Well yes, people can indeed learn to transcend tribalism. But never
forget, the veneer of society is in fact quite thin. Its easy to
do when everyone is doing well.

The question is what happens if survival is at stake. People will
rely on their insticts and of course bodies are simply the way that
dna passes itself on from one generation to the next. Deep within
that dna are genes coded for loving your children, your friends,
your community etc. If the crunch comes, you'll put them first.

Given that ever more people means scarcer resources, land etc,
tribalism will dominate again as soon as the fight over these
surfaces once again.

The Mexican writer Octavio Paz (1985) comments that
the future "has no face and is sheer possibility."

Can we transcend tribalism?

Precise predictions about the long-term future are
rather difficult to make. Change always depends on the
unique events that have gone before, and always has
unique effects on the events that are still to come.
In any case, accurate prediction of the course of
history involves an insuperable logical flaw.
If we knew what was to happen, we would be able to
prevent it from happening - in which case the
prediction would be false.

The future may not be for use to know, but it is
surely ours to make.

cont'd ...

My apologies - another typo.
The sentence should read:

"The future may not be for us to know,
but it is surely ours to make."

Philo, we could 'bomb them all back to the stone age' perhaps?

Then fill their nations with troops to force them to be a 'democracy', and then they could go and bomb others back into the stone age and the whole cycle keeps going.

King Hazza, the problem with your solution is that within these spheres of calm you envision will be hotspots of dissent, ensuring a constant flux between calm and angst continues.

Time to forget 'great overarching narratives' for the world, be they communism, capitalism or one of the despicable 'faiths' always seeking to convert the entire world to their 'one true way', and just chill out and get on with it.

The farce we all pretend to believe in, with phrases like 'world class' and 'in pursuit of excellence', those phrases that help to legitimise intense greed in pay packets of CEOs (as but one area), are in the same vein.

Our world thrives on conflict, on oppression, on greed and 'otherness', on the foolish believing in the wise, on oafs running our institutions, on pyscho-socio paths leading our nations.

We love it!

It gives us courage and purpose, aims and objectives.

It is the conflict that drives progress, and we would be lost and forlorn without it.

There is a word, praxis, that describes it well, although I think in that process we are supposed to learn from the conflict and 'move on' as the learned amongst us now say.

Great thread Davidf
I have tossed related threads around from my first day here.
My answer is no, but how great would it be, or would it?
Religions /Nations/self interest divides us.
Race creed color.
It came with us, maybe guided us, out of the cave, it is survival instinct.
If we want to be honest, take a harsh but honest look, at our selves and others.
We will see why Shakespeare said all the world is a stage.
We just can not avoid acting in the company of others, some much more than others.
Neighbors got a mention.
The nicest people, act defensively toward the nicest people next door.
It is fence building defensive fences.
I love women all of them, but some, may be more than a few, act every second of their life.
It is nearly impossible to trust just some.
People are tuned by the very DNA to be tribal and separate.
But in extreme danger? we come together as one? so maybe one day?

We now have weapons that can destroy all human life
on earth. Therefore we must transcend the tribal
assumptions and conditionings that automatically
polarize both our perception and action in terms of
"them" and "us." It is time for a radical re-thinking.