H.I.T.
Because there aren't enough acronyms
”When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”
- John Muir
In the first draft of Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, his wording went as follows: "We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable that all men are created equal..."
It wasn't until a proof reading by Benjamin Franklin that he amended the sentence to read: “We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal…”
What Jefferson meant by his original draft was that his premise would be supported by the evidence of God, the highest power in his eyes. There can be no contestation to any such assertion.
Franklin seemed to be wiping the nation free of any dogma. Not because he didn't believe in God himself, but moreso because he could foresee that if there was a country that would be founded on non-hierarchical principles, the evidence must be in non-dogmatic ideals. There was a part of him that did not believe that America, over time, would see itself as a nation backed by the principles of any religious text but more so an ideal of humanism.
What I've struggled with the past few years is the concept of humanism(H) and how it conflates with tribalism(T) as well as individualism(I). The truth of the matter is that it doesn't. We all choose with our daily decisions what concept we stand by.
These three ideologies do not harmonize with one another but were all essential to advance our species. There certainly was a genetic advantage to tribalism. I believe it might have been the first de facto ideology practiced. Its main purpose was to preserve the DNA of our species, which it has successfully done. Most species that are mammalian operate within the framework of the tribe.
However, in the Enlightenment period I believe there was a strong sense of individualism (maybe even prior to that, maybe in the Renaissance, I’m no historian) primarily because there was no longer the threat to survival. We had time to think and express ourselves. Real individualists like Martin Luther, Galileo and even Vilfredo Pareto took the idea of the tribe and kicked it to the curb. They decided to think and act as individuals.
Then came the idea of humanism, which breaks down the barriers of tribes and is incredibly more inclusive than the idea of the individual. We had thought leaders determine the beliefs that we are all valuable to one another, regardless of our ethnicity, background or makeup.
Its been very hard for me to reconcile what of these three really are most valuable. To me it seems like these three ideologies work as if they’re on a lever. There is not enough capacity in a person to adopt all three ideologies. I believe there is a dominant, secondary and a tertiary ideology in all of us.
If we were to look at some of the most influential people of our time their H.I.T. profile might look like this:
Muhammad the Prophet was a T-H-I. Leaders emerge from this profile and because they are loyal and are perceived as benevolent. They constantly display conviction to the pillars (no pun intended) to the tribe.
Hitler was a I-T-H. These are generally leaders as well, they are generally always corrupt, because they have immense allegiance to the tribe but even more allegiance to themselves.
Michael Jackson was a I-H-T. These people are outcasts but are also compassionate as well, so they are generally accepted by cooperative societal people.
I would say that humanism is the most evolved of the three ideologies. Once we discovered DNA in the 19th century science told us that we aren't all created equally, we have a incredible amount of similarities, but the differences are so recognizable within our species that gives some of us clear and obvious advantages in the society we live in. There are a wide array of classifications and variety that create even more taxonomy for our species.
I personally like being identified as an individual. I tend to hesitantly associate myself with a tribe primarily because I believe that tribes make you think less about who/what has authored your beliefs. Paul Graham concluded that the more you identify with a specific dogma, the dumber you become. I think there is a great deal of truth to this and I think another adage to that may be the more you subscribe to tribalism, the less human you become.
And in addition to this, the more of an individualist you become, the less tribal you become.
There are tribes, meta tribes, and sub tribes in just about every walk of human life. Its quite frightening because each an every creation is a potential threat to human life. I had a previous post about how certain tribal dogmas have resisted certain men from preserving the life of a woman because of the sub-tribal rules within that dogma.
In my literary attempt to save humanity, I think the best assumption any person can make is that there is a part of each person that is worth preserving. Each tribe needs the genes of every other tribe. There are strands of DNA in all of us worth saving. The Spanish conquistadors (big time Christians btw) in the 16th century were unknowingly avid readers of Islamic literature. The novel Las sergas de Esplandian were published in Seville, which was a part of the Umayyad caliphate. One of the major characters in the novels was the queen Calafia, whose name was inspired by the term caliph, an Islamic term. They used the imagination of these novels to name California after they conquered it (that’s like Kobe sticking his tongue out when he drives to the basket, but thinking he’s done this on his own volition).
“In 2020, there is no everyone, everybody is a member of their own tribe.”
- Bob Lefletz
There is a good deal of accountability within tribes, but not so much human accountability. The courts are society’s best effort at this.
One sure fire way to have tribes act in unity is by the threat of a cross sectional lives. Let there be a few threat of humanity in heterogeneous areas like Kashmir, or the Gaza Strip and I’m certain we’d see humans fighting in unison to preserve human life and not tribal life. We wouldn’t see melanin pigmentation, belief system, affiliation or occupation. We’d just see danger. So lets act everyday like everyone will die from a threat that we are also susceptible to.
Any human being who does not wish to be part of the masses need only stop making things easy for himself. Let him follow his conscience, which calls out to him: “Be yourself! All that you are now doing, thinking, desiring, all that is not you.”
- Frederick Nietzsche