Tribe and Community

[cjsmith]

A friend posted a question about the words Tribe and Community. What do they mean, and what would you do for members of your Tribe? Here is my answer.

Above all, Tribe means people I trust. (While some people consider Tribe to mean something close to "family", "family" is a loaded word with me, so if I try to use that in a definition or analogy I don't get far.) So anyway, trust. Tribe also means people I care about and would miss deeply were they gone. I would stretch myself a lot to help someone in my Tribe who needed it. Someone may be part of my Tribe at one time in my life but not another, for a variety of reasons that could include but don't have to include angst or drama.

I'm still looking for my Tribe. So far, I think it's got three people in it, two of whom may or may not consider me Tribe in return. Any of this could change. Life has a way of handing that out.

I consider Community to be a group of people who have something in common, anything from simple physical location to odd sexual interests, and who communicate with each other (about that thing or other things). They may not be friends; usually they're not. I may not trust or respect them; often I don't even know them well. Chance made this grouping. However, I may have common cause with them, and I try not to piss them off.

Comments

[kineticphoenix.livejournal.com]

You have my permission to link to my entry. I'm glad you're continuing to expand the discussion!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Thanks! edited, link added.

[quasigeostrophy.livejournal.com]

I think I use only a slightly more loose definition, in which you (and by extension, rfrench) would be in my tribe. I never really use that term specifically, though, but have used "chosen family" for similar. The trust and help parts are key - totally agree there. And even though I consider a few people in my tribe who are far away (such as y'all), I figure if there is something I can do, I will, or if I was closer, other help would definitely be more available. (And don't take this as a need to reciprocate if you don't consider similarly - no indirect communication is being attempted here. ;-)

I haven't ever really considered Community in the sense you define. It's harder for me to feel involved in that way. I generally have Acquaintences, Friends, or Tribe. I guess it applies, though. I've just never looked at it that way. Maybe I am antisocial. :-)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I almost never use the word Tribe either, but because the question invited me to think about what it meant to me, that's what went in the entry. Like you, I have used "chosen family". I don't use it often.

There's definitely another category in between "community" and what I've here called "tribe". There are lots of shadings of the word "friend". One of those shadings involves some level of trust and willingness / desire to help, and you'd definitely be in there, despite the fact we've barely met in person. A different shading of "friend" involves someone I don't know well but do see frequently and feel generally well disposed towards. :-) Obviously, the way I use the word "friend" is pretty vague!

[quasigeostrophy.livejournal.com]

Given how you describe that middle ground between community and tribe, I think we're alike in who we put there and why. And I definitely agree with different classifications of friend within there - some of those you give as an example I'd have put on the closer end of the acquaintance continuum based on my original reply.

Labels drive me crazy. ;-)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Yeah, labels. They're useful, except when they're not. I like labels and I stick them all over EVERYTHING and then I figure out new ones and have to pull all the old ones off, which gets tiring and sometimes the label falls apart and leaves gummy stuff behind so I try to just cover it up with the new one, but that trick never works. (And I am not silly.)

[quasigeostrophy.livejournal.com]

Eww, gummy stuff!!

(And I am not silly.)

*snerks to self*

[firecat]

I'm terribly confused about all the labels that designate human groupings. I don't use the term "tribe," myself. I have parents, out-laws (aka in-laws), sweeties, and good friends (people who've been in my life for many years). These relationships are pretty reliable. But they don't all know each other well, so they don't fit my definition of tribe.

There are other people I think about a lot even though I don't see them or communicate with them very often. Then there are people I interact with when I hang out where I hang out. Some of those hang-out places create community, but some don't. (To me, a community of people has to share not only a common interest, but also a common "culture.")

I don't expect those people to go out of their way to help me, but sometimes I am surprised.

[yoak.livejournal.com]

I don't use the word, "tribe" myself, except perhaps to designate groups that are traditionally described with it or that perhaps self-describe in that way (e.g. a particular native american tribe), but what connotation I do have of the term really rubs against the grain of what you and others in this thread are saying.

The feeling I get from "tribe" is that it is the most broad unit of societal organization, usually at a level of cultural development where this organization tends to be highly local. Tribe is level of social organization. It is the level at which taboo is defined. To the extent that there is social rule and social imposition of ethics, it is at the tribal level. Leaving one's tribe is at least traumatic, potentially dangerous and, at least in the less developed cultures that usually are described by the term, probably fatal and almost certainly unthinkable. In tribal cultures, banishment from tribe is often the most dire punishment. At the very least, being outside of your tribe makes you a stranger, an outsider who rather than claiming the right of known and established mores, taboos, etc., must abide by those established by others. My tribe shakes hands. His bows. If I go where his tribe dominates, politeness dictates that I do it his way. If he visits my tribe, we're more likely to consider him polite if he makes an effort to understand and conform to our ways. That sort of thing.

The notion that tribe is a chosen grouping, probably very small, and having as essential characteristics such things as trust or love seems to me to be at best poetic metaphor. It seems like such would be a recognition of the fact that modern technology has caused the level of social organization that I'm describing to encompass not hundreds, but millions of people, and with this broad change comes a withering of the concept of tribes, and further a desire to re-create it, in a sense, to regain some of the sense of closeness, propriety, shared interest, etc. Though I can see the value in that, "tribe" still seems to be an odd word to attach to it. If you think of what are clasically called tribes, the element of choice in membership is an odd characteristic, let alone a highly selective one like what you've described.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I should have noted that this was in the context of a group of people who commonly redefine the word to mean something like "chosen family" or, basically, "people I like a lot and would help and would probably expect help from". This word "tribe" would be at best a derivation loosely related to its earlier meaning(s). Given that context, I talked about how I would define it in my own life.

I don't use the word that way myself. In conversation, in that context, I could use it as described above. In general, I'm not much into deliberately redefining words to fit what I wish they meant. I'd rather invent a new one. Less confusion that way.

[yoak.livejournal.com]

Ah, that makes a lot more sense. :-)