Humans are communal beings. Healthy communities provide individuals with a sense of meaning, belonging and security. Our innate longing to be part of a community goes back thousands of years and is demonstrated in this present age by the desire to connect with people with whom we share common interests.

Some of the most enthusiastic communities we see today are united around a shared love for a sports team or a political ideology, but virtually any sort of common interest can serve as the impetus for the development of a community.

Until recently, the American Idea was one such common interest. It united individuals with diverse religious, cultural, geographical and political affiliations, and served as an example to the world that a nation can thrive even when its citizens are not united by a shared cultural heritage, religion or geography.

Unfortunately, this sense of unity is being eroded before our very eyes. Tribalism is destroying our nation. If we cannot stop the descent into tribal warfare, we will become an uncivilized nation characterized by warring factions and disharmony.

The human drive for connection is evident at birth and influences human behavior throughout the course of development. As teens, we all witnessed the power of “peer pressure.” Our instinctive need for connection and social acceptance developed over the course of thousands of years and serves to protect us and provide meaning and a sense of belonging. However, because this need for connection is so instinctive, we naturally fall into social groups, cliques and clubs without much conscious thought. We may even find ourselves a member of a “tribe” or gang, pitted against groups that are perceived as threatening.

Consultant and author Alan Weiss, of Summit Consulting Group Inc., makes an apt distinction between communities and tribes, stating: “Communities are inclusionary. They are characterized by common attitudes, interests, and goals. Religion, beliefs, kinship and opinions can differ starkly in communities and, in fact, give them vibrancy and dynamism, allowing for continued experimentation and growth. … Tribes are exclusionary. They recognize their own members’ similarities and common background … generally seeing others as enemies at worst and inferiors at best.”

Understanding the differences between healthy community involvement and tribalism is vital to a healthy civilization and protects us from unwittingly becoming perpetrators of dehumanizing behavior.

America, in her prime, was a community of people united around the beliefs that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Lady Liberty and the flag stood for something exceptional — an idea that transcended culture, religion or political affiliation. Even from the beginning, there has always been debate over the relative effectiveness of a centralized government as opposed to a decentralized government emphasizing state sovereignty, but the principles of America’s founding documents were never questioned. Until recently, political discourse centered around how to best live out the tenets set forth in our founding documents — the principles themselves were not criticized or threatened. America was a nation of rich diversity, strengthened by various perspectives about how to achieve our commonly held goal.

Today’s cultural and political climate is quite different. Instead of lively discourse arising within a community united around shared principles, a form of neotribalism has taken root. The political elites have skillfully taken advantage of our desire for connection and have created new tribes, using fear to pit us against one another. They’ve formed these tribes based on characteristics such as race, sexual orientation/gender identity and vaccination status. They garner support by claiming they alone have the solutions to our problems. They encourage us to demonize members of other tribes, reminding us that “the others” are threatening our well-being. It’s the storyline from the Disney movie “Pocahontas,” and it’s pitiful.

What’s worse, tribalism is impacting families and small communities such as our own. We have editorials in our paper that group nearly 40% of the U.S. population into a neat little category called the “unvaxxed,” which is basically the same as being a murderer. Never mind that unvaccinated people may possess natural immunity from a prior infection. Never mind that they have religious beliefs that compel them to decline the vaccine. Never mind that they may lack access to the resources needed to get the vaccine. Never mind that they are humans capable of making their own medical decisions.

We do the same thing with religion, politics, abortion, Black Lives Matter and gay/trans rights; we segregate people into categories created by the political elites, label and dehumanize them, and then disown them from our communities and sometimes even our own families.

It’s impossible to negotiate with someone seeking your demise. Similarly, it’s impossible to engage in productive discourse with people who believe the American Idea is fundamentally corrupt. These people fail to see that it is impossible to improve on the idea that “all men are created equal.” The fundamental principles outlined in our founding documents should be the basis for political discourse and decision making. Without unity around America’s founding principles, we are vulnerable to influence from divisive forces, both internally and externally. We need to unite around a common belief in the American Idea, and save our tribal warring for things of less consequence, like college football.

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