The Tribal Mind (My Title)

The Tribal Mind (My Title)
Excerpts from Eric Voegelin, History of Political Ideas, Volume VIII: Crisis and the Apocalypse of Man. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1999.

[The] reduction of man and his life to the level of utilitarian existence is the symptom of the critical breakdown of Western civilization through the atrophy of the intellectual and spiritual substance of man…. [T]he term man no longer designates the mature man of the humanist and Christian tradition, but only the crippled, utilitarian fragment….

A crippled man, however, does not cease to be a man; spiritual obscurantists, or antihumanistic utilitarians, are not animals; they continue to function as humans. Still, they can no longer solve human problems rationally, or on the basis of the spiritual experiences the possession of which characterizes mature man. Hence appear the curious transpositions of the problems of the mature Western civilization to the new level of utilitarian immaturity…; hence arises the necessity of substituting for transcendental reality an intramundane evocation that is supposed to fulfill the functions of transcendental reality for the immature type of man….

The Christian idea of mankind is the idea of a community whose substance consists of the Spirit in which the members participate; the homonoia of the members, the like-mindedness through the Spirit that has become flesh in all of each of them, welds them into a universal community of mankind…. Only because the Spirit is transcendentally out of time can it be universally present in time, living in each man equally, irrespective of the age or place in which the man lives; only because the course of the community is out of time is mankind a universal community within historical time.

Turgot [an early philosophical Positivist]’s evocation of the masse totale [colloquially, the tribe; or more universally, “mass man”] transposes the Christian idea of mankind into the utilitarian key. Man is no longer a spiritual center but a mere link in the chain of generations. The spirit that welds the plurality of men into the unity of mankind is no longer a transcendental reality to be experienced by every individual soul but has become a thread of meaning to be touched at one point by a man if he is fortunate, but is beyond the reach of the vast majority of mankind. And the eternal presence of the Spirit to every soul that willingly opens itself is transposed into a precarious, fleeting meaning that can be ascertained only with some difficulty by scholars who know a great deal about the problems of mathematized science. At first sight, this whole transposition looks so much like an infantile insult to the dignity of man that the mass appeal, which the idea undoubtedly has to this day, is hardly intelligible….

The Appeal to the Common Man
Let us consider…the conditions under which this idea of man can appeal to men. Obviously it can have no appeal to a humanist and Christian; and whenever Positivist ideas spread in a socially menacing form, the clash with the traditions of Western high civilization is inevitable. With equal obviousness the mass appeal exists….

[Yet] the idea of being in substance a member of a masse totale can appeal only to a man who has not much substance of his own. His personality must be sufficiently underdeveloped, that is to say it must be deficient in spiritual organization and balance to such a degree, that the anxiety of existence cannot be controlled and absorbed by the normal processes of the mature…life.

As a consequence he will be plagued by insecurities, frustrations, fears, aggressiveness, paranoiac obsessions, uncontrollable hatreds, and so on. The great escape for the man who cannot extricate himself from this state through the personal solution has always been, and will always be, to submerge himself in a collective personality that he either will find ready at hand in his environment or will evoke for the occasion. Tribalism is the answer to immaturity because it permits a man to remain immature with the sanction of his group.

A man who is not much of a person can still be quite a useful individual. Hence a tribe of immature utilitarians can be a highly efficient and a very powerful community, and at the same time a very dangerous one if its insecurities, its provincialism, its xenophobia and paranoia turn, for one reason or another, aggressively ad extra [i.e. “outside of itself”].

The tribes that emerge in the crisis of a civilization can display a considerable political effectiveness while they last; immaturity is no argument against political power. The political effectiveness and survival of a tribalist movement not only add to its appeal but also make it possible as a form of political existence, of appreciable duration, for the masses of men who, in increasing numbers, are set free for reorganization in new political forms in an age where the institutions of a high civilization begin to break down.…

The conditions for a successful tribalist evocation are [now] present: there is given the type of man that exists at all times in large numbers; there is given the situation of a civilizational breakdown in which masses of this type are ready to respond to the new appeal (the internal proletariat, in Toynbee’s sense of the term); and, finally, there is given the idea that has the twin merit (1) of being close enough to the tradition (because it is a transposition of traditional ideas) to deceive the not so discerning, and (2) of supplying a collective personality to those who want to paddle through life with that minimum of effort that goes by the respectable name of usefulness….

We have not yet…exhausted the particular charms of a tribalism of mankind…. The tribe…is restricted to “toilers.” And toilers exist in great number in every society on earth; moreover, nontoilers can be converted into toilers by the simple device of taking away their possessions…[or by purging] the masse totale of unassimilable elements….

