Tying Loose Ends

Posted by Curtis Gale Weeks, 7 Feb 2007

A common theme, or call it a common question, frequently resurfaces in our little neck of the Blogospheric Woods, amazingly emergent wherever the discussion turns toward an examination of the future of humanity:  Shall there be tribes; if so, will they be networked or largely insular; or does globalization ultimately eliminate any sort of identifiable tribalism?  Discussions inspiring these question often range from topic to topic which themselves remain insular (they are not always considered together), and the definitions we use are often obscured or fuzzy.  We do not always agree on terms.  Unfortunately, our disagreement means that our attempts to come to some mutual understanding of the relevant issues are often also fuzzy, if not entirely hostile in an incoherent way.

One such fuzzy term requires further analysis: “primary loyalties.”

Primary Loyalties


I’ll admit to a bias.  I do not think that the term, primary loyalties, is aptly used by John Robb:

A primary loyalty is a connection to a non-state group that is greater than loyalty to a state. These loyalties include those to clan, religion, tribe, neighborhood gang, etc.

[“Primary loyalties”, 03 February 2007]
While the counterargument could suppose a selfish gene that demands absolute loyalty, I would not go so far but rather promote the idea that primary loyalty is always to the self or to the individual person.  I would make corresponding claims that a natural, hard-coded impulse for self-preservation is the cause of this primary loyalty.  I might be wrong.  Although I do not believe altruism is much of a counteractive force, I do believe that other hardwired impulses compete against self-preservation:  e.g., a human parent’s devotion to the survival of her child.  We may find many exceptions to such loyalty, however, not only within the mythical “Me Culture” assumed to exist within America.  Occasionally, even love between two unrelated individuals may appear to usurp the impulse toward self-preservation; as may self-abnegating heroics, in the case of firefighters and policemen and very good samaritans in general; but these are special cases, surely, and I think that the primary loyalty is still to the self in such situations:  It is our own sense of right and wrong, of good and bad, or of immediate necessity, that determines how we will act, not social pressures telling us what to do in the moment.

In a way, the loyalty-to-self is not necessarily a result of an impulse to self-preservation, but may instead be a result of other hardwired realities, such as our inability to escape our own individual OODA processes.  Then, even the impulse to self-preservation, if it is genetically coded within the individual, is expressed in loyalty-to-self simply because that genetic information continuously feeds into the Abstract OODA process of the individual, a process the individual cannot escape, and takes its place (amonst other observations and mental constructs) in determining an individual’s Concrete Acts.  So maybe I would be wrong to connect this real primary loyalty merely to the impulse for self-preservation, and maybe the selfish genes do have great sway.

The definition of primary loyalty John Robb has given arises as a consequence of not really looking at the bottom, even if he includes in his description Richard Feynman’s assertion, “there’s plenty of room at the bottom”, and concludes his description by prophesying:  “Look to globalization to accelerate/catalyze this race to the bottom.” He stops short of looking at the bottom; perhaps he has not found it.  I find the consequential consideration a little humorous, that the theory archtypically opposed to John Robb’s Global Guerrillas Theory, Thomas P.M. Barnett’s Blueprint for Action, could almost be described as an attempt to “accelerate/catalyze this race to the bottom” but may have a concept of “the bottom” more like mine.

Other Loyalties

Alas, the primary loyalty is often obscured, not only for abstract theorists who like looking on a global scale, spinning theory out of observation of group dynamics, but also for individuals living upon that globe.

Other recent Blogospheric discussions relate:

   Religion or State?


Wiggins in fact gives poll results which would seem to contradict John Robb’s prediction:

Between 2004 and 2006, the number of Iraqis who supported the idea of an Islamic state fell from 30% to 22%.

The number agreeing that religion and politics ought to be seperated rose from 27% to 41%.

The number of respondents who put their Iraqi identity ahead of their Muslim one rose from 30% to 60%.

