I’d planned to write on war derangement last Thursday, but when the news dropped that Israeli soldiers had killed Hamas-leader Yahya Sinwar, I knew it was best to let the news cycle play out before touching this with a ten-foot pole.
Normally what you say resonates with me but I don't understand this piece.
Tribalism is natural? We can't think past it? Even to the degree where we see mass slaughter of children?
One could just as easily say that this situation of modern warfare is entirely new. It was rarely possible to do mass slaughter on this scale before we had such means. And citizen soldiers often hesitated to do such killings before the era of modern warfare.
These also aren't tribes killing Gazans but two nation states. Nationalism is particularly a recent invention.
I don't know what you mean by 'war derangement.' People reacting emotionally to mass killing are deranged?
I don't quite understand how you got the idea that I was saying tribalism is something we can't think past - but I think the misunderstanding started when you assumed that "war derangement" refers to people responding in horror to the atrocity in Gaza. It does not.
As I wrote:
"In these extreme psychological states, many of us manifest more extreme points of view than we usually would. Bombarded by such traumatic inputs, many lose their sense of empathy, their capacity for calm, and their ability to think beyond binaries."
That's not about the people feeling for atrocity.
This is about the warmongers, and the average citizens who go along with them.
This is about societies with mass media and government propaganda that relentlessly whips up a sense of anger, fear, and tribalist in-group/out-group rhetoric to the point that many individuals struggle to retain their deeper humanity, and any capacity for empathetic response.
The example I focused on was one person teetering on the edge. Jacobson was having a real, human response to the trauma in Gaza, as he sees it nightly on the news... but that real, human experience conflicted too much with his sense of belonging to an in-group he feels the need to defend against all criticism. His confused, Jingoist sense of personal identity makes it difficult for him to have a normal reaction to atrocity. And there are many people like this in our societies. I've certainly seen plenty of them in the last year - people able on one level to recognize atrocity for what it is, but who are too consumed by media and government pro-war, pro-tribalist-in-group messaging to have a more empathetic reaction to it.
I'll leave off there for now, and see if that helps to clarify some of the confusion - but please feel free to reply again, if it does not.
I found his response so revealing. It seemed to me he was one of the few people that remained conflicted between two incompatible world views--one universalist and the other tribalist. And he got stuck there. Most people opted for one or the other a while back. People who saw the situation as he did--that everyone is out to get the Jews--generally went tribalist. For obvious reasons.
When people were going tribalist I would ask them 'but universalism is essential for everyone, especially minority groups that experience persecution. How can you be anti-universalist?'
That was kind of dumb of me. Of course people can contradict themselves! People are not very consistent! As you say, they are being affected by propaganda.
Or maybe they did not plan for it to be a permanent stance. They might save tribalism for emergencies.
Another thing I thought about Jacobson is that perhaps he believes everyone is attacking people for being Jewish and has a great fear of betraying other Jews. This is a common trope where people are constantly called traitors by everyone. The left does it, the right does it, liberals do it, and anti-zionists do it. I assume being a Jew who is a traitor to the Jews is the worst person of all.
I was shocked because it was people I thought shared most of my values, which are universalist. But some don't. They are tribalist. This brings some to the point where they want to see people slaughtered and simply don't care what happens to them. And some have gone deeper and deeper into tribalism, and into strange hateful views that fill me with total horror. I'm not sure what to do as some of these people will always be in my life.
Being stuck as Jacobson seems is not the case for many people I meet. They either become warmongers or they wholly condemn Israel.
I believe there must be another way to be tribal though. I noticed something curious which was more intense people were about being Jewish throughout their life--the less that problem deciding if Palestinian lives mattered happened. Just for friends, colleagues and Jewish people in my family, I suppose. Some are Israeli as well. Most are professors so perhaps slightly inclined to be more universalist? It is the more rational position. It's hard to rationally defend the idea your group matters more than other groups, and one human matters but another person can just be slaughtered even if they are defenseless because they are bad somehow.
