VIDEO BLOG
Episode 2: “The Citizen Vs. The Tribesman”
Citizen = Western. Tribesman = Eastern. These are two different breeds of cat, who see the world in diametrically opposed ways. Can we Westerners impose “citizen values” on a tribal society?
View the credits and transcript for Episode 2.
Stretch,
Just saw episode 2. Better than good. Want to come on my radio show? It’s got a live audience of maybe three or for people in Napa County?
Go bears,
jeffrey
It’s apt that you describe the Marines as a tribe. James Webb argues in “Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America” that the US military is an expression of Celtic values carried here by Scots-Irish immigrants. Those Celtic values include an adamantly independent character and a meritocracy which esteems and elevates any individual who distinguishes himself in combat, regardless of pedigree.
Those Scots-Irish settled mainly in the South and were proud to serve in the military. After the Civil War, Southerners were loathe to join the US Army and wear the hated Yankee blue uniform, but joining the Marines was socially acceptable. Southerners came to dominate the Marines and later the Army, once the stigma wore off after a few decades, permeating it with their Celtic values. The mass conscription of WWII brought many draftees into contact with those Celtic values, which they adopted and spread throughout America. Webb argues that is how Celtic values became American values.
Such tribes exist in America in full or fragments but are only really successful when they are open to outsiders and new ideas. The weakness of most tribes it that they tend to be closed societies where conformity is prized. They can thrive only in static environments. Ethnic communities in America tend to dissolve and are absorbed into the greater community after a generation or two.
The advantage of citizen societies is that they are open to new ideas and can reorganize themselves swiftly to exploit them. They are not hobbled by tribal ties to fix their place in society. Radical openness is an advantage in dynamic environments.
One way to attack the tribal structure is to make the young rich and introduce them to a richer life. Making kids rich through outside opportunities and technology gives them power and usurps the power of the elders. It also undermines the tribal structure in the long term to introduce the young to outside Western lifestyles where their peers live fuller, more empowered, more happy lives. It’s obvious to many Arab twentysomethings that they live miserable half lives compared to their cohorts in the West.
Most of all, show the young the success of outside cultures as compared to their own. Nothing succeeds like success. A friend of mine who lived in South America in the 1960s told me that people there did not go to American movies to see the story, but to marvel at the background of modern kitchens with wonderful gadgets and refrigerators full of food. They wanted all that. The actors were just in the way.
“It’s apt that you describe the Marines as a tribe.”
The United States Marine Corps a tribe? The United States Marine Corps puts women in positions of authority. Every day in the United States Marine Corps women give orders to men and men take orders from women. Definitely not tribal behaviour.
How are we supposed to make anybody rich when our country is broke and in debt to China? What sorts of success stories are we to tout in the face of our economic woes? Are young tribesmen going to be lured away from a life of manliness in order to become fat sellers of cellphones? As for the notion that we in the West are somehow happier, really? Are you basing that notion on how you’d percieve life in a tribal existance? It’s doubtful that young men brought up in such a way of life see it as somehow lacking.
Honestly, it’s as though no one really listened to what Mr. Pressfield had to say about tribes. Even Mr. Pressfield ignores crucial pieces of the puzzle.
I think that in the west, or at least in the United States the primary unit is not the nation but the individual and the nation is just composed of individuals. Remember, that the government of the US was made to SERVE the individual and protect his rights. While in the east, the primary unit is THE TRIBE, and the tribesmen is just there to serve it.
Ithink you give the tribesmen to much credit here, they dont want freedom , what they want is to be ruled by their own tribe. They dont care if they are under tyrrany as long as the tyrrant is from their own tribe. Freedom is just the absence of physical coercion, and the tribesmen is FOR physical coercion….of his tribe on other and on him.Westerners generally abhor the use of force,while the tribesmen thinks force is a part of everyday life. So the tribesmen does not want anything resembling freedom.
As for the rest of your video which I found abhorent,
“What are the nature and the causes of modern tribalism? Philosophically, tribalism is the product of irrationalism and collectivism.” … “If men accept the notion that reason is not valid, what is to guide them and how are they to live?”
Obviously, they will seek to join some group—any group—which claims the ability to lead them and to provide some sort of knowledge acquired by some sort of unspecified means. If men accept the notion that the individual is helpless, intellectually and morally, that he has no mind and no rights, that he is nothing, but the group is all, and his only moral significance lies in selfless service to the group—they will be pulled obediently to join a group. But which group? Well, if you believe that you have no mind and no moral value, you cannot have the confidence to make choices—so the only thing for you to do is to join an unchosen group, the group into which you were born, the group to which you were predestined to belong by the sovereign, omnipotent, omniscient power of your body chemistry.
This, of course, is racism. But if your group is small enough, it will not be called “racism”: it will be called “ethnicity.””
-Ayn Rand “Global Balkanization,” The Voice of Reason,pg. 117
Sean, We may be in a recession by our standards but we are in boom times compared to Pashtun tribesmen. No matter how bad our economy falters, we far above Muslim levels of poverty. The success story we have to tell the tribes is how to create wealth. We know the secret. They do not.
