Tribal Life Is A Lifestyle That Works

Tribal life is what 200,000 years of social evolution brought forth as successful for humans. Natural selection determines the type of social organization that works best for each creature. Natural selection determined that whales function best in pods, fish in schools, birds in flocks and cows in herds.

Natural selection weeds out what isn't working and promotes what is working. In other words creatures in the biological community came about because they were a success; their lifestyle was working.

Nobody has a problem accepting that a pride is the social organization that natural selection found to work best for lions. But people have a problem hearing that tribal life was what natural selection found to work best for humans. We may have tried many different set-ups in our history. But what social evolution delivered up was the model that worked the best. 

It Was Viable, Not Perfect

I'm not saying tribal life was perfect, but it beat anything else we tried. It was viable and it still is. You can say what you like about tribal life, but it was successful for two reasons. 

Firstly tribes didn't overrun and lay waste to the earth like we have. Secondly their way of life was actually satisfying and meaningful to them. 

Every anthropologist that has spent time amongst indigenous tribal people will confirm this. 

Their population was not depressed, suicidal, seething with rage or questioning the purpose of life like we are. Tribal life has been a success since the birth of mankind. 

Civilization on the other hand is a 10,000 year old experiment and the ecological and social toll is rising exponentially. Civilization is founded on the idea that the entire world belongs to man so we are justified in doing what we want with it. We have done what we want with it - the result is a skyrocketing number of humans and plummeting biodiversity. Every extra human on the planet takes the food out of another animal's mouth. 200 species a day are becoming extinct and the integrity of the earth's ecosystem is threatened.

Civilization cannot continue. Most people don't want to hear statements like that but they are true. We have been conditioned to think that civilization is about material progress and wealth. But those are a by product of civilization. At the core of civilization is the idea that the entire planet should be taken under humanity's control. The world was fine before we took it into our incapable hands, now it stands on the brink of destruction.

Let's Do Better Than Civilization

We have also been conditioned to think that civilization is the pinnacle of humanity, the best we have had and the best we ever will have. Civilization can't be bettered or so we are told. Any change must be a change for the worst.

But why not? Why can't we thank civilization very much but move on to a better way of live. We can recognize the flaws of our way of life and create something better.

Why can't civilization can be bettered?

That's where tribalism comes in. We can't go back to hunting and gathering, there are too many of us to do that. So we have no choice but to explore something new. However we can look to the tribal life to see what it was that made it work. 

It is in fact the only type of human organization that has ever been sustainable. By understanding that tribalism works and hierarchical civilization doesn't we then open the door wider to more possibilities for the future.

Such are the benefits of tribal life that we could easily take it forward to the future and still retain a society with advanced technology and material luxury. Hunting and gathering is an occupation and is out of reach for 99% of the population today. But tribalism is merely a social organization. There is no reason why we couldn't participate in modern occupations in businesses that are formed tribally rather than hierarchically.

The purpose would be to provide a means of making a living for its members, not a means of making a killing for those at the top of the hierarchy. This would be a much more satisfying way of making a living.

We just need to break free of the idea that the past is not worth studying and that the only thing tribal life contributed to the human race was fire and some primitive stone tools. In the past is a social organization that we need to understand for the future.

Related Articles From Deep Ecology Hub:

• The Importance Of Cultural Diversity

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