What's Your Tribe
Which tribe do you belong to? It certainly is a fact that we want to belong to a tribe and that starts off with the smallest of tribes which is our family. Then as we grow older we join other tribes. Tribes such as the school that we go to. You learn to compete with other tribes so there are children from other schools that are to some respects, the enemy . Within schools there will be a certain amount smaller tribes within that big tribe also. Tribalism found in the grouping of the swots and the nerds and then there will be the people that like sports. Don’t forget there is the main pair of tribes with male versus female.
Windows versus Apple Mac
One of the latest separations of people now, putting into one Tribe or the other, is down to which computer operating system you use. There was always the rivalry between Apple and Windows and now were seeing that rivalry translated into Apple versus Google with iOS on one side and Android on the other. I have just seen an article by somebody that said it is impossible to do productive work on an Android device compared to what can be done on an iPad. To a certain extent that it is partly true and also it is a biased lie. If you want to write something and to post it onto a blog site, or if you want to take photos and do things with those photographs to publish them, then you can easily do that just as well with an Android device as you can with an iOS device. On the other hand, if you are wanting to do some video work or if you want to record audio then you are better off to be using an iPad or an iPhone. So both sides have advantages and disadvantages and really you have to go with whichever suits whatever you want to do the best.
Switching to iOS or Switching to Android
I have been an iOS user for a long time and for at least five years I was using just Apple products. Then I decided I would like to try out some of the Android devices and I got the Samsung Galaxy S3 telephone. When I first got this device I was very pleased with it and there were a number of things that it could do better than my old iPhone. Then I took it a stage further and I got a Nexus 7 to use as a tablet around the house. Once again I was very pleased with this device and I used it more often than I used my iPad. I like both of these operating systems and now I have to wonder which of these tribes do I belong to? I can see how it looks from both sides of the fence.
Link Baiting
It could well be that this article written by my Internet friend that was heavily biased towards three Apple iOS mobile operating system was written to stir up things. This can sometimes be called link baiting. What you do is to make a statement which is quite radical and you get people from both sides of the divide commenting, attacking or defending one side or the other.
Power, Religion and Politics
Another area of tribalism is religion. Religion is completely divisive and will easily separate one group of people from another. There is a huge history behind the wars and fighting between two religious tribes and people have been prepared to kill in order to say who had the best imaginary friend. I think the world is very badly served by religion and humanity would be far better off without it.
The World of Football
Football – there are many people that will go to extreme lengths to be partisan towards one football team in particular. Where I live there is a huge divide between those that support Real Madrid and those that support Barcelona football club. Those that have the link to Spain and the Spanish way of thinking are the supporters of Real Madrid and then the Catalans will put their support behind Barcelona. As an Englishman living in Catalonia I am quite happy to be a Barcelona supporter. When I lived in Birmingham in England I had the misfortune of being introduced to Birmingham city as a football club to support by my uncle. It was a shame that I didn’t wait a little longer until I was able to go to football games with my friends and I would’ve ended up as an Aston Villa supporter. Aston Villa were always a better team and therefore a better tribe to belong to.
We’re all human beings
Obviously we need to have this sense of belonging and whether it comes from belonging to a group within a school, a family, a religion, a football team or because you are from a particular country. It is, in the big picture of things, quite irrelevant as we’re all human beings. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was no religion and there were no countries and we could enjoy the football game without having to be a rabid supporter of one side or the other. I imagine John Lennon even had some of those things as a wish for the future in one of his songs.