As upset as they were about 10/7, I did not see any Jewish people I know wrestle with questions about whether it's OK to drop enormous bombs on civilians or starve civilians to get Hamas. They simply don't think anything Israel is doing is acceptable in any way, and having thought this for the entire year.
I was wondering--maybe because they have been thinking about their identity for a long time, and what it means in this complex world, they already faced this question and wrestled with it and came out on the universalist side before any of this happened? But they see no contradiction with loyalty to their group. It just has limits. Some of these people had parents that survived the Holocaust, and they have a very painful education from their parents perhaps about how nationalism hijacks the brain and killing people for a nation-state can never be acceptable (Though their parents are not anti-zionist--one person I know is sometimes threatened by his mother to leave all her money to Israeli causes if he doesn't toe her line. But maybe his father was the one who taught him these things. Both sides of his family were killed by Hitler. Some of his work involves studies of the Holocaust.)
Whereas I know a couple of people...who did not have Jewish education or experience and their parents were very secular or they only had one Jewish parent--they want full tribal, and are now literally posting videos with Ben Shapiro and even WORSE people on social media.
People I forgot were Jewish, who didn't even have a chuppah at their wedding or circumcise their children or ever celebrate a single high holy day are falling into line with Ben Shapiro and people who had a bris for all their sons and go to Friday night services and so on are furious at them, and feel betrayed by them and by Israel.
This is anecdotal and means nothing about the world except--I think there are some people who have a complicated view about what their identity means vis a vis the world. It seems to mean more being a certain kind of person and affinity for others like you but less that you can kill anyone if your group is threatened. They are very irked by tribalism but still very loyal to their group. So there is a way to be loyal and attached to your identity and people with your identity and not be tribalist.
Oh, Ro, I'm so glad you reached out with your first comment; how else would I have ever gained the gift of this wonderful, rich follow-up reply!
I loved this line in particular: "They might save tribalism for emergencies." Ha! Yes. Like an emergency snack in the ol' survival kit.
In my Western circles (very different from my Colombian circles, where *everyone* knows that war isn't a game and grieves for civilians caught in this atrocity), I've seen a lot of folks who were eager to proclaim themselves Christian Zionist after October 7. By and large, those folks are now twisting awkwardly in the wind between what remains of their Christian charity and this strange antisemitic manifestation of Christianity (which "supports" Jews inasmuch as it supports Israel fulfilling a certain notion of Christian destiny, to the ultimate eradication of Jews in the end).
Also, I've seen a lot of people in general dust off their "War of Civilizations" rhetoric from the last major hurrah for Western Jingoism (i.e., post-9/11 warmongering). These folks quickly and eagerly leveraged October 7 as an opportunity to reanimate a body of anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, "bomb them all back to the Stone Age" sentiments that never really went away. But even many of those folks are now coming to a kind of "midnight of the soul" moment (Lebanon, in particular, seems to have flipped a switch for some), and I'm finally seeing a lot of uneasy quiet where even a few months back they were as enthusiastically engaged in warmongering as all the rest.
I want to say that there will be a difficult reckoning in a few years' time, when these people look back in horror and shame at what they endorsed... but honestly, I also don't really care if folks are later ashamed of their conduct today or not; we don't need their future regret as much as we need their action now.
Beautiful note, too, when you wisely observed that many are "very irked by tribalism but still very loyal to their group[, s]o there is a way to be loyal and attached to your identity ... and not be tribalist." That's what Adler has been able to do - and many others like her - even if she shares a world and identity with people like Jacobson.
That's what many of us do naturally - think universally, think like humanists.
The question that remains is what to do about all the people caught up - either temporarily or more habitually - in a completely different mode of being. When they start to feel internal tension between their empathy and their group identity, there's at least a chance of nudging them toward something more humane.
Thank you so much for this, Ro. Please don't hesitate to push at anything I've written! These are wonderful, constructive chats, whenever they happen. I hope this one finds you faring well.
