We’re tribal. We gravitate toward people, ideas, or things that resonate with us and captivate our sensibilities. It’s a safety mechanism to want to be part of a group, as there is safety in numbers, just as our inclusion makes us feel a sense of acceptance were we are more comfortable to take on tasks that further promote the group identity as a whole. Tribalism is a self-fulfilling prophecy, that provided us the security to culturally evolve over millennia. Yet, where there is one tribe, there is another with competing ideas or beliefs. And, while the world is probably the safest its ever been, we are more at war — not physically, but ideologically — with one another than ever before.

The tribal mentality that paved the way for modernity to take hold seems to be the same thing that is keeping us from taking the next great leap forward to creating a better world. We are all beholden to the tribes we belong to and the beliefs they’re based upon. It’s become our identity. Any thing that challenges those believes is a strike against our identity, so we lash out and double-down. No longer can I share my opinion on one thing, while you hold an opposing opinion, and accept it without a judgement or prejudice on me as a person or my level of intellect. What happened to free thought, openness, aggregation? Isn’t that how we creatively solve novel problems? 

Your ideas equal you, but they shouldn’t define you. You should be a thing that thinks, collects new ideas, through new experiences, by seeking to understand new viewpoints, so that you can develop new strategies. Bruce Lee said it best; “absorb what is useful, discard what is useless and add what is specifically your own.” We’re all too fucking busy defending our beliefs to actually listen to a different viewpoint that may give way to a better course of action. When differing opinions are presented, you should be able to entertain the idea without accepting it, not take offense because it’s contradictory. Yes, there are a lot of stupid people, but denouncing them straight away not only does a disservice to you, but also the other person. You’re both going to want to prove each other wrong, search for studies that confirm your ideological bias and go down the rabbit hole of separateness. 

When you look at anything through the lens of ideology, you have strict boundaries that limit your capacity to be open and accepting of alternative thoughts and a chance to connect the dots in a different way. Maybe it’s a defense mechanism brought upon by the challenge a conflicting idea has on our identity. We’re fearful that all that we have identified with may be wrong. We’d rather be safer in our thoughts, thinking we’re right by defending all opposing ideas, than to entertain something new. But this rigid mentality is only going to keep us from being able to come up with the best path forward.