Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging by Sebastian Junger

(New York: Hachette, 2016), 165

  • Tribe: the people you feel compelled to share the last of your food with (xvii), or the people you would help feed and defend (110)
  • "Humans don't mind hardship, in fact they thrive on it; what they mind is not feeling necessary. Modern society has perfected the art of making people not feel necessary. It's time for that to end."
  • He discusses Europeans living native lives but never the reverse: Native life supported egalitarianism because property was limited to what could be transported by horse or on foot (14)
  • Agriculture and industry changed two fundamental things: personal property allowed people to make individual choices and these choices diminished group efforts toward the common good
  • Poverty forces us to share time and resources with each other and leads to closer communities (20-21)
  • Self-determination theory: human being need three things to be content: feel competent at what they do, feel authentic in their lives, feel connected to others (22)
  • Modern society reduces the role of community and elevates the role of authority (25)
  • The Blitz: "When people are actively engaged in a cause their lives have more purpose with a resulting improvement in mental health" (49)
  • "What would you risk dying for and for whom is perhaps the most profound question a person can ask themselves. The vast majority of people in modern society are able to pass their whole lives without ever having to answer that question, which is both an enormous blessing and a significant loss." (59)
  • Sarajevo: "We didn't learn the lesson of the war, which is how important it is to share everything you have with human beings close to you." (70)
  • "The human concern for others would seem to be the one story that, adequately told, no person can fully bear to hear." (76)
  • "If war were purely and absolutely bad in every single aspect and toxic in all its effects, it would probably not happen as often as it does. But in addition to all the destruction and loss of life, war also inspires ancient human virtues of courage, loyalty, and selflessness that can be utterly intoxicating to the people who experience them." (77)
  • Parenting: Group sleeping has been the norm throughout human history, our modern style of sleeping alone in separate rooms is new (94)
  • "When you fraudulently claim money from the government, you are ultimately stealing from your friends, family, and neighbors. That diminishes you morally far more than it diminishes your country financially." (112)
  • Cultural ceremonies help us communicate the experience of one group to the wider community: we need to create these types of opportunities for veterans (121-122)
  • Surprised by two things coming back home to America (125)
    1. shock at the level of comfort and affluence we enjoy
    2. realization of the contempt we hold for each other and how we're almost at war with ourselves
  • "Acting in a tribal way simply means being willing to make a substantive sacrifice for your community—be that your neighborhood, your workplace, or your entire country." (131)

Topic: Community

Source: Cory, Jordan

Bibliography

Created: 2022-05-09-Mon
Updated: 2023-01-07-Sat