Normally what you say resonates with me but I don't understand this piece.
Tribalism is natural? We can't think past it? Even to the degree where we see mass slaughter of children?
One could just as easily say that this situation of modern warfare is entirely new. It was rarely possible to do mass slaughter on this scale before we had such means. And citizen soldiers often hesitated to do such killings before the era of modern warfare.
These also aren't tribes killing Gazans but two nation states. Nationalism is particularly a recent invention.
I don't know what you mean by 'war derangement.' People reacting emotionally to mass killing are deranged?
I don't get your main point.
Hi Ro,
Thanks for reaching out with your confusion.
I don't quite understand how you got the idea that I was saying tribalism is something we can't think past - but I think the misunderstanding started when you assumed that "war derangement" refers to people responding in horror to the atrocity in Gaza. It does not.
As I wrote:
"In these extreme psychological states, many of us manifest more extreme points of view than we usually would. Bombarded by such traumatic inputs, many lose their sense of empathy, their capacity for calm, and their ability to think beyond binaries."
That's not about the people feeling for atrocity.
This is about the warmongers, and the average citizens who go along with them.
This is about societies with mass media and government propaganda that relentlessly whips up a sense of anger, fear, and tribalist in-group/out-group rhetoric to the point that many individuals struggle to retain their deeper humanity, and any capacity for empathetic response.
The example I focused on was one person teetering on the edge. Jacobson was having a real, human response to the trauma in Gaza, as he sees it nightly on the news... but that real, human experience conflicted too much with his sense of belonging to an in-group he feels the need to defend against all criticism. His confused, Jingoist sense of personal identity makes it difficult for him to have a normal reaction to atrocity. And there are many people like this in our societies. I've certainly seen plenty of them in the last year - people able on one level to recognize atrocity for what it is, but who are too consumed by media and government pro-war, pro-tribalist-in-group messaging to have a more empathetic reaction to it.
I'll leave off there for now, and see if that helps to clarify some of the confusion - but please feel free to reply again, if it does not.
Oh, I completely agree with you about that!
I found his response so revealing. It seemed to me he was one of the few people that remained conflicted between two incompatible world views--one universalist and the other tribalist. And he got stuck there. Most people opted for one or the other a while back. People who saw the situation as he did--that everyone is out to get the Jews--generally went tribalist. For obvious reasons.
When people were going tribalist I would ask them 'but universalism is essential for everyone, especially minority groups that experience persecution. How can you be anti-universalist?'
That was kind of dumb of me. Of course people can contradict themselves! People are not very consistent! As you say, they are being affected by propaganda.
Or maybe they did not plan for it to be a permanent stance. They might save tribalism for emergencies.
Another thing I thought about Jacobson is that perhaps he believes everyone is attacking people for being Jewish and has a great fear of betraying other Jews. This is a common trope where people are constantly called traitors by everyone. The left does it, the right does it, liberals do it, and anti-zionists do it. I assume being a Jew who is a traitor to the Jews is the worst person of all.
I was shocked because it was people I thought shared most of my values, which are universalist. But some don't. They are tribalist. This brings some to the point where they want to see people slaughtered and simply don't care what happens to them. And some have gone deeper and deeper into tribalism, and into strange hateful views that fill me with total horror. I'm not sure what to do as some of these people will always be in my life.
Being stuck as Jacobson seems is not the case for many people I meet. They either become warmongers or they wholly condemn Israel.
I believe there must be another way to be tribal though. I noticed something curious which was more intense people were about being Jewish throughout their life--the less that problem deciding if Palestinian lives mattered happened. Just for friends, colleagues and Jewish people in my family, I suppose. Some are Israeli as well. Most are professors so perhaps slightly inclined to be more universalist? It is the more rational position. It's hard to rationally defend the idea your group matters more than other groups, and one human matters but another person can just be slaughtered even if they are defenseless because they are bad somehow.
