hundreds of thousands of users and thousands of active contributors.
It’s generally found that communities of this size and complexity require governance, organization, and leadership beyond the narrow shared business interests of the participants.
It’s probably not surprising to find that open source projects have ended up with a wide range of governance models from the slightly stratified to fairly formal and rigid. In general, the models are generally inspired by governmental models which have been shown to work in governing small countries, with the note that abuse of power is controlled by the fact that folks are always free to leave.
Interdependence is a key feature of open source software development. By sharing contributions each participant gains access to other contributions (this is true not only of projects whose licenses force sharing but also those whose licenses do not), reduces their own costs of doing business, and allows everyone to better serve their customers. All the while, each member of the community is competing with every other member, though this is rarely acrimonious, and usually cooperation is a part of the competition.
Governance
The governance models tend to be built on the basis of what has worked for governments. Republics, democracies, and dictatorships are all represented among major projects, though the model of the stratified republic is becoming standard.
In general, open source projects often find that there is such a thing as too much democracy, and that the best models are built on the idea of becoming vested through the course of contribution.
One major problem that occurs with open source software is that an individual could, either through error or malice, introduce security vulnerabilities into the project, which could lead to problems for users. Typically there are various mechanisms which projects come up with including mandatory review for most contributions, and having those who do review audit contributions of others.
Trust here isn’t just about mitigating malice. It’s also about mitigating incompetence and even honest error by otherwise competent people. I have found myself pretty heavily criticized by code reviewers in the past even on projects I have helped to found. The code review process works pretty well because it ensures that quality work is done. This sort of peer review is central to the success of such a community.
Open source projects also exhibit significant diversity and duplication, but also learn from each other. For example, there are multiple operating system projects, multiple database projects, and the like. Each has a different goal and vision of what they want to build, but in the end successful projects also learn from each other.
Drawing from the Open Source experience
The experience with open source suggests that even where the difficulty leaving the group appears to be low, fairly highly stratified groups with a variety of government structures can exist and thrive. In general, stratification addresses many of the issues that come up with dealing with a group of people, some of whom may not be fully trusted. It also allows for leadership and service to the group to be recognized in an official way. In general, I am for some level of stratification in any sort of neo-tribal framework.
The second point which is probably greatly overlooked is that open source projects work because of economic interdependence, not just because the group is like-minded. Open source communities allow people to achieve together what they cannot achieve individually. I think this point is particularly important when looking at Heathenism as orthopraxy (right practice) instead of orthodoxy (right belief). One thing that would be critically important in creating a tribe would be to expect each member to be able to contribute economically to be a full-fledged member.
At the same time, most of these groups inevitably spawn spin-off local organizations. There are users groups for all manner of open source projects out there (LedgerSMB is too small to have them though). These provide evidence that what starts in cyberspace doesn’t always stay in cyberspace, and that the interaction between internet-based groups and physical groups if a project is successful is complex.
Part 3: Creating Successful Tribes Today
Much of this is based on my experience in open source software development, and I believe that most of these are lessons fairly universal across types of groups today. The goal is to create lasting group cohesion, allowing some movement in and out of a group while encouraging stability. To the extent that those goals are shared and the circumstances are not too different, the lessons should apply without much modification, though of course we must make the lessons our own in the course of applying them.
Create a Tribe from an Existing Small Group
While it is possible for a single individual to bring people together to form a tribe, experience shows that this is much easier when a few people are involved, usually between three and five to start. There are a few of reasons for this:
1. The core community will consist of multiple personalities who can compensate for each others weaknesses.
2. Labor can be spread out more effectively, and core community members can step in for each other as needed.
3. Many tasks can be taken on by those most interested in doing so rather than merely as necessary work.
4. A small group provides some protection against bad decision making.
Consider the Market for Tribal Recruits
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