What Tribe do you belong to?

[Elizium23]

I am son of God, and brother to the Risen Christ, and brother to all who believe in Him. That is tribe and family. There is no other.

Unfortunate wording. I am sure you don’t mean you are Jesus. Perhaps you meant to write “child of God”.

 

[Sarcelle]

Somewhat, but I think that’s overblown. I’ll say more on that, but first “my tribe”. Catholic, southern mountain American of European descent who, despite having no English ancestors, treasures the English language.

I believe there are politicians who, for their own purposes, want to divide Americans into tribes so they can appeal to the narrow interests (as perceived or artificially imposed) of those sub groups and to their prejudices.

But I also think it’s largely artificial and extremely bad. Now, I think everybody who thinks in “tribal” terms would consider American blacks to be a “tribe”. But how much of a tribe are they really? They speak English. The read the same histories everybody else does. They do essentially the same things everybody else does. They dress the same, pretty much. They eat the same food pretty much. They want the same kinds of houses. They mow their lawns just like the rest of us do to get that “English country manor” look. They’re nearly all Christians. How much of a real “tribe” is that? In west Africa they would just be considered Americans and (due to more admixture than most think) most would be considered “white”.

Hispanics, then? Sure, Cuban-Americans in Florida have some music and some dishes peculiar to them, though others have adopted some of it. They speak English, go to the same schools, etc, etc, etc. If you met a Marco Rubio on the street would you think he belongs to a different “tribe”? No, you wouldn’t.

Non-Cubans, then, perhaps? Well, I have known Mexican-Americans with Texas “white man” accents, and Oklahoman Mexican-Americans that have that “cowboy” sound peculiar to people living west of Tulsa. There are millions of Mexican-Americans and other Hispanics who really and truly have “blended in” to the society as a whole. Sure, this family prepares a “truly” Mexican dish (not Tex-Mex, that’s American) Some struggle to keep the younger generation from completely losing Spanish as a language. But by and large, they do the same things the rest of us do.

Poles? Russians? Macedonians? In one generation they’re more like me than they are like people from the “old country”.

But perhaps the most imperiled thing that keeps there from being “tribes” in America is the concept that there is a rationally-founded, objectively meritorious means of government and mores outside myself that must be followed. Politicians, as I said, try to “tribalize” us into subjective ways of viewing what government ought to be doing and how we ought to act.

Good point with the African Americans. People assume I am Muslim due to my ethnicity. Ethnicity does not always equal religion.

I think of myself first a subject of Christ’s kingdom, whose earthly manifestation is the Catholic Church and hopefully still a subject of Christ’s kingdom in the world to come.

 

[BartholomewB]

As far as I am aware, I don’t think I’ve ever belonged to any tribe.

 

[CJsmommy]

Born and bred Chicagoan going back a few generations. Fully Catholic Chicagoan pretty soon (also going back a few generations ).

 

[Captain_America]

Oh, I know enough history—and I’ve taught college history—to know the variety of subgroups in the US/North America, and so forth.

What’s different today is that we lack a social space we all step into; we have, when we investigate our values and belief, many completely conflicting visions of what constitutes justice, the good society, the just society. We lack a shared vision, and some of the visions that the various North American tribes have are at a war which cannot be resolved.

 

[beleg]

A Texan Catholic - with Catholic as the noun, and Texan as the adjective.

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

“If you were born in a stable, would that make you a horse?”–Old Hungarian saying.

I was born in Hungary and probably descended from the Magyar Tribe. They were a group of barbarians who never seemed to conquer anything.

I came to America as a teenager because I wanted to get a job in Disneyland. I Joined the “American Tribe”, or became an American Citizen,…by CHOICE. That is my identity and I am proud of it.

 

[Ridgerunner]

“If you were born in a stable, would that make you a horse?”–Old Hungarian saying.

I was born in Hungary and probably descended from the Magyar Tribe. They were a group of barbarians who never seemed to conquer anything.

I came to America as a teenager because I wanted to get a job in Disneyland. I Joined the “American Tribe”, or became an American Citizen,…by CHOICE. That is my identity and I am proud of it.

Don’t be so modest. The Magyars conquered Hungary, didn’t they, and half ruled the Habsburg Empire? Remember Maria Teresa going to the Hungarian nobles to get support against Frederick the Great in her most desperate hour, and receiving it? Besides, a Hungarian wrote “Hunyadi Lazlo” and still make Essencia.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Oh, I know enough history—and I’ve taught college history—to know the variety of subgroups in the US/North America, and so forth.

What’s different today is that we lack a social space we all step into; we have, when we investigate our values and belief, many completely conflicting visions of what constitutes justice, the good society, the just society. We lack a shared vision, and some of the visions that the various North American tribes have are at a war which cannot be resolved.

