Tribes & Self-Preservation

No man is an island.  How can the lone wolf survive without his tribe?  The answer is simple not very easily.  Even ancient humans banded together in packs with delegated jobs, if one went out on their own it made it that much harder.  That is the most basic structure of how communities arise and the purpose of packs (tribes).  It is all about survival.  So where does this idea of self-preservation fit in?

When we are attacked, facing near-death or an event that breaks us down, we think within our Ego, our Self, and the continual existence of this Self.  I remember in this near death experience I once had all that went through my head was, “Not yet!  Not yet!”  I did not want to die, of course I was not thinking of anybody else who could get caught and injured in a whirling car of death.  Self-preservation is important, but it is more important of the focus of the group.  I remember this zombie movie I watched called The Dead and this movie got me screaming at which my boyfriend promptly made fun of me.  The movie starts off with people in a plane that ends up crashing.  Well the main character a military man (I’ll call him A) wakes up on the shore, zombies are coming for them and another military guy (called B) from the plane is there to and runs off, while another guy is being eaten.  Well the guy being eaten it is to late for him, but person B did not stick around for person A.  Person A survives and later keeps trying to survive on his own and eventually finds person B a zombie.  Person A eventually meets a Person C and then queues a scene that got me so angry I walked away from the movie in disgust.  These two guys, A & C decide to pass out on the ground, after making some kind of contraption that if a zombie crossed it would bang against a rock.  Well needless to say zombies came and person C ended up being bit and person A had to survive on his own.  This surviving on your own just does not work, who keep watches while you sleep?  You have to feed yourself too.  I mean zombies is such an extreme semantic, but what happens if you end up in a hostile world with just you and another person?  I love the show (and the comic) The Walking Dead because of the dynamics of it.  You see bands and attempts at forming Tribes to help with survival.

There is a certain strength with numbers in a hostile world.  Do not think for one moment that Mother Nature or let alone the veneer of “modern society” is not hostile because it is.  This life is filled with conflict and struggles and it is never going to go away.  Through suffering we learn, through struggles we gain strength, and through strength we gain victory.  While this is only a small sample of the Sith code from Star Wars, there is a certain validity to it.  Even now in these harsh times, the family (as a tribe), is very important.  It is not “wrong” to live with your parents, it is part of surviving.  It seems like this stupid white USA culture thing we whites got going on that we cannot live with our own parents for survival.  We have broken down these tribes and communities into small family and the individual.  Maybe whites do not see what is wrong with it because they are not exposed to a different reality or just want to avoid these connections.  I spent almost two months in Cambodia and more living with my boyfriend’s Cambodian family that has taught me these family bonds.  My mother used to tell me “family are thicker than friends, because you cannot change your blood.”  It is a blanket statement but has held so much value that I have seen.  I would do anything for my family despite my differences, they are my blood.  I see how my boyfriend is with his family and even when he re-connected with his brothers and mother who he hasn’t seen since his father and him escaped from the Khmer rouge.

The struggle of self-preservation can be seen through the lone wolf too.  During times of scarce game some wolves will go to try and make it on their own in attempt to nourish themselves better.  I feel I could almost relate it to modern society.  You have alphas (leaders), betas (followers), and omegas (bottom runts and outcasts), and then you get your lone wolf disconnected from the pack trying to find his way into his own territory, or start his own pack or find a pack.  We have people who are the icing on the top who can nourish themselves so well off the fat of the land and then the rest of humanity struggling to continue on.  It is like in old times with its kings, nobles, and plebeians.   There is a growing examples of this that so-called Occupy groups want to change, but all they do seems to me at times sit on their asses and not get their hands dirty.  Occupy is a good example of people grouping together to try to nourish themselves, forming a so-called fake tribe.  It is fake because there are no bonds that are binding.

Ah, to break down into an interesting branches of semantics, think of religion.  Pagans versus Christian, right hand path versus left hand path.  These distinct groups are against each other, their beliefs help bind them, for Druids there are Groves and Christians Church.  But this is a weak example of “tribes.”  These are tribes bound by beliefs, but finding a church with such strong tribal identity and self-preservation for the group is difficult.  The Order of Nine Angles is a strong example for me though.  Through its traditions and MSS, it builds Nexions (Temples) as it Tribes.  These tribes help to form bonds of loyalty and emotional ties to each other.  It also builds a certain sinister character that helps provide an identity.  Put it all together and you have an anchor, an allegiance extremely strong towards your Nexion and those who are sinister in character.  While ONA is certainly very different from many groups out there, those who walk the Dark Path recognize each other for what they are, wolves in a world filled with sheep and they respect each other.

To conclude, when there is self-preservation of the tribe and not just for the individual, the tribe works for itself.  We work to protect ourselves within our group.  It is them versus us mindset, like various gang mindsets, or the racism between blacks, white, and all the rest of ethnicity.  These are our ancient instincts creeping into our lives, instincts we do not seem to forget.  These tribes and communities provide identity, emotional ties, anchor (home), and pride.  These all help to form bonds and like a circle it cycles through helping build our allegiance towards our tribe and create the collaboration of self-preservation.