Tribalism and Assertiveness
Assertiveness is Culturally Dependent
It became very clear to me that the idea of assertiveness is very much dependent on the culture you’re a part of almost immediately, due to the common differences in temperament and self expression I’ve found from people from different countries.
I grew up between the US and Australia, which are very similar cultures. However, what is assertive in the US could be considered aggressive in Australia - although not the other way around. My Filipino friends and relatives were MUCH less shy about expressing their inner thoughts and feelings, whereas my friends and family from England are much more reserved.
So it stands to reason that the ‘rules’ around being aggressive/assertive/passive are going to depend on the cultural standards that you are dealing with. Therefore, the status quo of your culture around self expression, is going to be at least one large variable when learning to adequately express yourself.
We’ll go into individual agency intelligence more in another article, for now we need to establish what this ‘tribal status quo’ is all about, and how it effects us mentally.
An Expensive Organ.
Your brain is the most energy intensive organ you have. The roughly 3 lbs of matter between your ears is responsible for up to 25% of the energy spent in the entire body. This means that you will find the lowest cost of energy expenditure to make the decisions you need to make. The term “cognitive miser” was used to describe this phenomena by Susan Fiske and Shelley Taylor in 1984.
Given we know the brain will save energy any way it can out of necessity: narratives, ideologies, and mental frameworks of any kind will be attractive to the brain in it’s decision making processes.
The brain is making countless calculations on what is and is not important all day. Forget the internet, let’s just talk about what is around you right now.
Right now, I have the laptop, the tv, the couch, the table, the stairs, the sound of the heater, the smell of my business, the temperature of everything around me. My brain is filtering all of those things out so that I can concentrate on writing this article. The filtration process, when you think about it - is really impressive.
If a car were to smash through the front window of my building, my guess is my brain would reprioritize everything to take care of the highest value problem - physical danger. My limbic and amygdala systems will work together to send the right hormones and blood to activate my larger muscles in my legs, butt and back.
Doing this all the time however, would be extremely expensive in terms of energetic output and longevity of the body. So, filtering danger out is a very smart tool for us to have.
Narratives and Ideologies: Energy Saving Devices
Narratives have the ability to organize information in a way that is easy for the brain to understand and remember. This can save the brain energy that would otherwise be spent on trying to make sense of disorganized information. Additionally, narratives often make use of familiar frameworks, such as cause and effect, which can further reduce the cognitive effort required to process the information. Finally, narratives can also provide a sense of coherence and meaning, which can help the brain to quickly identify and prioritize the most important information.
Ideologies provide a framework for understanding and interpreting the world, which can save the brain energy that would otherwise be spent on trying to make sense of complex and chaotic information. Ideologies often present a simplified view of the world that is easy for the brain to understand and remember, and they provide a set of ideas and beliefs that can be used as a mental shortcut for making decisions and judgments. Additionally, ideologies can provide a sense of coherence and meaning, which can help the brain to quickly identify and prioritize the most important information.
So rather than spend a bunch of energy the brain doesn’t need to, relying very heavily on narratives and ideologies helps to navigate an energy expensive, and information rich world.
Tribes and Energy Expense
If you think about why humans organize themselves into tribes - it would appear they do so for very much the same reason.
Being part of a tribe can provide a sense of belonging and social support, which can help to reduce stress and improve overall mental and physical health. Additionally, tribes often have shared norms, values, and beliefs, which can provide a sense of security and predictability in an otherwise scary and unpredictable world.
Humans organize their bodies, and their minds using energy saving mechanisms like tribes, narratives and ideologies for at least one reason in common - brains are expensive to run.
So we have an attraction to mental shortcuts for at least 2 reasons,
To save on energy expenditure
To provide safety and security
The Assertive, Passive Aggressive scale.
When it comes to assertiveness, we can put this kind of energy saving intelligence on the ‘Passive’ side of the Assertiveness scale.
People who are passive in their self expression put the needs of the ‘tribe’ above their need to express themselves. Conflict is expensive. They are not used to spending the kind of energy on something as ‘trivial’ as the things that they want. They can get along just fine without ‘hindering’ those around them with their specific desire.
This is of course successful in creating peace in the tribe, but unsuccessful in getting what you want. Because if you don’t say what you want, or - don't know what you want - it’s very unlikely you’re going to get it.
To be successfully assertive, you are able to say what you need to say within the confines of the rules that your particular tribe adheres to. This can be tricky today because when you communicate online, you can wonder in and out of different tribal rulesets without even knowing.
Confusing the Tribe with the Person
You can be discussing a narrative or ideology today, and a person can get very upset about it. People can often become so upset, that they behave as though they have been attacked personally. This could be due to several factors.
It could be the case that they haven't created adequate separation between themselves and the ideology that they belong to. They will therefore viscerally defend the criticism of the ideology, as they see it as an attack on themselves personally.
Or, it could be that the parts of the brain reserved for ideology are somewhat interchangeable with the parts of the brain reserved for family/tribe.
It is understandable for people to be protective of their family. If your brain equates family and ideology (much the same way the brain equates physical pain with emotional exclusion), you’re also likely to get your panties in a twist.
Finding Common Ground Through Separation
If you come across someone making this mistake in judgment, it might help to point out to them that you’re talking about the ideology or narrative - not them as a person.
It can help them to take this by saying that they are a person and not an ideology.
