Thursday, September 1, 2011

Neotribalism?

So, as I search for new concepts in Neopaganism or magick or any pantheons that I don't know too much about, I came across a worldview that was alarmingly familiar to me.
For a little background story, you all remember the hysteria in September 2008 when the stock market crushed and the world was aware of the recession? Well, my father who was into the trading stocks and what not at the time had put it into my mind that this was going to be devastating. I mustered up memories of the pictures I had seen and stories I had heard about the Great Depression, thinking that I would have to pick the apples in the backyard and sell them for money. Of course, three years later, it's not even as bad as all that (albeit, pretty bad). However, during this time, it dawned on me that human beings were just not meant to live in a failed system like this. At first, it had started jokingly. I told everyone I knew that I was going to be a wild mountain woman living off of the land. Then, one of my friends joined in on the joke and said that we could start a tribe and help each other out, like people in the tribes of old. Although it was a joke, it sounded like a brilliant idea to me. This system in which we live in a mass society, where the few have everything and the rest have close to nothing, started to seem unnatural to me. I had learned in a Cultural Anthropology class that people in Africa and the natives of South America had used the same techniques for survival for thousands of years and passed them on their own children. They lived close to the Earth, in harmony with it, and lived in smaller closely knit clusters where the inhabitants helped each other out. These tribes were forced off of their own land by imperialist leaders who insisted that they should be "taxed" like everyone else. Obviously, people who had known tribalism all their lives wouldn't know anything about living in a mass society, would they?
Now, I know people will argue with me about how living in a mass society is somehow better and more efficient or whatever. But answer me this: Why are the techniques for survival always changing in a mass society? Why is it that whatever was "relevant" in our grandparents' day is no longer relevant in our own? That doesn't happen to such a drastic extent in a tribe. Tribes pass down the same techniques for fishing, hunting and horticulture to many generations and they work just fine for their children. While change is something that occurs in every generation of every society, the change that happens in a tribe is a natural and gradual change, not a rapid change that catches older generations off their guard. But somehow, living in a capitalist mass society, what my parents did to survive will no longer work for me. Somehow, my generation is going to financially suffer because I live in such a dog-eat-dog society. That "somehow" can be answered by the fact that most modern societies are now ruled by corporations and a greedy government. Does a tribe, in theory, concern itself with government or corporate greediness? No. Does it have natural concerns of survival? Yes. And according to most tribal inhabitants, that's how it's supposed to be. Now, I'm not saying this is a lifestyle for everyone and that everyone should abandon their customs and comforts from living in a mass society to live in a tribe. I think that if people want to live in a mass society, they should be allowed to, of course. At the same time, don't deny those who want to live in a tribe that right. Nature belongs to everyone. Land does not belong to anyone inherently just because they put a dollar sign on it.
Some people may think it's weird that I support tribalism, yet I used a computer to write about it and I use all kinds of technologies developed by dwellers of a mass society. But the truth is that if I could live off of nothing but the land without worrying about the government trying to tell me that I can't be there, I would. I would abandon technology and social norms and everything that means living in a mass society. But, there are obviously many constraints about that and there's nothing I can do in the United States.



What I just explained here is not necessarily the view of most Neotribalists and may in fact be a more extreme view of that concept. Neotribalists usually embrace or at least grudginly accept modern living and technology in their lifestyle and put more emphasis on a closely knit community that help each other. But, I see a lot of these devices and beliefs of the modern age to be increasingly destructive and counterproductive to survival. So, in a sense, I may in fact embrace the old tribalism more than Neotribalism. If you wanna know more about them, you can visit this website: http://www.neotribalism.net/about.htm
As strange as it seems to refer you to a website to learn about a more natural lifestyle, you will learn more about how I grudgingly accept these modern evils...at least for now. :)

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