PREMISE II, section 1
GEOGRAPHY
The determination of where an adult male or female winds up on the spectrum that may be called “I/F“ (individuated/fused) has, at least in part, historically been determined geographically. The northern tribes of Europe have been the societies that emphasized the tribal loyalty but individualistic side of man's nature.
The eastern and southern localities on the globe have been the societies that have emphasized man's fusionist nature. His nature is obviously a balance between those two extremes.
What do we mean by the I-F (individualised/fused) component of man's nature? We can look at or approximate this dimension through various lenses.
We can describe fusionistic vs individualistic psychology, fusionist vs individualist economies, I/F governance, I/F interpersonal behavior and I/F child rearing.
Themes of an individual vs a tribal relation to God distinguishes the early Five Books of Moses from subsequent sections of The Prophets in the Babylonian and Persian Empire periods.
The economic anthropologist Alan Macfarlane has described how the hunter gatherer pack eventually became...
The subsistence farming family and
The small village pack in the larger village herd.
In both eco-historical stages, group identity dominated the makeup of the subject's "self". Effectively, at first there was no self in current western terms. Within this tradition, some societies continue to recognize and celebrate unyielding fusion with the family> clan> tribe> locality, religion, or ethnic group. These are the contemporary stand-ins for our primordial human pack-tribe.
Encyclopedia.com describes "TRIBALISM" as:
“The concept of tribalism, like that of the tribe, is difficult to define precisely, as it is closely interwoven with the context in which it is used. Tribalism may be defined as the maintenance by a tribal society of its organization, ways, and autonomy in the face of change. But tribalism may be defined differently when a tribe’s claim of identity has less to do with its primitivism or indigeneity than with its ethnic discreteness and cultural distinctiveness for gaining material or political advantages. In fact, tribalism does not exist in any objective sense—hence the problem in defining the concept.
"Early ethnographic writings offer examples of "we-feeling" among the members of a particular tribe that set it apart from neighboring tribes. Ethnographers called this tribalism and linked it to the notion of ethnocentrism, but particularly associated with tribal people. … tribalism is the manifestation of a collective group identity based on common natural impulses such as fear, desire, necessity, or ethnic distinctiveness.
"...tribalism has to be practiced; it is more than a philosophy, it is a way of life."
"… The intertribal warfare and ethnic divide in Africa is tribalism’s worst manifestation....
