The essence of the tribal mentality is that it makes the tribe as such the supreme good and denigrates the importance of the individual. It tends to view individuals as interchangeable units and to ignore or minimize the significance of differences between one human being and another. At its extreme, it sees the individual as hardly existing except in the network of tribal relationships; the individual by him- or herself is nothing.
Plato, the father of collectivism, captures the essence of this perspective in the Laws, when he states, “My law will be made with a general view of the best interests of society at large … as I rightly hold the single person and his affairs as of minor importance.” He speaks enthusiastically of “the habit of never so much as thinking to do one single act apart from one’s fellows, of making life, to the very uttermost, an unbroken concert, society, and community of all with all.” In ancient times, we think of this vision as embodied in the militaristic society of Sparta. In modern times, its monuments were Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Between the ancient and the modern, we think of the feudal civilization of the Middle Ages, in which each person was defined by his or her place in the social hierarchy, apart from which personal identity could hardly be said to exist.
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The essence of the tribal mentality is that it makes the tribe as such the supreme good and denigrates the importance of the individual.
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Tribal societies can be totalitarian but they need not be. They can be relatively free. Control of the individual can be more cultural than political, although the political is always a factor. What I wish to point out here is that the tribal premise is intrinsically anti-self-esteem.
It is a premise and an orientation that disempowers the individual qua individual. Its implicit message is: You don’t count. By yourself, you are nothing. Only as part of us can you be something. Thus, any society, to the extent that it is dominated by the tribal premise, is inherently unsupportive of self-esteem and more: it is actively inimical. In such a society the individual is socialized to hold him- or herself in low esteem relative to the group. Self-assertiveness is suppressed (except through highly ritualized channels). Pride tends to be labeled a vice. Self-sacrifice is enjoined.
Some years ago, in The Psychology of Romantic Love, I wrote about the lack of importance attached to emotional attachments in primitive societies. Love, as a celebration of two “selves” in union, was an utterly incomprehensible idea. I argued in that book that romantic love, rationally understood, requires self-esteem as its context—and that both ideas, romantic love and self-esteem, are foreign to the tribal orientation.
Anthropological studies of primitive tribes still in existence tell us a good deal about early forms of the tribal mentality and its perspective on what we call “individuality.” Here is a rather amusing illustration provided by Morton M. Hunt in The Natural History of Love:
By and large, the clanship structure and social life of most primitive societies provide wholesale intimacy and a broad distribution of affection; … most primitive peoples fail to see any great difference between individuals, and hence do not become involved in unique connections in the Western fashion; any number of trained observers have commented on the ease of their detachment from love objects, and their candid belief in the interchangeability of loves. Dr. Audrey Richards, an anthropologist who lived among the Bemba of Northern Rhodesia in the 1930s, once related to a group of them an English folk-fable about a young prince who climbed glass mountains, crossed chasms, and fought dragons, all to obtain the hand of the maiden he loved. The Bemba were plainly bewildered, but remained silent. Finally an old chief spoke up, voicing the feelings of all present in the simplest of questions: “Why not take another girl?” he asked.
Margaret Mead’s well-known study of the Samoans shows likewise that deep emotional attachments between individuals are very foreign to such societies’ psychology and pattern of living.2 While sexual promiscuity and a short duration of sexual relationships are sanctioned and encouraged, any tendency to form strong emotional bonds between individuals is actively discouraged. If love is self-expression and self-celebration, as well as celebration of the other, think of the self-esteem implications of the Samoan orientation—or of its spiritual equivalent in contemporary “sex clubs” in New York City.
In the mores regulating sexual activity in primitive cultures, one often encounters a fear of, even an antagonism toward, sexual attachments that grow out of (what we call) love. Indeed, sexual activity often appears acceptable to most when the feelings that prompt it are superficial. “In the Trobriand islands, for instance,” writes G. Rattray Taylor:
Adults do not mind if children engage in sexual play and attempt precociously to perform the sexual act; as adolescents, they may sleep with one another, provided only that they are not in love with one another. If they fall in love, the sexual act becomes forbidden, and for lovers to sleep together would outrage decency.3
Love, if it occurs, is sometimes more severely regulated than sex. (Of course, in many instances there is not even a word for “love” in any sense approximating our own.) Passionate individual attachments are seen as threatening to tribal values and tribal authority. Again, think of the implications for self-esteem.
One encounters the tribal mentality again in the technologically advanced society of George Orwell’s 1984, where the full power and authority of a totalitarian state is aimed at crushing the self-assertive individualism of romantic love. The contempt of twentieth-century dictatorships for a citizen’s desire to have “a personal life,” the characterization of such a desire as “petty bourgeois selfishness,” is too well known to require documentation. Modern dictatorships may have a better grasp of individuality than did primitive tribes, but the result is that the hostility is more virulent. When I attended the First International Conference on Self-Esteem in Norway in 1990, a Soviet scholar remarked, “As Americans, you can’t possibly grasp the extent to which the idea of self-esteem is absent in our country. It’s not understood. And if it were, it would be condemned as politically subversive.”