And last but certainly not least, the number of Iraqis agreeing that it was “very important” for Iraq to be a democracy rose from 59% to 65%.
The third metric in particular would seem to suggest that there is, in fact, a “race to the top” — at least ideologically if the actual manifestation seems no closer to happening.  On the other hand, the fourth implies a “race to the bottom” if we consider “bottom” to be the self, or an individual, and suppose that the desire for democratic reforms is a desire to protect and empower the individual in relation to other individuals and groups.  The second metric might suggest the same thing, if religious affiliation is thought to be a personal decision and not something to be instituted by a central authority.

Dan has offered a generalization of the three primary monotheistic religions:

Judaism can accurately be described as a Religion of Life because the focus is on the promulgation in this world of offspring of Abraham and Sarah…. Christianity can accurately be described as a Religion of Love because the focus in on the promulgation of loving kindness as described by Jesus and Paul…. In contrast, Islam can accurately be described as a Religion of One Ruleset, the Koran, in opposition to all others. The only proper Rules are those that spread the Ruleset….

It is fair to say that Judaism is Tribalist, Christianity is Ideological, and Islam is Totalitarian. Not in some particular implementations, but in their meaning and purpose.

These are abstract interpretations based on particular tenets, and they have occasioned some doubt, most recently from “Michael” in the comments section who has wondered,

…what was the strength that the Christians lent to the [Roman] empire? … But you briefly mentioned Christian warriors. If the strength the empire gained was a new source of motivated troops, then the strategies you described weren’t being used…. Assuming the strength of the Christians was on the battlefield, was it just a matter of their deciding not to follow their own rules for a while? Were they following explicit rules other than the ones you mentioned?

I.e., the abstract description of Christianity as a “Religion of Love” does not mesh well with the actual historical Christianity.  Christians in the army did not “turn the other cheek” and love their neighbors, but killed their foes on the battlefield.  The implication is that Christianity may have begun as a “religion of love” but became corrupted through interaction with the Roman system.  I wrote a comment in answer to Michael, importing ideas from the anthropologist Marvin Harris, which he gave in his book Our Kind:

The Roman Empire gained citizens who cared much less about earthly rewards or avoiding suffering — suffering was indeed a test of faith, “Christly” — which made dying on the battlefield less of a concern.  Christians who died defeating heathen invaders would be rewarded with heaven in the afterlife.  But also Rome did not need to gain the loyalty of Christians by overseeing their welfare.  Given the size of the Roman empire, managing the welfare of all its citizens proved too complex, particularly as populations grew and resources diminished.  A citizenry accustomed to seeing suffering and poverty as a test of faith would not be as likely to blame the central government for these things; suffering was a private, personal matter quite related to one’s own spirituality.  Also, a citizenry that was leaning toward Christianity was a citizenry less likely to revolt; they’d be “turning the other cheek” and living in “meekness”.  However, Christian leaders worked with Constantine to ensure that Christians in the common classes were indeed protected, in order to preserve the meek classes benefiting Rome.  As Marvin Harris wrote,

“Not only did he stop the persecution of Christians, but he confiscated the treasures and estates of the old Roman gods and godesses, turned them over to Christian bishops to build new churches (sometimes with the stones of the old temples), and established imperial funds to indemnify Christians for their suffering and for expenses incurred in feeding the poor. Constantine changed the whole legal structure of the Empire to accommodate Christian principles. He permitted celibates to inherit property, prohibited divorce, condemned concubinage, forbade gladiatoral games, and prohibited animal sacrifice. One of Constantine’s most important acts was his legalization of bequests to the Church. As Robin Lane Fox points out, this was a particularly sensitive issue ‘because of the clergy’s special presence at the moment of death.’ “


This made the Church economically independent from the state, vitally and dynamically, but more importantly, this shifted oversight of the welfare of the people to the Church from the state, i.e., shifted dependencies.  The Church had an additional advantage over the state:  It could use redistribution of wealth to help the needy, and thus gain their loyalty, but because it was also the highest earthly authority of God, it could also define the level of suffering required for salvation. The two metrics for determining loyalty were co-operative.  The question of what happened to (1) the doctrine of turning the other cheek and (2) the prediction that the meek would inherit the Earth is a good question, given the rise of the Roman Catholic hierarchy and the eventual militarization of Christianity.  It would seem that the early Christian bishops sold those doctrines to the highest bidder:  The mass of Christians would not fight Rome, but fight for Rome, provided that Rome shared power; but to every non-Christian state, the meekness would not be offered.  In time, the highest bidder might be England, or France, or any Christian European state that would share power.  Meanwhile, the self-interest of individual Christians in Europe, their primary loyalty, required at least an overt display of loyalty to Church and Country, if not a deep loyalty to one or the other or both — for a time.

