Everyone is Tribal. No Exceptions.

So said a wise blogger upon calling it quits not so long ago. Perhaps never have truer words been spoken in our politically correct age of multiculturalism, for even the most rootless cosmopolitan who finds it too taxing to muster a smidgeon of loyalty for the home team, at least glows over his or her own Italian or French or Hispanic or whatever parentage. Identity will not be denied - whether we admit or not, each of us is naturally wedded to our own cultural bias, putting the lie to the preachers of postmodernity who proclaim we should value all cultures equally. Impossible, for in spite of our delusions, none of us can actually live and practice it.

As the wise blogger also truthfully blunted: "Some tribes are better than others." Which tribes would those be, I wonder? Well, the open tribes of course, the ones whose tribal impulses are tempered by a free and universal spirit. Long before the rise of Christianity even, it was Greek and Roman Stoics such as Cato the Younger and Epictetus who recognized and advocated the brotherhood of humanity and the natural equality of all human beings. Epictetus, commenting on man's relationship with the world in Discourses, wrote the following:

"Each human being is primarily a citizen of his own commonwealth; but he is also a member of the great city of gods and men, whereof the city political is only a copy."

All great civilisations intuitively embrace this philosophy, which combines the primordial need with the utopian sentiment of Socrates: "I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world." Stoicism became the most influential school of the Graeco–Roman world, the belief that all people are manifestations of the one universal spirit, the distinctive feature of which is its cosmopolitanism. All free societies inevitably lead to it.

So yes, I believe we are all instinctively tribal, that we are all primarily citizens of our own experience. I'm a Canadian of British heritage, living in a mostly cosmopolitanised nation-state containing most of the world's tribes. Naturally it is easy for me to accept that my tribal chief is also the chief of tribes, that the seat of traditional authority remains the British Queen. For those still disappointed about this stubborn fact, may take heart that the eclipsing power and prestige of my tribe is now all but dead, and all that remains are the uncelebrated fruits of the Britannic inheritance. Like the Greeks and Romans, we have been done in by our own worldly success.