What is interesting about modern Japan is that it is a semifree society whose tradition is tribal and authoritarian while containing within itself some liberal forces thrusting toward greater individualism and freedom from the constraints of old ways. Here is Jonathan Rauch commenting on the “older” aspect of Japanese culture:
There is a disturbing side of Japan: a traditional, preliberal side. The baseball teams often train their players to the point of pain and exhaustion on the grounds that this will build strength of spirit. In high school hazings, underclassmen are humiliated and bullied on the understanding that they will get their own turn at bullying when they become upperclassmen. In the ever-present Japanese seniority systems, the young suffer and pay their dues and learn to endure and accept and later inflict the same. The bully-worshipping portion of Japan is only one sector of the rich and diverse Japanese moral geography. Yet I was not in Japan a week before this sector had drawn my attention and seduced me with its vaguely fascist magnetism…. As it happened, I had been recently reading Plato, and when I saw the traditional Japanese values—strength through suffering, strength through hierarchy, strength through individual submersion in the group—I recognized what I beheld…. No one would have admired the traditional Japanese values more than Plato, who would have seen in them the gleaming Sparta of his dreams.4
Some years ago I had a Japanese teacher of aikido as a psychotherapy client. He had moved from Japan to California at the age of twenty-two. He said, “Japan is changing, sure, but the weight of tradition is still very heavy. The idea of self-esteem barely exists, and it’s really something else there, not what you write about, not what I understand and want for myself. There, it’s all tied up with a group thing—family, the company, you know, not really the individual. I saw my friends struggling with the issue, not knowing how to put it into words. I came to the States because I like the greater individualism. A
lot of people are crazy here, you know, really mixed up—but still, I think there’s a better chance to develop self-esteem here.”
My point is not that the Japanese culture in its entirety is unsupportive of self-esteem. The culture is far too diverse and contains too many conflicting values for any such proposition. The elements alluded to above are indeed inimical to self-esteem. There is much in Japanese culture that discourages autonomy, as is generally true of tribal cultures. But there are other elements whose psychological effects are positive. A high regard for knowledge and learning. An understanding of the importance of being fully accountable for one’s actions and commitments. A loving pride in work well done. In cultures of high diversity, it is more useful to think of the implications for self-esteem of specific beliefs or values rather than of the culture as a whole.
What one can say as a generalization is that tribal cultures discount individuality and encourage dependency and to this extent may be characterized as unfriendly to self-esteem.
The Religious Mentality
In California, when educators introduced self-esteem curricula into the schools, the most fervent opponents were Christian fundamentalists. They denounce such programs as “self-worship.” They argue that self-esteem alienates children from God.
I recall, many years ago, a Carmelite nun speaking of her training. “We were taught that the enemy to be annihilated, the barrier between ourselves and Divinity, was the self. Eyes cast down—not to see too much. Emotions suppressed—not to feel too much. A life of prayers and service—not to think too much. Above all, obedience—not to question.”
Throughout history, wherever religion has been state enforced, consciousness has been punished. For the sin of thinking, men and women have been tortured and executed. This is why the American idea of the absolute separation of Church and State was of such historic significance: it forbade any religious group to use the machinery of government to persecute those who thought or believed differently.
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Throughout history, wherever religion has been state enforced, consciousness has been punished.
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When beliefs are arrived at not by a process of reason but by faith and alleged revelation—when there are no objective criteria of knowledge to appeal to—those who think differently are often perceived by believers as a threat, a danger, capable of spreading the disease of nonbelief to others. For example, consider the typical religious response to atheism. If one has arrived at belief in God through some authentic personal experience, one would imagine that an appropriate response to those not similarly advantaged would be compassion. Instead, more often than not, the response is hatred. Why? The answer can only be that the atheist is experienced by the believer as a threat. Yet if the believer truly feels not only that God exists but that God is on his or her side, then it is the atheist, not the believer, who should receive kindness and sympathy, having lacked the good fortune to be touched by the experience of Divinity. (As it happens, the Bible sets the precedent for this lack of benevolence; we are told Jesus threatened those who did not believe he was the son of God with an eternity of torment. And in the Koran, Mohammed is no more merciful toward nonbelievers. Religious support for cruelty toward those who don’t agree with one has a long history.)
Of course the issue is deeper than theism versus atheism. For thousands of years men have killed other men in the name of different notions of God. Terrible religious wars were between people all of whom called themselves Christians.