The only way young men brought up in a tribe think they are as happy as Westerners is by ignorance. Material plenty does make you happier than somebody who is never sure of their next meal, whose family and friends are prey for simple illnesses which can be easily cured in the West, and whose life is far shorter. I’m thinking of that Afghan girl in the famous photo from the cover of National Geographic years ago. They found her, a grown woman, a few years ago. She told them that she had never had a happy day in her life. That’s quite a statement and representative of the life of terrible struggle tribal people live.
You can develop a pretty good metric of the relative happiness of Westerners versus Pashtun tribesmen by comparing how many migrate to the other’s lands. I’ve met a fair number of Pakistanis and Afghans who have migrated to America. Who migrates from America to Afghanistan or Pakistan in search of happiness, to live a better life? Other than your odd fanatic like Johnny Jihad or Adam Gadahn, not too many.
Hi Tantor
I do not know if you are a real Christian or not but many idiots like you make a mistake by mistaking pashtun wali with Islam. I am a pashtun and am a committed christian I have been in the west for about 22 years now which is most of my life. I have seen both world the muslim and the western world. I have seen the pashtun race and their tribe and what i have learnt is something from both. What Have I learnt? That there are too many ignorant people like you, so I will ask you as a christian who is pashtun and is from the east. Do you know who your real father is? Because millions in the west do not know who their real father is? what can a man learn from that even if you are living in a material paradise.
hey you( ALLAH NOT JESUSE) might be a good christian , but please dont use the word pashton for your self. your grand father might be from pashton tribes but it does not mean that you are also pashton . as you said that you have been in there for 22 years , and it means that you dont know any thing about the pashtonwali , Ghairat ,Nang and etc . Professor Steven know every thing about the pashton tribes but he is not pashton same thing with you.
a pashton is a worrior and fight for the protection of his tribe ,family and land and when he goes away from his tribe for ever he dont remain a worrior and pashton. my english is not good so i hope you understand what i write in pashto below and i will be waitting for your response
پشتونوالی زان ته یو غیرت لری ته یو مرتد یی او د اسلام له دایری چخه وتلی یی او هر سوک چی د اسلام نه خارج شی د پشتو نه خرج دی دا زکه چی اسلام او پشتو سره ترلی دی
که ته ریشتیا پشتون وی نو د یو بشتون په مخکی ووایه چی زه عیسوی یم نو بیا د خپل زان حال وکوره
یو پنجابی هم پشتو خبری کوای شی مکر پشتون نه شی کیدای
نو زما هیله دا ده چی داسی وایی چی زما پلار نیکه پشتانه وه داسی مه وایه چی زه پشتون یم
اغیار وایی چی پشتو د دوزخ زبه ده
زه به جــــنـــــت د پشتو سره زم
Tantor ! leave us to live the way that we want that , if you are trying to change the way of our life than we are ready do die for it , and if you kill thousands of us with modren weapons that you have , some of your bodies well be ship home in plastic bags too.
i know that you will be not able to kill us all .
in the begaining of 2002 the America was just fighting agains the Taliban and Al Qeda , and America was making good progress on that, but when later on they missed up with tribes americans are lossing more parsonels.
we are worriors see our history from the Alexander , the Brithish , Russian and Indians
and you will understand the facts.
Now if the America make the pashtons tribes friend , iam 100 % sure that it will win the war .
i have a lot to say but we are not face to face ,………………………….
Tantor, we’re not merely in a recession- we’re in uncharted waters economically. We can quibble over the particulars but suffice it to say that when our government has nationalised huge chunks of our financial and automotive industries it’s not just a dip on a line graph. I find that to be incredibly important.
As to wealth, I disagree almost completely. The US has largely abondoned creating wealth for the substitute of making money. The two are not the same though they can and do sometimes overlap. I happen to live in one of the few areas of this country which still has a large degree of industry and it’s not a big area. We no longer manufacture much here in America. Instead we play the “value added” game whereby one puts a spin on a product in order to justify raising the cost. To find the secret of creating actual wealth one would be forced to look elsewhere.
To be sure some Pashtuns and other tribal types do emigrate to our country but it isn’t all of them nor have I seen any indication that the vast majority wish to come here. But the big thing here is that you can’t seem to make the mental leap of viewing the world through their eyes and with their values. You see security as necessary to happiness, they don’t. You see material goods as essential, they don’t. You see the safety blanket of big medicine, with it’s pills and surgeries and the easy promise of long life, to be part and parcel with happiness, they most emphatically don’t.
Every culture on earth acknowledges these facets of life and assign them a value. It’s not that a Pashtun won’t give his daughter amoxicillin- he will- it’s that he’s not going to adopt an alien culture to insure a steady stream of it. He’ll wing it. He’ll take his chances, aided and abbetted by family and fellow clansmen or tribesmen, in the great game of life. Sure it’s risky, but so is life.
But they have something that we’ve largely thrown away. Something far more fundamental than all of the material stuff in our society. Jesusnotallah gave you a big hint. They know who they are in a way that we often don’t.
