Continuation

Before, after and now, we continue to come together as "tribes"...groups that allow for the survival, procreation and safety issues to be enforced as a condition of becoming human.

We look now at what a tribe is all out: small groups, possibly no more than 20-40 individuals of women, men and children of varying ages. Their daily survival consisted of finding food for themselves and their offspring. Helping each other care for the young. Creating a safe place to be during the hours of sleep. And, still, they were preyed upon and faced the hourly threat of death at the force of nature. This scenario played out for millions of years and continues throught the planet.

Think about your own life. In order to have shelter, food and safety for yourselves and your young, your blood and marriage family still play a large part of your lives. They are your small tribe. Then, there is the larger tribe of community. School, church, neighbors, friends, your town/city officials and the police department and every other and sundry person that subscribes to your tribe. Our state and by definition, our country, America, is the largest tribe we belong to in this country. But, we also belong to a larger tribe of human beings, the Western Culture, wherever it appears throughout the world.

Why? Because those of us who are descended from Euopeans who came to the Americas almost five hundred years ago, established the set of rules we lived with until the l960's. We have shared history, values and beliefs. Have we been successful? Yes, most certainly. But, we are also changing rapidly from the past to a new present and our future will be determined not only by how we change and what, but, today we face the wrath of one tribe and its subsets: Muslims.

Again, the Query...why?

I have read several of Jean Auel's "Clan of the Cave Bear" series and she put in book form in much detail what was known and she posited a story based on her research, intuition and common sense about "who" we are that fleshed out my own thesis. Us, you and me and everyone else on this Earth is made up of genetic maps acquired for over 6 million years. But, who we are today is a result of cultural and societal systems that are about 20 thousand years. Societal systems that developed and adjusted and changed over time: concepts of laws, a need for rulers, structured beliefs in God the world around us slowly changed over time.

We survived as a species because we had no choice but to survive. We are today what we are because of what happened to us when we settled down and began to be "citified" and "civilized".
We lost the pure "tribal" identity that served us so well for over six million years ago. The "tribal" identity that allowed us to live, develop and continue.


Are tribes bad? No. They still offer the things we need in order to survive, procreate and be safe, until the last century. Everything has changed.