Israel against Palestine. Liberals against conservatives. The dishes against the Yankees. Whatever the priority, we have come to believe that our unshakable and religious allegiance is not only normal and inevitable, but advantageous: resulting from an evolutionary adaptation which has enabled our species to survive over time.
Accepted wisdom does something like this: since the dawn of our species, human communities have been assembled by the impulse of belonging. Without this, the advantage focused on cooperation would not have been possible. Humans are therefore supposed to be intrinsically tribal due to our prehistoric ancestors. Belonging to a group or a tribe has increased the chances of survival of an individual.
Although there is merit in this theory, it is only part of a more nuanced and complex story.
Our community society has aroused the conviction that each of us arrives in the world with an innate desire to belong. We have an innate need to attach to caregivers. However, most considerations of the attachment impulse confuse her with the desire to belong. And while this initial impulse to be attached is innate – the way of ensuring our affinity towards parents and other important providers – everything beyond must be taught.
We were born without affiliation. No newborn has religion, nationality or ethnicity. Babies do not naturally feel attachment to a group of foreigners. They know nothing about the relationships between the adults around them, and they certainly know nothing about the many complex concepts that govern social life. They show no recognition of a group or their place.
But each infant knows himself. Babies can draw attention to their needs: however, at this young age, their notions of social behavior are rudimentary and communicate vaguely and ineffectively basic needs. Then, around the age of three, while the acquisition of language begins to inform their understanding of the needs and opinions of others, small children learn that they belong to certain groups and not to others.
Until this point, the gratuity needs were provided on an unconditional basis. But now, the child begins to learn that the approval of his caregivers can be subject to the social relevance of their behavior.
Socially harmonious concepts, such as “share”, “let others go first”, are drilled to children, without explanation on the reasons. We say: “This is how you make friends” or “Go play with your neighbor’s sister or brother”, and as a result, we reward children for common behavior with encouragement, hugs, high fives and various other forms of praise.
Meanwhile, at the request of caregivers, the parallel piece that characterizes the little -mother – when children in the same space are fortunately occupied by different things, unconscious of their peers – is gradually replaced by more interactive forms of play which require responding to the reactions and actions of others. Thus, the formerly egrocentric toddler is directed (sometimes brought back) in a life of communality.
As children age, they present themselves with endless opportunities to forge affiliations with peers: carpooling, summer camps, team sports, clubs after school, etc. The classrooms are often segmented in teams or cohorts, each of the labels allocated to strengthen the identity and membership of the group (for example, the red and blue teams). The ability to assimilate in these groups is considered to be a prerequisite for healthy social and emotional development, and recovery is rarely an option.
The motivation to “integrate” accelerates at the beginning of adolescence, that is to say when children discover (often the harsh) who do not take into account the group leads to misfortune and rejection, while conformity gives social awards. The desire for popularity and social approval becomes global, as well as the criteria of inclusion in peer groups become more strict and popular clicks.
No other behavioral cognitive packaging occurs on this universal scale.
Find out more: The power to change your mind
This well -intentioned training shapes the global education of most children. We learn that becoming a functional adult involves forging identities – political, cultural, regional, etc. – Based on group membership. Our culture gives immense importance to the community, leading to perception that a different position is a sign of pathology.
I do not agree.
It is true that, for a society, the community can be particularly precious in the face of shared difficulties. It is also true that for many people, belonging to a group, whether it is a formal organization, such as a religious congregation, or informal, like a circle of friends, provides the social support necessary to ward off the discomfort with the futility of life that we all meet at times in adulthood.
But in the modern world, the community impulse that evolution supposedly equipped us does not make us feel more security, less alienated or more content with our lives. Just look at our polarized policy to realize that in fact, it does the opposite. Systemic racism and excluding authoritarian policy in war, the desire to “belong” does not bring us together – it keeps us away from each other.
Cruelty is far too high to pay the privilege of belonging. You do not need the authorization to be kind and abandon the cruel. At a time when requests for exclusion and aggression of the Trumpian collective become stronger and more insistent than ever, we do not need more belonging – more tribes and groups. Rather, we need individual empathy, compassion and kindness. Like the Norwegian playwright and the poet Henrick Ibsen An enemy of the people“When the values of society are corrupt, it is the duty of the individual to maintain real morality.”
