The Tribal Imagination: Civilization and the Savage Mind

An examination of the continuing influence of tribalism on how humans think and behave is by times both fascinating and frustrating. Fox (The Red Lamp of Incest), professor of social theory at Rutgers University, applies our savage instincts to explain a wide variety of phenomena, including Middle Eastern politics, religious sectarianism, the 10 Commandments, poetry, and incest taboos. However, it is in the thesis itself that the trouble lies. The author argues that our notions of "human" and "rights" are historically constituted and relatively recent, yet goes on to essentialize his own view of human nature (tribal and antagonistic to strangers). More worryingly, he implicitly places all of humanity on a simplistic evolutionary scale that sees Western democratic societies at the top. The attempt to view so many dimensions of culture and politics through the lenses of an atavistic tribalism oversimplifies, doing little justice to the richness and variety of both the contemporary world and the author's own eclectic interests. (Apr.)