A Social Experiment on Tribalism
There once was a land with two warring tribes, the Coldwinds and the Prancers. The two tribes had a messy history of war and peace, feuds, distrust, cooperation, intermarriage, and every other typical interaction.
In a weird turn of events you parachute into their territory and must quickly decide who you wish to live with before a choice is made for you. Luckily, a group of scholars have been studying these two tribes for years. Despite its lengthy history, they also have a section devoted to the present state and culture of each tribe. You read it frantically before time runs out. While reading you learn the following:
Tensions are currently high between the two tribes, and sometimes violence and small skirmishes erupt. In the present period, the Prancers instigate the violence much more so than the Coldwins.
The Prancers are unable to understand the Coldwins. They view the Coldwins and their ways as an inferior group who are rampant with evil. They think they are primitive and uneducated. The Prancers would be very happy if all the Coldwins died, accidentally or on purpose. The Coldwinds however, are able to understand the Prancers’ way of life and culture. Even though they don’t like the Prancers, and think poorly of them, they tolerate their existence, don’t want to see them all dead, and think they are wrong and unwise in their culture, rather than evil.
The Prancers speak more about taking care of the least of their tribe than do the Coldwinds. However, the Coldwins actually take better care of the least in their tribes than do the Prancers. The Coldwins give more of their substance to the poor than do the Prancers.
The Coldwinds are actually the happier of the two tribes, as the Prancers have been observed to weep more openly and sometimes compete to see who could cry the longest and the loudest.
The Prancers do think of themselves as superior, and more pure than the Coldwins, probably due to their inability to comprehend a different culture. They constantly vilify the Coldwins and use slurs against them.
When the two sides have recently tried to negotiate, the hostilities rise quickly, usually with the Prancers accusing the Coldwins of evil, using a slur, and when the Coldwins try to reply, the Prancers resort to screeching and howling to drown out the voice of the Coldwins. This they justify because they claim the Coldwins will manipulate some of them by merely speaking, it appears to be some sort of magical superstition for the Prancers. While there are cases of tribal members switching tribes. The Coldwins do not appear to have magical speaking powers.
So which tribe should you join? The clear answer is the Coldwins. They aren’t perfect and probably don’t have everything you want in a tribe, however, they are not the Prancers, who seem to be overly tribal, closed minded, and hypocritically arrogant.
The only question is: if you made the decision to join the Coldwins, why are you still voting Democrat?
