A Modest Thought Experiment

To gain an insight into human behavior, try this thought experiment:

Assume that humans are tribal territorial animals … whose tribes are based on beliefs … and who defend their beliefs as fiercely and irrationally as their territory; then imagine how humans would behave if this assumption were true.

After you have done so, compare your expectations with mine …

· Humans would compulsively form tribes and subtribes, each based upon a separate set of beliefs.

· The beliefs could be any kind of beliefs – nationalistic, to form nationalistic tribes, political, to form political tribes, religious, to form religious tribes, or secular, to form secular tribes.

· Tribes whose beliefs did not conflict would coexist peacefully.

· Tribes whose beliefs did conflict would fight with one another, each trying to impose their beliefs on the others.

· Tribes would cast out members who questioned their beliefs, whether as heretics or prophets, and welcome in outsiders who accepted their beliefs.

· With few exceptions tribes would be incapable of resolving conflicts peacefully, or debating beliefs rationally,

· Tribe members would be good, caring, and compassionate toward other tribe members, but capable of being cold, cruel, and uncaring toward outsiders.

· Tribes would protect and defend tribemembers who harmed outsiders.

· Tribes would protect and defend tribal leaders against outsiders, no matter what their leaders did.

· There would be “World Peace” only while a single tribe was successful in dominating all others.

The final part of this thought experiment is to consider whether the imagined behavior based upon the assumption is any different from the human behavior actually observed. If there’s little difference, then there’s good reason to consider whether the "assumption" might actually be true … and why it hasn’t been observed and accepted as being true.