   Economic Man or Communal Man?


Mark Safranski has posed an interesting question in the title of his post, and I suppose that any consideration of the so-called primary loyalties also ought to include a consideration of the real primary loyalty.  As is typical for those of us ruminating on global dynamics and/or group dynamics, the tendency to stop short of the bottom is a symptom of trying to see the general outline of the Woods because viewing every single individual tree is too difficult:

Setting aside Ikle for the moment, Thomas Barnett or any other thinker who attempts to put an intellectual template on a global system is required to engage in simplification of complexity. It is, as James correctly states, a ”one-size-fits-all” model and not the underlying reality in all its’ nuances and interconnections. At best, a valid model identifies common operating principles and provides a rough predictive capability, considering those principles acting in isolation. As reality is messy, policy makers being guided by any model need to exercise some degree of common sense. Pakistan is not India, much less Indiana, and while markets may exist in all three, the wise statesman makes wide allowances for local variation. The variations however, still have a common touchstone.

The title of his post appears to have been a simplification of the real primary loyalty, viewed through the lens of politics and economics, which he would oppose to the so-called [not bottom!] primary loyalties.

The post has developed into an excellent discussion.  Part of the discussion concerns how we should define “tribes.”  Are they voluntary or not voluntary?  Lexington Green thinks they are not, but I commented by saying that such a description obscures the process of tribalization.  Not only may heretics and rebels willfully renounce tribal affiliation, but even now choosing to join a generally oppressive tribal system occurs.   Lex gave an example of gangs, in which one might choose to join but have difficulty leaving; and I thought that was on the right track.  It reminded me of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s comment that, “Every thought is also a prison; every heaven is also a prison.” —

Change heaven to haven, and the process of tribalization becomes more meaningful. Whether born into a tribe or choosing it, the interconnecting support systems and controls within a tribal system produce a kind of prison from which extrication seems either too difficult to attempt or else undesirable.
Now I would say that the personal OODA loop leads to the unquestioned validity of a tribal system, for those in the tribe; or, to an understanding that trying to leave it would have greater costs than staying within it; or even to an inability to see it, much less question its desirability or validity.

The sort of armchair theorist only looks at the larger picture, the things that have appeared to emerge, and draws abstractions and generalizations from what he has seen from that distance; and this process almost invariably dismisses the reality of individual “free agents” from the picture.  They are too small, too numerous, too various.  Tribes, states, and so forth become self-reinforcing entities to be juggled within the theory.  Usually, the juggling includes a model or framework of some sort and predefined arcs: called, in discussions like these, networks.

I have spent some time trying to dissuade theorists from depending upon such theorizing.  Complexity demands a better style of viewing, because complex systems are the result of many lesser forces operating confluentially.  The apparent emergent realities may be quite temporal as these smaller forces for a time align in a given pattern.  In a complex social system, the operation of so many individual OODA loops cannot be easily mapped.

However, this difficulty presents problems not only for the armchair theorist, but also for the operative on the ground: the individuals living amidst the complexity.   Whereas relatively rigid modes of operating, strict guidelines and well-defined channels for expressing power, may have been stultifying, globalization by offering more choices may be confusing, particularly for those who have spent a lifetime building a life in the Old Ways™.

