Has it appeared to you that all this embracing of diverse cultures has lead to a new tribalism? Hey, I celebrate Cinco de Mayo (a non-celebrated holiday in Mexico) by having burritos or tacos for dinner...but our ultra-tolerance of cultural diversity, even bowing to other cultural practices as more enlightened, has negated the unifying effect of a dominant culture. Sure the United States is a "melting pot" of different cultures, but even in a melting pot, the mixture homogenizes into a unified mixture, not a sedimentary soup, where the ingredients don't mix together.
On to tribalism...in the past tribalism has appeared as a result of different groups split from a larger culture due to various reasons, such as: a charismatic leader, economic interests, religious interests, even the gathering of food, etc. to the extent that they can no longer function within the main body. Many anthropologists think that tribalism is what lead to larger societies. I would like to note that the large, pre-columbian cultures degenerated in the tribal societies that the europeans discovered when they arrived in America.
So, what is the virtue of these small groups of people, living off the natural law of kill, or be killed? So, how did they survive when their mother-culture didn't? Well, if you examine the history of the United States, they didn't survive, and that their virtue might have been a minor aspect, it wasn't enough to sustain their own progenitors....and they continually fought among themselves. Look at the African cultures, so many of them have not endured passed a couple of generations, they haven't kept records and they may have lost any of the advances that might have been gained by their separation from the larger group.
We are going down that road. Gangs are prevalent in all countries of the world and have infiltrated governements to siphon off the resources that the governments control. Groups that advance their particular cultural bent in a foreign country, seem to forget the reasons of their expatriation. Too many cultures tend to isolate themselves within a foreign country to the extent that they do not learn the language or sovereignty of that country. There is no growth within the culture and generations can come and go without being integrated....Remember when integration was a good thing and segregation was a bad thing? Are we not all americans, not just hyphenated-americans?
There is no virtue in special interest groups at the expense of the entire group. We don't need to give up our identity, and what makes us different from others, but letting your "freak flag" fly because you want to be "in-the-face" of someone that may disagree with you, smacks of tribalism. Don't blame me...but this is just an observation.