Historically, not only has traditional religion generally set itself in opposition to science, it has also condemned most personal mysticism—because the mystic claims direct, unmediated experience of God, unrouted through religious authority. For the traditional religionist, the mystic who operates outside the orbit of the church is too much of an “individualist.”
My purpose here is not an examination of the impact of religion as such, but only religious authoritarianism as it manifests itself in a given culture. If there are religions or specific religious teachings that encourage the individual to value him- or herself and that support intellectual openness and independent thinking, then they are outside the scope of this discussion. My focus here is on the effects for self-esteem of cultures (or subcultures) in which religious authoritarianism dominates, in which belief is commanded and dissent is regarded as sin. In such situations, living consciously, self-responsibly, and self-assertively is proscribed.
It would be a mistake to let one’s thinking on this point stop at Islam or Roman Catholicism. Luther and Calvin were no friendlier to the independent mind than was the pope.
If, in any culture, children are taught, “We are all equally unworthy in the sight of God”—
If, in any culture, children are taught, “You are born in sin and are sinful by nature”—
If children are given a message that amounts to “Don’t think, don’t question, believe”—
If children are given a message that amounts to “Who are you to place your mind above that of the priest, the minister, the rabbi?”—
If children are told, “If you have value it is not because of anything you have done or could ever do, it is only because God loves you”—
If children are told, “Submission to what you cannot understand is the beginning of morality”—
If children are instructed, “Do not be ‘willful,’ self-assertiveness is the sin of pride”—
If children are instructed, “Never think that you belong to yourself”—
If children are informed, “In any clash between your judgment and that of your religious authorities, it is your authorities you must believe”—
If children are informed, “Self-sacrifice is the foremost virtue and noblest duty”—
—then consider what will be the likely consequences for the practice of living consciously, or the practice of self-assertiveness, or any of the other pillars of healthy self-esteem.
In any culture, subculture, or family in which belief is valued above thought, and self-surrender is valued above self-expression, and conformity is valued above integrity, those who preserve their self-esteem are likely to be heroic exceptions.
In my experience, what makes discussions of the impact of religious teachings difficult is the high degree of individual interpretation of what they mean. I have been told on occasion that none of the teachings given above really mean what it sounds like it means. Many Christians I have talked to assure me that they personally know what Jesus Christ really meant but that, alas, millions of other Christians don’t.
What is inarguable, however, is that whenever and wherever religion of any kind (Christian or non-Christian) has been backed by the power of the state, consciousness, independence, and self-assertiveness have been punished, sometimes with appalling cruelty. This is the simple fact at which one must look in weighing the cultural/psychological impact on individuals of the religious authoritarian orientation. This does not mean that all religious ideas are necessarily mistaken. But it does mean that if one looks from a historical perspective at one culture after another, one cannot claim that the influence of religion in general has been salutary for self-esteem.
The subject of religion tends to provoke strong passions. To some readers, almost every sentence in this section may be incendiary. My colleagues in the self-esteem movement are understandably eager to persuade people that there are no conflicts between the self-esteem agenda and the precepts of conventional religion. In discussions with religious critics, I myself have sometimes asked, “If you believe that we are the children of God, isn’t it blasphemy to suggest that we not love ourselves?” And yet, the question remains: If the fundamentalists have gone on the warpath about the introduction of self-esteem programs in the schools because they believe such programs are incompatible with traditional religion, is it possible they are not mistaken? That is a question that must be faced.
If, as is my hope, the six pillars will one day be taught to school-childre
n, well—has any religious orthodoxy ever wanted a people fully committed to the practice of living consciously? And will boys and girls (and men and women) of high self-esteem accept Protestant theologian Paul Tillich’s assertion that everyone is equally unworthy in the sight of God?
The American Culture
The United States of America is a culture with the greatest number of subcultures of any country in the world. It is a society characterized by an extraordinary diversity of values and beliefs in virtually every sphere of life. And yet, if we understand that we will be speaking only of dominant trends to which there are any number of countervailing forces, there is a sense in which we may legitimately speak of “American culture.”
What was so historically extraordinary about the creation of the United States of America was its conscious rejection of the tribal premise. The Declaration of Independence proclaimed the revolutionary doctrine of individual, inalienable rights and asserted that the government exists for the individual, not the individual for the government. Although our political leaders have betrayed this vision many ways and many times, it still contains the essence of what the abstraction—America—stands for. Freedom. Individualism. The right to the pursuit of happiness. Self-ownership. The individual as an end in him- or herself, not a means to the ends of others; not the property of family or church or state or society. These ideas were radical at the time they were proclaimed, and I do not believe they are fully understood or accepted yet; not by most people.
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What was so historically extraordinary about the creation of the United States of America was its conscious rejection of the tribal premise.
The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem Page 34