Christian Reader thinks Brian Barrington might be engaging in "Tribal Apologetics"

A READER WRITES: A popular suburban myth has it that when asked, many primitive tribes identify themselve simply as "The People." They assume that their own tribe is set apart from all others, that they are human in some innately superior way.

I thought of this after reading Brian’s post called "tribal mentality versus humanist mentality”. Brian begins his post as follows:

"Humans can broadly be divided into two types - those with a Tribal Mentality and those with a Humanist Mentality. Both mentalities exist in most people to varying degrees."

Brian is a smart fellow, and presents his argument with grace and wit. My question is, could his argument ultimately be an exercise in tribal self-justification?

The term "humanist" often can describe a tribe, rather than the cosmopolitan brotherhood Brian refers to. It may refer to a (1) late Medieval movement in literature; (2) the vaguely progressive "Enlightenment" project and its modern disciples; (3) "secular humanism" in the sense set out by Paul Kurtz, for example -- the assumption that there is no God, death is the end, but we should therefore care for ourselves and for others (which itself splits into hundreds of tribes); or (4) the assumption that "all men (and women) are brothers & sisters . . . no man is an island." (5) There is also something called "Christian humanism," a subset of 4.

I think Brian may have a good point about psychology types. But I am wondering if he confuses some of these meanings, and philosophical positions that he happens to hold, and social groupings that he happens to feel comfortable in, with the characteristics of a nascent psychological Ubervolk -- "We are the people."

As a Christian, I feel I can identify with people of all ideological tribes, Marxist, Buddhist, Hindu, neo-Platonist, Stoic, Muslim, or, yes, secular humanists, on many levels. We are all created in the Image of God. We are all sinners. And each of these ideologies carries some implicit shadow of the divine Logos, some "seed of the Word," that as a Christian I affirm and respect. While I think it is necessary to fight Osama bin Laden, I don't question his humanity, and we might be able to talk (if one of us were held captive by the other, maybe) a common theological language that would seem foreign to many "cosmopolitan" humanists.

So what is the relationship between skepticism and humanism? Is there any relationship? Might there sometimes be an inverse relationship, and those who are most inclined to see all humanity as one, be those who reject materialism, or even political liberalism?

BB SAYS: I think the Tribalist\Humanist distinction is an attempt at a personality distinction, not unlike the extrovert\introvert distinction. Introverts and extroverts are found in most groups. So are Tribalists and Humanists. Now, there are Christian introverts and Christian extroverts. Similarly, there are Christian Tribalists and Christian Humanists. And the same can be said of most large, diverse complex societies and groups.

Now, your question is: can you have a Tribal Humanist? Well, can you have an introverted extrovert? You can’t.

Personality theorists think there are five big personality distinctions: introvert\extrovert; agreeable\disagreeable; conscientious\not conscientous; stable\neurotic and open-to-experience\closed-to-experience.

The Tribalist\Humanist distinction is closest to the closed-to-experience\open-to-experience distinction. People with low scores on openness tend to have more conventional, traditional interests, they prefer familiarity over novelty, they are loyal to their own group. People with high scores tend to be the opposite. This is not an exact parallel with what I mean by Tribalist and Humanist but perhaps there is some overlap.