Recommended Reading & Viewing

Charles Cameron:

December 3rd, 2012 at 4:22 am

Hi Zen:
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I’ve now got my review copy of Gregory Johnsen’s book on Jihad and Yemen, reviewed by the NYRB in one of your links above, and — all other considerations aside — it’s really well written and a pleasure to read. I see people comparing it to Wright’s The Looming Tower, and I’m not surprised.  I hope to review it here in the not too distant…
 

zen:

December 3rd, 2012 at 4:30 am

Excellent, Charles! I look forward to hearing your take on it!

morgan:

December 3rd, 2012 at 8:24 pm

Methinks David Ronfeldt protests too much. His article would be just as relevant if he substituted “Democrats” for Republicans. The Democrats are busy creating their own tribes to maintain and increase their power. And they pay their “tribal members” for it with goodies such as food stamps and other governmental subsidies and bailout. And talk about vilifying their opponents? MSNBC and the mainstream media can show Fox News and talk radio a few tricks. They too, are a major tribe of the Democratic Party–a very critical one at that. His article just shows me that he is a liberal democrat crowing over the elections results.

Dave Schuler:

December 6th, 2012 at 6:11 pm

Thanks for the link, Mark.
 
BTW, I think there’s abundant evidence that it’s possible to make one’s mind a complete blank while simultaneously campaigning for the Senate.

david ronfeldt:

December 6th, 2012 at 6:13 pm

mark — many thanks for the plug(s).  also, i much appreciated the pointer to bartlett’s article in the american conservative.  his emphasis on “epistemic closure” overlaps neatly with my emph on excessive tribalism.
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aha, uh-oh, a comment to deal with:
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morgan — i shall continue to protest, methinks.  most repubs i know who’ve read my piece have reactions like yours (some of which unwittingly confirms their own tribalism).  yes, dems have tribal aspects too,  it’d be interesting to do a comparison.  but i’m not up to it.  in brief, tho, my view remains that the dem leadership and pro-dem media are not as tribalized as the repub leadership and pro-repub media, nor are the former as tightly (clannishly?) bundled together.
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I’d like to see a de-tribalization in both parties (though not too much, for a bit can be beneficial).  i think the repubs would benefit a lot more.  abandoning that warlord-patrolled anti-tax pledge would be an advisable step for enhancing strategic and tactical maneuverability.
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oh, btw, i’m a budding quadriformist, not a lib dem. — onward, david

Madhu:

December 7th, 2012 at 4:39 am

@ dave ronfeldt:
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But if there is Tribe A and  Tribe B and you write a piece criticizing Tribe A. when Tribe A protests, how is that evidence that Tribe B is more tolerant? Wouldn’t you have to write a piece criticizing both tribes and see how each react for that logic to be valid?
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The clannish or tightness might be exaggerated by the smaller size of the tribe, too. If one tribe is currently larger, then by definition it cannot see more clannish. But I hear you say, that’s just the point.
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Perhaps. But with tribes it’s the excommunicated that tell you a lot. Having been within both tribes at one point or the other of my life, it’s not fun to be on the outs with either, I can tell you. Very harsh to the excommunicated are the partisans on either side….
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The signing a pledge ensuring conformity seems like better evidence. Evidence on the other side might be more in the cultural or social realm. I think the tribalisms are more pronounced politically in one side, socially on the other.
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Everything seems very tribal and irritable to me these days – in all spheres – but that may be my own happiness on the periphery talking. I can’t see myself going back to the nonsense of either side any time soon. I want to be my own person, my own woman. I feel suffocated by either tribe. Dunno. Might be a personal hangup. 
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So I kind of agree with both you and Morgan, it seems.

Madhu:

December 7th, 2012 at 4:43 am

By suffocated, I mean that certain topics of enquiry and thinking are off-limits and if you express an off-limit thought, your motives are questioned, your very being. Socialist: right, Racist: left?
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But I don’t have much energy for this sort of stuff anymore. I don’t think I much care. I’d like, John Robb-like, to discover new things and move one…. 

Madhu:

December 7th, 2012 at 5:02 am

Maybe one current societal tribe is the tribe of the “I only hang out with people like me,” so that, if you are in such a crowd of whatever stripe, it feels very smug and circular.
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My favorite tribe to make fun of (I think it really shows) is academia and academics. Child of an academic, so I think it’s natural that I should find great fun in campus life and academia and think tanks. I’m not sure I’m entirely fair, about it, but I’m not sure I’m entirely unfair either.
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Maybe my tribe is the permanently “sit in the back of the classroom and make fun of everybody tribe?” Hmmm, the topic is wonderfully expansive! 

david ronfeldt:

December 11th, 2012 at 3:58 am

hi madhu — i enjoyed your remarks! — onward, david