An OODA process accustomed to a well-defined, rigid environment may not allow comprehension of alternative methods for building a life, may not even be able to see alternative modes and methods; or else, seeing them, may inspire dread at the prospect of the emergence of a system which appears to require alternative methods which have not been learned by the individual.  So there may be an initial “rush to the [not real] bottom.”  This is really “going with what you know”, and to the degree that such a tribal system may support your most basic needs, it may be an attractive place to stay. Identification with a tribe also means being able to predict how other members of that tribe will act and react under particular circumstances, to the degree that common mental constructs have formed; this allows for some contractual assurance in general dealings with members of the tribe, or trust.  So Bret Stephens’ oped in WSJ, quoted in Wiggins’ post, is interesting in light of this theoretical aligning of abstracts:

“Something basic has changed,” [Mithal al-Alusi, Iraqi member of parliament] says, noting that the terrorism that once was directed against Israel and the West has lost its cache on the Arab street now that Muslims have become its principal victims.

Multiple choices may also offer multiple escapes from such an environment, it’s just a matter of being able to do a cost-benefit analysis, which requires being able to see those choices and being able to understand them as well as being able to follow them without too great a risk.  Mark was on the right track when he said,
Defusing psychological anxieties over identity, moving society beyond subsistence level to a point where risk-taking could be more safely entertained, helped transition Europeans into the abstract mental framework of the nation-state citizen, rather than that of a subject of a provincial nobleman.
I say, on the right track, because the safety required for entertaining the idea of taking a risk is not much explained.   Moving beyond subsistence levels is not the whole story.  In fact, being able to find alternative methods for subsistence may have played a larger role.  This is where capitalism and trade played a key role as well as religion, ultimately in the form of a diversification of enterprise and the mobility offered by trade and a continent-wide Church:  the merchant coming from a distant land nonetheless could profess faith in Jesus Christ; meanwhile, diverse ethnicities intermingled during the transaction.  I would suggest that a balance between religious homogeneity and cultural heterogeneity led ultimately to the limitation of atavistic tribalism.

I can understand the criticism, in comments on the Chicago Boyz post, of Thomas Barnett’s proposal for forcing the issues, and have criticized his theories before in the same vein —

We can make excuses that some ethereal “environment” forces our hand, but we should not so disingenuously claim, as Barnett appears to claim in the above passage, that PNM theory is anything other than a top-down theory of management.  True, the existing map is not quite beneficial for America, and may “demand” our action; but let’s be clear that we are addressing our own interests.  They are our prime concern.  Gap, Seam, and New Core nations may not share these concerns as fully, if at all.  But merely because we can claim to see a less-than-beneficial, existent, organic lay-of-land, to which we react, this is not an argument that our blueprints are also entirely organic.  If we can finally navigate the rhetorical sleights-of-hand, maybe we will begin to see why others persist in navigating them as well, opposing us in our design work.
— but the more general principles he addresses daily on his blog mitigate the very real effort to mobilize the U.S. to take a dominant role in initiating his plans.  As he explains again and again, he is delivering a vision, more than a hegemonic blueprint for world domination.  Essential to his theory is the assumption that individuals given greater opportunity for mobility will have less reason to act violently:  they’ll be too busy building their own lives to worry about destroying the lives of others.  Is his vision a vision of a tribe-less world?  I’m not so sure it is.  Missing from the vision and the blueprint is any definitive sight or plan for mitigating the confusion caused by a sudden explosion of choices offered to individuals living on the globe.  I.e., there is the assumption that most people will figure things out on their own, once the choices have been offered to them.  Well, the hypothetical ‘Global Guerrillas’ are figuring it out on their own, if we’re to believe John Robb.  Plus, in a world of static, so many competing visions may easily emerge and may mobilize large groups; people rarely see the Whole Picture visionaries claim to see, but make up whole pictures that just happen to be quite limited but self-serving.

I suspect, however, that the impulse toward security and stability will trump the destructive impulse, and that ultimately the real primary loyalties will lead to faith in secondary, tertiary, etc., loyalties to groups that offer dependable and long-lasting support of the prime.  Individuals will have multiple loyalties (as they do already.)  These groups will not be able to ensure such a thing while they remain openly at war with one another, however — unless they are using a more advanced form of 5GW, i.e., one conducted almost entirely in the realm of abstraction.

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