I do not think that a citizen of the US has the right to tell any one else what to do or how to live, especially outside the US. The so called Western-style democracies simply export and impose their ‘values’ on others in order to rape and rule. In cases when the ‘values’ being imposed are rejected by the other party, enters the army, the sanctions, the media, etc., you name it…
Hi andrey
Very good article. Thank God so many people are still awake in your country and not hipnatized by the material lies. 70 percent of afghanistan is in the hands of America. But there is no democracy in those parts. In Hareth side a war world rules and does not pay a single pay in taxes to the government of Afghanistan. In the north one of the biggest murderer and rapist in the history of afghanistan Abdul rashim dostum is ruling its own people and his own sparate government. He is suppose to be under USA. So when will democracy be established in those part which are already with America in afghanistan?
One of the biggest laying game has been played to the unaware people of America in the name of democracy. There is only one women mp in parliament of afghanistan a very brave women she says America has deceived the whole world. Because she also says where is democracy in the 70 percent of Afghanistan where the USA is already supposed to be in control and has been there for the last 8 years? If you read the news papers the British Government is also busy telling its own people lies. They are busy to bring down the pashtun race which they could not subdue when the had the empire they are not bothered about democarcy that is a lie. If democracy why not put democracy in those 70 percent of Afghanistan which is already under USA. But those parts are ruled by the war lords and has their own government. Recently the paki government says that they have cleared swat? To tell you the truth it is far from over because they are still fighting as the fleeing refugees bring more news. This is not about democracy. This is about a single simple race call Pashtun tribe men who for some strange reason every one want to subdue because every one previously has failed. In fact empire has failed to do the job for thousand of years so this time the whole world both the east and west have come to together to control a small poor race? Not about democracy it is all lies and manipulation and holding the real news from people. 143000 Christain lives in Israel under the law of aparthield. America support that law of aparthield against those christian living in Israel where is democracy in Israel for these 143000 christian and who are supporting the oppressors of our christian brothers and sisters in Israel?
watch—- the conveys of death– (all 7 parts) on you tube and you will know what the USA has been involve in already. The USA has shamed the name of our lord Jesus every where. Even the 143000 christian in Israel are affected by it.
hey you
ALLAH NOT JESUS
how come you represnte the pashtons tribes , or how come you write in the behalf of Afghans , even you are not a pashton and not an Afghans your self?
the one whos can speak on the behalf of pashtons tribes are called MALIK which are the head or ealder of the tribe . while you have no tribe you are same for us like other americans or westrens.
what ever you are writting in here is ansult to the pashtons . and i would like you to stop this .
if you called your self some how a pashtun. what was the name of your father tribe?
and what is your name ?
because the last name of a pashtuns usually derived from the name of its tribe
as i said in my other comments that you might have a little bid knowledge about us , but is does not mean that you are also pashtun.
i think you might be Tajik or some body eles
i cant wait for your reply , leave your comments in here or simpley e mail me at asadullah_noorzay@yahoo.com.
So how can tribes mix with the modern world?
I’m not an academic, so take this comment as just something off the top of my layman’s head… but, it seems to me that one of the best books on interacting with tribes is Gregg Mortensen’s “Three Cups of Tea.” Here’s a guy with no political agenda who just wanted to help out one of the North Pakistan/Himalayan tribes that had saved his life after an accident on a K2 expedition. He asked them what they needed and they said: a school. He has ended up helping a lot of tribes in that area to build schools for their kids and probably doing more for US/Pakistan/Afghanistan relationships than anything all the money and political blah-blah that our politicians have done — just like Captains Gant and Harrison that Mr. Pressfield discusses on his blog are doing in Afghanistan. Like them, Mr. Mortensen has made relationships with individuals in the tribes. And in his book he has some lovely descriptions of what it’s like to be a valued friend of a tribe.
Anyway, my point is that I might disagree that the tribes hate education — if what Mr. Mortensen writes is true. It seems that they want to be able to take advantage of the technological and medical advances of the West. But only in their own way and their own time and not at the expense of the cohesiveness of the tribe.
I’m also not sure, like Mr. Pressfield, that our way of life is “better.” I love my gizmos to be sure, but the isolation of modern life in a big city has its discontents.
I am not native speaker of English so please forgive my linguistic mistakes. It is well known that the gap between the western, so called ”civilized”, world and the eastern world is big.It is the very fundamental ideals and principles on which our societies evolved and organized that differ drastically in comparison to the tribal societies of the east. The enlightment and Renaissance that occurred in the western world turned over theocracy and new terms -like personal rights -were put on the table. However, this radical change which occurred as a reaction to medieval obscurantism nowadays is resulting to lack of social cohesion.Modern societies are a celebration of materialism and selfishness.
On the other hand, Islamic world never experienced such a progress.Theocracy is thriving on these tribes and I believe we should think hard why these people never turned progressive.Yes, it is very accurate Pressfield’s point the citizen vs. the tribesman. It is my belief that every attempt of introducing western way of life to these people is destined to fail. For example, Iraq today is an abomination of democracy, a realm of corruption and corporal interests. Is that why people died for? It is time that we put our arrogance away and see what are the problems of western world before we turn against tribalism.