The Appeal to the Leaders
The appeal of the masse…lies for the common men in the possibility of obtaining the benefits of mankind without incurring its obligations. All he has to do is make himself useful to the extent of earning a living for the rest; he can feel himself on top of the historical world by identifying himself with the progress of the masse.

This is the appeal for the ordinary member of the movement. For the leaders, the idea holds [an] added appeal…. The thinkers who evoke the idea, and the group of men who represent progress actively, are the measure of meaning in history. The masse totale is in progress as a whole because select individuals and groups are actively in progress; if intramundane mankind as a whole is the realissimum, its standard-bearers are the god-men. The masse totale holds the great temptation for the active elements that they can place themselves at a comfortable rank in the hierarchy…the clerical pride cannot be overlooked….

The idea of the masse totale blends with nationalism. What might be an innocuous pastime of an exultant intellectual becomes a political force because it gains, on the international scene, the momentum of a powerful state if it can capture the nation to the degree that the national mass identifies itself with the leadership…. In its outline we see the idea of mankind, dominated by a chosen people that embodies the progressive essence of humanity. In historical actuality that would mean a totalitarian organization of mankind, in which the dominating power would beat down, in the name of mankind and freedom, everybody who does not conform to its standards….

There is an evil touch…in every totalitarian, progressive or otherwise…. In areas in which an intramundane political religion has become institutionalized as the state church…history as a contemplative science cannot live in the person of even a single individual because the body-killing governmental terror would be immediately used against it….

Well, I’ve been reading Eric some more lately. Thought this was a quite breathtaking description of a persistent generic pattern of cultural/social/political developments in our time that have a multiplicity of special articulations. Start with the OBL/Al Qaida/Taleban/international-terrorism complex. But don’t stop there: Hitler was a master of tribalist manipulation, ever invoking the assent of the tribe, the Volk, as carte blanche for any and all of his hideous depredations against his fellow man.

But don’t even stop there: On Voegelin’s analysis, PRC may be the biggest tribe that ever was in human history (1.3 billion and counting – teetering on the brink of a demographic catastrophe, perhaps?). Surely, the Chinese people have ever regarded non-Chinese peoples as “barbarians” – people NOT of “our tribe.” This has been going on for millennia; so probably hasn’t changed in recent times, nor should we reasonably expect it to change in the future. JMHO. FWIW. best to all, bb.

In other words, the idea of the 'evil ones' is to convince people they need group (tribal) rights, in stark contrast to the western tradition of the sacredness of individual liberty.

That's certainly my take on it, piasa. When you boil it all down, our present national danger basically consists in the fact that, as dispirited as America has become over the past several decades, she still carries -- and so must defend against all comers -- the "fire of liberty" -- the sanctity of persons and thus of God-given human rights. There's nobody left to do it, IMHO. And if that banner falls, our life as we know it will simply be over. Not a cheering thought. Thank you so much for writing. best, bb.

Some of it is useful, but, unfortunately, he strips some words of their meaning in order to impart some meaning elsewhere: tribalism, as defined by Hobbes (rightly, I think) is the outlook and condition of a people, related by blood or marriage, sharing a common culture, defending a common territory, and existing in a constant state of "war". In that sense, Betty, I would say that Japan better fits the description than does China. China only fits its own description. China is China and behaves like China and always will.

This author uses the word to include virtually any unsophisticated or immature outlook. To his credit, though, Voegelin does NOT make the misstep most academics are making nowadays of equating tribalism and nationalism. They have thereby rendered the latter a dirty word, mistakenly, I think.

Voegelin sure likes to hear himself talk, though, doesn't he? This one was my favorite: ...transcendental reality an intramundane evocation ...

The reference to the "toilers" really dates this -- unless we're facing a giant leap backwards. It's no longer as toilers that the masses define themselves, but as consumers. And most of us are in there with them.

The option of remaining aloof from the masses and holding on to some older Christian humanist ideals doesn't seem to be open any more. One can talk that way, but the technology that one uses shapes one in any case and gives lie to the whole idea.

Consider that when Voegelin was born the television and the airplane and the computer had not yet been invented and there were people alive who had seen the first automobiles and telephones, and the earliest stirring of radio. Thus the pretechnological heritage was much more alive for him. We can believe that we are following his prescriptions, but the way we live betrays us.

The other thing to consider is how accurate his characterization of modern man is. It seems that we see our contemporaries worts and all, in a way that past generations did not see themselves. Perhaps we truly are the worst of ages, but perhaps there is some continuity of human vices through out history or perhaps other ages were equally depraved, only the vice didn't reach so deeply into the middle classes.

