Scimus autem quoniam diligentibus Deum omnia cooperantur in bonum, iis qui secundum propositum vocati sunt sancti. And we know that to them that love God, all things work together unto good, to such as, according to his purpose, are called to be saints.

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As are honest men and women everywhere, Glenn Beaton, to whose blog, the Aspen beat, I commend attention, is looking for next steps, trying to understand events in their larger contexts, and generally, working up wisdom to answer reliably and properly the question, What Now?

Today, under title Democracy doesn’t work in tribal societies like Afghanistan – or America, Glenn studies phenomenologies of tribalism and their proponents’ capacities for democratic — which is to say organic — community, all the way to nationhood.

With edits here, I commented severally:

I first heard tribalism praised and promoted from the then-publisher of Seattle’s “alternative” “underground” weekly.  This was early-mid 90s.  Knute and his circle of affluent friends wanted me to advise on setting up a private school — for their children alone, with paid staff — using WA’s homeschooling laws to skirt WA’s statutes regarding private schools.  No lawyer I, nonetheless I gathered that they wanted to use my standing as a prominent and weightily credentialed (as customarily counted) homeschooler as authority to justify their intentions.  I told them that IMO they would have to use WA’s private school laws for what they wanted to do.  They did not again seek my counsel or support.  They wanted to tribal-ize their offspring’s schooling . . . and save expenses, such as a physical plant and reportable wages.

My favorite song, as far back as I can remember, is We Gather Together To Ask The Lord’s Blessing.  I guess that is my answer to tribalists.  Since more unites us than divides us, it is more difficult to be a tribalist than it is to be a good neighbor, just as it is more difficult to tell lies than it is to tell the truth.  I wonder why the churlish want to make their lives so burdensome.

FWIW, I would answer tribalists along these lines:

We share:

The Fatherhood of God
The Motherhood of Earth
The Brotherhood of Man
The Love of Liberty
The Ubiquity and Persistence of Dharma
The Implacability of Karma
The Yearning for Happiness
The Desire for Peace
The Ability to Recognize The Truth when we see or hear It (or reject It, which is the same thing)
The Pangs of Hunger
The Pangs of Infatuation
The Ecstasy of Love
The Eagerness to Breathe
The Delight in Light
The Need for Sleep
The Savor of Good Food
The Revulsion at Rot and Decay
The Desire for a Calm and Painless Death after Happy Years of Life
The Desire for Protection by Mommy and Daddy
The Bi-Laterally Symmetrical Morphology (a quality we share with millions of species)
The Ability to Reason (more or less strongly, but the ability itself is universal; Parmenides: “Where there is Being [ontos], there is the logos [Reason] of Being.”)
etc.

Our Declaration of Independence from tyranny enumerates shared universals in quite deliberate contrast to tribalistic jingoisms and workings-around commonality: life, liberty, and you know the rest.  Tyranny is rejected by us precisely in terms of shared universals, commonalities, rather than in terms of a new tribalism, such as conjured by this hyper-bloodthirsty ode to the bloody axe:

IMO, this our common enumeration of commonalities — precisely, specifically (!) to reject tyranny, including tyranny by a minority, which most tyrannies are — remains a quite sufficient defense and attack against dividers and other lawless skirts.  Sufficient, I mean, unto their being thrown headlong into a condition of unconditional surrender, which is the only condition they deserve and we can countenance.

Bloodthirsty we are not.
United in commonalities are we.

The contrast in spirit between US and French
national anthems could be not more severe.

We are not, such as we are, as we are, but as we aspire to be.  As we aspire to be inside the Peace of God, and practice that methodically, without vacation, everything else takes care of itself.  Oh, He has no trouble reaching us very directly when He wants to do that, to include even evil doers among us.  One does not mistake Who makes that epiphany.  That knock dispels all doubts and differences.

One Chad made this comment, referencing Glenn’s post:

Good analysis.  As for the execrable Joe Biden of your prior three essays, I do have to credit the guy with one bright idea (which no one paid any attention to): his proposal to partition Iraq into three states — Suni, Shia, and Kurdish.  The three groups would continue to war against each other, no doubt, but at least they wouldn’t have to worry about their next door neighbors as much as we do about ours.  Repeat after me: multiculturalism does not work!

To which I replied:

I must differ on your take in this matter, based on consistent reports from the ground over 20 years.  Unlike Afghanis, Iraqis have a sense of national identity.  They have a very successful SOF force — the main force taking the fight to ISIS, and paying the price thereof — who are very strongly, deliberately, even proudly, non-sectarian.

The partition idea was pushed by a chief at CFR in the early 00s and Biden, ever the Red Banner sponge, picked it up.  Iraqis themselves rejected it.  It was and remains a bad idea in principle and is not what Iraqis want, which is what matters.

Anyone on the side of division is on the side of chaos.  Biden has always been a Euro-American Socialist.  He lives under the Red Banner.

American and Coalition main mistakes in Iraq were:

(1) splitting command of US operations in-country between State, DOD, and, as usual, CIA, who operate their own private business enterprises, much as do IRGC, CIA’s counterparts and probable partners in several enterprises, including drugs, rare woods, and child trafficking,

(2) demobilizing the Iraqi Army — State’s idea, DOD disagreed (repeat of British FO / Royal Army disagreement over fate of Turkish provinces in The Levant following WW I,

(3) not sending to GITMO or assassinating clergy, Sunni and Shiite, and especially Sadr,

(4) treating mosques as religious institution rather than military installations, and

(5) not showing the WMDs that were found and Saddam’s programs to develop and use the same.

In other words, right from the start, US assets were deployed to combat in Iraq without intent to fulfill the only justifiable employment of combat: unconditional surrender by the target of the deployment, aka the enemy.

Battle orders which lack or prohibit intent to throw their target into a condition of unconditional surrender rise to the Nuremberg definition of unlawful orders.

Battle orders for continuing deployment past the success of initial punitive expeditions, such as those designated OEF and OIF, orders such as were issued by Bush administration officials at White House, State Department, Treasury, DOD, and CIA, were for trifling, not for war, and therefore harms to persons, properties, and nations which occurred in train of those orders were outside justifications for war and inside definitions of criminality.

GWB issued unlawful orders to continue OEF and OIF past the mission profile of punitive expeditions.  He made those operations wealth transfer platforms under color of “nation building.”

Chad responded to my comment:

Well, it’s good to know that Iraq after Saddam was not quite as bad as India after the British, or the former Yugoslavia after the Soviets.  Perhaps there’s an answer to tribalism other than totalitarian rule.

And I’m not surprised to hear that Biden didn’t have even ONE good idea.

I did not respond that comment by Chad.

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Uddhava’s heart melted, when he realised Krishna sent him on a mission to the Gopis to make him learn what true devotion is. Uddhava realised that Krishna enacted that episode to show to him that even those well versed in scriptures had to learn inner truth about true devotion from the one-pointed, unalloyed devotion shown by gopees towards Krishna. Love of God is the means and the goal. This was the secret revealed by Gopees. They saw love in everything – in the music of Krishna’s flute, which filled the world with love and flooded the parched earth with love. The Divine is in everyone. But to realise it, there is only one way. It is to cultivate intense love of God. Only that day when one strives to develop such love for God is the day of Krishna’s birth. Krishna is not born on every Gokulashtami. Krishna is born in us when we try to develop divine love as the means to overcome our bonds.