It is now widely accepted that the fundamental unit of hereditary is not the species, or the tribe, or even the individual. It is, in fact, the gene. Oxford biologist, Richard Dawkins, elaborated on this in great detail in his book, The Selfish Gene. Organisms are gene-machines: their sole purpose is to ensure the survivability of the genes into the next generation. Those genes that help the organism survive last longer in geological time than those genes that destroy the organism. Every slight advantage a gene confers is of enormous consequence to the survivability of the individual.
However, this does not detract from the nature v/s nurture debate: Are we who we are because of our genetic make-up, or because of our socio-cultural upbringing? Adding to the fray is the problem of epigenetics: where external or environmental factors affect which genes are turned on or off in an individual.
The question now is why are humans so tribal in their thought and behaviour? The widely accepted answer from natural selection is that humans evolved in the rough savannahs and over millions of years. Individuals with genes that owed loyalty to the tribe lived longer and had more offspring that those individuals that didn’t have a sense of group loyalty and therefore lived in tribes that were easily decimated by rivals or environmental disasters.
We mustn’t forget the role of memes in the shaping of tribal behaviour. Memes are non-biological units—such as an idea, value, or pattern of behaviour—that is passed from one person to another by non-genetic means, such as by imitation. Those tribes with memes that encouraged fierce tribal loyalty were more likely to survive than tribes that didn’t.
Today our tribes have swollen to nations. Instead of pledging their allegiance to the tribe people pledge it to their nation. Instead of showing loyalty to the tribal chief they show it to their king, queen, sheikh, czar, or warlord. Tribal songs have given way to national anthems; war paint has given way to camouflage fatigues; and machetes have given way to guns.
Living in the 21st century, in our urban, multicultural, digitally interconnected world, people are apt to believe that we have sloughed off our primitive tribal baggage. We’d like to believe most of us are sophisticated, literate, and urbane individuals who have contempt for racism, patriotism, and war-mongering.
To an extent and after a fashion, this is true. Many educated city dwellers are no longer tribal as we were in the past. However, we have evolved in our tribal behaviour to keep up with the online, virtual world we now inhabit in cyberspace.
Consider the Dunbar number. This is a cognitive limit imposed by our evolutionary history on the number of meaningful and stable relationships an individual can maintain. This number usually hovers around 150. Tribes in the past rarely got bigger than this before they broke off and split into new tribes. It is essential that tribes don’t get too big if there are to remain a tightly knit cohesive unit. This Dunbar number maybe transposed onto the internet. People may have hundreds or even thousands of “friends” on Facebook, for instance. However, most of them are acquaintances, many of them friends of friends, and a fair few distant relatives. The Dunbar number holds for Facebook too.
Sticking with Facebook, not infrequently, people have a tribal response to whether or not they will “like” a page or a post: Once a threshold of ‘likes’ is crossed, a post or page will generate even more likes and posts. This is not dissimilar to what happens when a pop single gets into the top ten in the charts and immediately becomes even more popular by virtue of being in the top ten. (Psychologists have also noted something similar in audience applause. Once a critical number of people start to applaud at the end of a talk, the rest join in.)
Many tribes of the past were rooted in similar religion and similar language. This explains the plethora of languages in Papua New Guinea, especially in the highlands. These tribes were separated by thick inaccessible jungle. And so, each tribe evolved its own language. Something similar is happening online.
Twitter is fertile ground for the observation of online tribal behaviour. Tweeters are forming tribe-like in-groups that may be identified by their distinct language. Another defining characteristic of twitter-tribes is the topic of discussion. While some tribes will tweet predominantly about Justin Bieber; other tribes will predominantly tweet about Obama.
A strong basis on which tribes were formed in the past was religion (consider the twelve tribes of Israel). Facebook groups allow for the formation of online tribes that revolve around a similar idea or belief system. Vaccination-sceptics tend to like, follow, or share pages and posts by fellow vaccine-sceptics. So, their newsfeed is filled with news that is amenable to their worldview. Religious users tend to do the same with post or pages that are complimentary to their beliefs. So what we have are huge online tribes that are formed based on what information they choose to receive and what information they choose to ignore. In cyberspace, these tribes can flit and skirt each other by harmlessly. But the disagreement comes to the fore in the real world when these tribes are forced to interact (for instance, when choosing an electoral candidate in a presidential election). Some Twitter-tribes predominantly prefer to use LOL, lol, or : ) . Others tend to use <33. These are almost digital versions of crosses, skull-caps, and other religious symbols that help distinguish different religions.
The tribes of the internet and the new ecosystem
We can look at cyberspace as a new ecosystem for our species in which information is ubiquitous and easily available. Lee Rainie, Direct of the Pew Internet Project, talks about the nine tribes of the internet, but they’re more categories than tribes:
Digital Collaborators have all the gadgets and devices, they’re always on broad-band, and are constantly sharing their creations. They love technology and are enthusiastic about connecting with others.
Ambivalent Networkers have integrated technology into their lives, but feel it’s a bit of an intrusion. They use ICT for entertainment, many of them are gamers. They feel obliged to be connected, because they can’t afford not to be.
Media Movers are the sharers of interesting content. They don’t necessarily create new material, but they can be counted on to re-tweet or share memes, digital content, and other information nuggets.
Roving Nodes are always on the go with their mobile devices, but feel fulfilled by the basic social networking apps available to them (emails, texts, Facebook status updates). However, they rarely blog or create content.
Mobile Newbies are recent acquirers of technology and new converts. They like the idea of technology and being interconnected, but are still taking their first wobbling steps on the information highway.
Desktop Veterans tend to be older and are content to access the internet from a stationary desk and not necessarily on the mobile devices. They still use their phones primarily for phone calls.
Drifting Surfers have access to broadband and mobile phones but are not frequent online users and aren’t big fans of mobile connectivity. It wouldn’t bother them too much to not have regular access to the internet.
Information Encumbered users suffer from information overload and don’t have a positive opinion about technology. They still rely on old media to get information.
Tech indifferent users don’t care one way or the other about technology. Though they have access to phones and the internet it doesn’t make an impact on their life.
Off the net users have no phones or access to the internet. They tend to be old and have low incomes.
Seth Godin in his book Tribes, describes tribes as any group of people, large or small, who are connected to one another, a leader, and an idea. But the question is, who are the leaders of our online tribes? Tribal leaders can no longer be the traditional alpha male barking the pack into submission. 21st century online leaders of tribes need to be more sophisticated and subtle than that. They need to build relationships and closely observe the response of their online tribe. But more important than that is a recognition that people want to be led. A million years of tribal life conditioning implies that the vast majority of people have an impulse to follow a leader. The key for an online leader is to appear to offer something stylish and new. And though they come with different personalities, what they have in common is the desire to change things, the ability to connect members of a tribe, and the willingness to lead. They create a culture around their goal and involve others in that culture. They have an extraordinary amount of curiosity and communicate their vision of the future. And most importantly, they connect their followers to one another.
Mathieu O’Neil, author of Cyberchiefs, points out that we’ve invented new ways of working together on the internet. Production is now decentralized and thrives on weblogs, wikis and free software projects. Being a cyberchief means acknowledging this and supporting maximum autonomy for the participants and followers. Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Wikis and other web 2.0 platforms allow for a democratization of information-sharing in the public sphere.
So as we morph into Homo connectus or Homo digitalis the question is how do we preserve the spirit of freethinking, promote critical inquiry, and enhance the values of the age of enlightenment? How do we stay wary against the opinion of the herd and guard against being assimilated into the hive mind? Because after all is said and done, our individuality is what makes us unique. But is that something we’ll have to give up as we live in an increasingly connected world?