It sounds as though Voegelin is struggling with Nietzsche's "Last Man" --the weak and passive product of a decaying civilization. One problem is that the cures for this that have been developed (Nietzsche, etc.) have been worse than the orignal disease. Nietzsche saw Christianity as the source of the weak, ineffectual and cowardly Last Man. Voegelin looks to Christianity to overcome the Last Man. It remains to be seen whether Voegelin's alternative is really effective either against the weak and passive Last Man or against the more active, less obliging and more dangerous Nietzschean hero.

It's no longer as toilers that the masses define themselves, but as consumers. And most of us are in there with them.... The option of remaining aloof from the masses and holding on to some older Christian humanist ideals doesn't seem to be open any more. One can talk that way, but the technology that one uses shapes one in any case and gives lie to the whole idea.

Hi x. The masses can define themselves however they will; but the fact remains that, before there can be consumption, there must first have been production. Economic benefits do not grow on trees.

As far as "holding on to some older Christian humanist ideals" is concerned (which you aver is no longer a realistic option): IMHO, the Christian anthropology is the only thing that can keep us from becoming just a "part of the machine." Voegelin deplores the "instrumentalization" of man, man conceived as a unit of utility rather than as a unique, sacred person. The "moral center" must move back to individuals, or the moral center will move to the totalist state -- and the human spirit will be crushed.

The funny thing is, the "destruction" of the Christian idea of God increasingly results in the destruction of man. Go figure.

Thank you for your very thoughtful reply. best, bb.

I really, really liked this -- what do you think? best, bb.

It reminds me of the astute analysis of Michael Oakeshott in Rationalism in Politics. There is an essay in there called The Masses in Representative Democracy where Oakeshott speaks of the origin of the masses as an association of anti-individuals which find their representative in government. The masses in that essay are seen as a reactionary movement against the Reformation/Enlightenment ideal of the individual. Voegelin:

The great escape for the man who cannot extricate himself from this state through the personal solution has always been, and will always be, to submerge himself in a collective personality that he either will find ready at hand in his environment or will evoke for the occasion.

I think this is akin to one of the principles of business in the idea of monopoly that Aristotle noted in his Politics. Collective association raises value and power. If "conservatives" don't like the tribe, why is it that they LOOOVE the market?

I think of tribalism as a disorder of the natural and healthy human instinct for solidarity. Rather than serving to represent in microcosm a universal human solidarity (and by extension, the Christian idea that we all are one when we unite with God in Christ and the Holy Spirit -- the fons et origo of unity), tribalism is merely a species of radical individualism writ large, of human alienation, by which a branch of the human tree, having chosen to cut itself off from the trunk, inevitably withers and dies.

I am going to apologize in advance for what follows. It's free form and rambles some, and in its way its a rebuttal to Veoglein, but only in the sense that I believe we must not mistake or substitute words or ideas, however eloquent or deep, for actions. I would perhaps say, though, that having now passed through the period when thoughts were to be expressed without reserve and without judgement, in confronting the need to act there is a new premium on depth and clarity of thought.

The amorphous sense of foreboding felt by more than a few in recent years, myself included, has somewhat abated with our 9/11 Wake-Up Call and more good than I could have imagined has come of it. I am amazed and gratified by it, being one who has been flying the American Flag from the front of our home for several years now. The expressions of national unity that we are seeing are not rote response. They are individual and heartfelt, true grassroots, and they are expressions of allegiance not to a government but to the Idea that is America. Now I am a "realist" -- you know what I do for a living (and I do it well) -- I am not Pollyanna.

There has been a Great Reductionist Monster loose within the world of ideas since the 19th century, spawned by the wild successes of science. Labels and diminutions do not change, though, what Man is, and what Man is is not reducible to a single pattern, thing or equation. We know this if we know ourselves but too many of us have lost faith in ourselves by accepting the judgements of others that a man is "only" this or that bit of Material.

My "position", if I may be so arrogant, is that we can know what we are without the guidance of any scientist, guru or academician, that what we are is immensely good, indeed holy, full of hope and portent, but that we make mistakes. By which we hopefully learn. We have learned, I hope, from the Bloody 20th Century. We should not accept the limiting, circumstribed and diminishing ruminations or definitions of academic others, or any others, IMHO. I believe, I have been convinced by the evidence, that we are divine in origin and in essence, that there is divinity all around us,that we live in a values-infused Universe, not a value-free one. None of which obviates in the least our need to act.

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