I entirely agree. Tocqueville noted a very much shared vision among Americans. While we are not as insistent on idiosyncratic “values” as (I am assured) Europeans are, the tendency in the last century and a tenth is away from the objective and the rational to the subjective and worship of the self and the “values” of self.

I recall one waggish comment by a philosopher that the only thing presently saving America from the European diseases of relativism and nihilism is that Americans are too bourgeois and superficial to truly absorb them. Might be some truth to that.

On the other hand, there is a substantial segment of the population; perhaps as great as 40% that believes in objective truth that can be arrived at rationally and is, yes, based on the conviction that religion is a reliable foundation for belief. For such people, belief that there really are “truths” that are “self-evident” and that human rights based on such truths are “endowed by our Creator”, is not simply a collection of DWEM myths.

On the whole, and notwithstanding the current fever swamps of relativism which could dry up in time, a reasonably admirable tribe, this one.

 

[Sarcelle]

“If you were born in a stable, would that make you a horse?”–Old Hungarian saying.

I was born in Hungary and probably descended from the Magyar Tribe. They were a group of barbarians who never seemed to conquer anything.

I came to America as a teenager because I wanted to get a job in Disneyland. I Joined the “American Tribe”, or became an American Citizen,…by CHOICE. That is my identity and I am proud of it.

I have a friend who was born and raised in Hungary and left during the time of the Cold War. He settled in Hawaii, married a Hawaiian woman and raised a family. Later on when the Iron Curtain fell, he was able to contact his parents and siblings in Hungary again. They all laughed at him when they heard him try to speak Hungarian. They said he acquired an American accent.

 

[LongingSoul]

Myself and family still strongly identify with Celtic rooted Catholicism Australian style and that’s reflected in the names that continue to come through strongly in every generation… Michaels, Patricks, Kierans, Daniels, Annies, Kathleens, Kerrys etc. I married into an Italian family but my kids seem to be more interested in their Irish roots.

 

[Sarcelle]

“If you were born in a stable, would that make you a horse?”–Old Hungarian saying.

I was born in Hungary and probably descended from the Magyar Tribe. They were a group of barbarians who never seemed to conquer anything.

I came to America as a teenager because I wanted to get a job in Disneyland. I Joined the “American Tribe”, or became an American Citizen,…by CHOICE. That is my identity and I am proud of it.

The Hungarians left big footprints in the sciences. Tesla comes to mind.

Come to think of it, most of my engineering professors in grad school were Hungarian.

 

[Captain_America]

We’re all just in this one big airport terminal sitting in our own chairs.

I think it’s post-United States.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

I’m post-American; society is too split apart in our times to really say there’s an American society or culture. I identify as English-speaking Catholic.

There’s never been a unified American culture. There have been people of differing languages, religions, and philosophies that were divided among these and many other attributes since before the nation was formed.

 

[Potter]

I am a son of the South, whose American loyalty is to the Jeffersonian ideal. On another level, though, and perhaps a deeper one, my tribe is Christendom. By this I don’t necessarily mean the global Christian church, though of course I attached myself to it, but more specifically to the culture which prevailed in Europe for so many centuries – that combination of classical philosophy, Christian revelation, and local customs. Even when I was nonreligious I held ‘western civilization’ in what can only be described as veneration.

 

[Captain_America]

There’s never been a unified American culture. There have been people of differing languages, religions, and philosophies that were divided among these and many other attributes since before the nation was formed.

No this is wrong. There has been a generally accepted “Americanism” over the years and at one time it was even “codified.” Some germane comments above.

 

[on_the_hill]

There’s never been a unified American culture.

My whole life I’ve heard jokes and disparaging remarks about American culture (or lack thereof)…but first, let me say that it annoys me a little bit but it’s a trifle, so don’t get the wrong impression that I’m ranting about your post.

However, these remarks and jokes were almost entirely from my fellow Americans.

I think if you would ask someone from nearly anywhere else in the world they would most definitely be able to pick the American out of a crowd of people, figuratively and literally speaking.

 

[LongingSoul]

My whole life I’ve heard jokes and disparaging remarks about American culture (or lack thereof)…but first, let me say that it annoys me a little bit but it’s a trifle, so don’t get the wrong impression that I’m ranting about your post.

However, these remarks and jokes were almost entirely from my fellow Americans.

I think if you would ask someone from nearly anywhere else in the world they would most definitely be able to pick the American out of a crowd of people, figuratively and literally speaking.

http://rs15.pbsrc.com/albums/a357/T...D55-B42D-EA072FA85D75_zpszsdurigt.jpg~320x480

(Hoping On the Hill is in a humourous mood today!! )

 

[on_the_hill]

How’d you get a picture of my neighbors?

 

[Captain_America]

. . . and where’s my ukulele?