As upset as they were about 10/7, I did not see any Jewish people I know wrestle with questions about whether it's OK to drop enormous bombs on civilians or starve civilians to get Hamas. They simply don't think anything Israel is doing is acceptable in any way, and having thought this for the entire year.
I was wondering--maybe because they have been thinking about their identity for a long time, and what it means in this complex world, they already faced this question and wrestled with it and came out on the universalist side before any of this happened? But they see no contradiction with loyalty to their group. It just has limits. Some of these people had parents that survived the Holocaust, and they have a very painful education from their parents perhaps about how nationalism hijacks the brain and killing people for a nation-state can never be acceptable (Though their parents are not anti-zionist--one person I know is sometimes threatened by his mother to leave all her money to Israeli causes if he doesn't toe her line. But maybe his father was the one who taught him these things. Both sides of his family were killed by Hitler. Some of his work involves studies of the Holocaust.)
Whereas I know a couple of people...who did not have Jewish education or experience and their parents were very secular or they only had one Jewish parent--they want full tribal, and are now literally posting videos with Ben Shapiro and even WORSE people on social media.
People I forgot were Jewish, who didn't even have a chuppah at their wedding or circumcise their children or ever celebrate a single high holy day are falling into line with Ben Shapiro and people who had a bris for all their sons and go to Friday night services and so on are furious at them, and feel betrayed by them and by Israel.
This is anecdotal and means nothing about the world except--I think there are some people who have a complicated view about what their identity means vis a vis the world. It seems to mean more being a certain kind of person and affinity for others like you but less that you can kill anyone if your group is threatened. They are very irked by tribalism but still very loyal to their group. So there is a way to be loyal and attached to your identity and people with your identity and not be tribalist.
Oh, Ro, I'm so glad you reached out with your first comment; how else would I have ever gained the gift of this wonderful, rich follow-up reply!
I loved this line in particular: "They might save tribalism for emergencies." Ha! Yes. Like an emergency snack in the ol' survival kit.
In my Western circles (very different from my Colombian circles, where *everyone* knows that war isn't a game and grieves for civilians caught in this atrocity), I've seen a lot of folks who were eager to proclaim themselves Christian Zionist after October 7. By and large, those folks are now twisting awkwardly in the wind between what remains of their Christian charity and this strange antisemitic manifestation of Christianity (which "supports" Jews inasmuch as it supports Israel fulfilling a certain notion of Christian destiny, to the ultimate eradication of Jews in the end).
Also, I've seen a lot of people in general dust off their "War of Civilizations" rhetoric from the last major hurrah for Western Jingoism (i.e., post-9/11 warmongering). These folks quickly and eagerly leveraged October 7 as an opportunity to reanimate a body of anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, "bomb them all back to the Stone Age" sentiments that never really went away. But even many of those folks are now coming to a kind of "midnight of the soul" moment (Lebanon, in particular, seems to have flipped a switch for some), and I'm finally seeing a lot of uneasy quiet where even a few months back they were as enthusiastically engaged in warmongering as all the rest.
I want to say that there will be a difficult reckoning in a few years' time, when these people look back in horror and shame at what they endorsed... but honestly, I also don't really care if folks are later ashamed of their conduct today or not; we don't need their future regret as much as we need their action now.
Beautiful note, too, when you wisely observed that many are "very irked by tribalism but still very loyal to their group[, s]o there is a way to be loyal and attached to your identity ... and not be tribalist." That's what Adler has been able to do - and many others like her - even if she shares a world and identity with people like Jacobson.
That's what many of us do naturally - think universally, think like humanists.
The question that remains is what to do about all the people caught up - either temporarily or more habitually - in a completely different mode of being. When they start to feel internal tension between their empathy and their group identity, there's at least a chance of nudging them toward something more humane.
Thank you so much for this, Ro. Please don't hesitate to push at anything I've written! These are wonderful, constructive chats, whenever they happen. I hope this one finds you faring well.