The Babel of Tribes:

How We Lost the Map and Forsook the Way

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." -H. P. Lovecraft

Welcome to the madness in the dark age of Island of Ignorance.

The Babel of Tribes:

How We Lost the Map and Forsook the Way

On both mainstream and social media, all political discussion consists of two mutually incomprehensible tribes shouting stupid slogans at each other. Everyone believes that their own set of stupid slogans are self-evident axioms; everyone recognises their enemies’ stupid slogans as meaningless gibberish, too meaningless to even reply to. You might as well try to debate the dogs barking in the night.

-Sam Kriss

Imagine the world as it is today: a cacophony of voices, each speaking in tongues only their kind understands. On social media and across mainstream platforms, political discourse has fractured into a spectacle of shouting. Each tribe—of which there are many, not two—inhabits its own linguistic cosmos, its own set of axioms, values, and methods of knowing the world. To an outsider, their slogans are gibberish; to the insider, sacred truth. Debate is no longer a bridge but a battleground, and mutual comprehension a quaint relic. How did we get here? What dynamics have propelled us into this tribalized abyss? And what lies ahead if no common ground is rediscovered?

The Rise of Tribes

Tribalism is the ancient mechanism by which humans have historically made sense of their place in the world. It is a feature of our cognitive architecture, deeply entwined with what Daniel Kahneman calls System 1 thinking: the fast, intuitive, and emotional processes that help us make snap judgments. In the evolutionary past, this served us well. Groups needed unity to survive. Shared myths, values, and ontologies—the fundamental questions about what exists and what matters—held the tribe together.

But the modern world, with its infinite streams of information and competing narratives, has fragmented those unities. Traditional gatekeepers of knowledge—institutions, religions, and cultural norms—have lost their hegemonic grip. In their absence, people have coalesced into new tribes, often based on shared grievances or ideological commitments. These tribes are not just political factions; they are epistemic communities, each with its own:

• Ontology: What they believe exists or is real (e.g., systemic oppression, conspiracies, climate change).

• Epistemology: How they know what they know (e.g., lived experience, peer-reviewed studies, sacred texts).

• Axiology: What they value most (e.g., freedom, equality, tradition).

• Methodology: The tools they use to construct knowledge maps (e.g., data analysis, intuition, anecdote).

These differing foundations ensure that tribes not only disagree on solutions but often cannot even agree on what the problem is or whether it exists at all.

The Loss of Shared Maps

Once, there were shared knowledge maps, imperfect though they were. Science, for instance, provided a common epistemic framework that transcended personal belief. Institutions like journalism upheld (or aspired to uphold) standards of truth that everyone could rely on. The liberal democratic order, for all its flaws, at least presumed the possibility of rational debate between citizens with diverse perspectives.

But this foundation has eroded. The postmodern critique of meta-narratives, combined with the hyper-connectivity of the digital age, has left us stranded in a sea of competing maps. Algorithms, designed to maximize engagement, amplify the most emotionally resonant content—often outrage and tribal signaling. System 1 is overstimulated, and System 2—the slower, deliberative, rational process—is sidelined.

Without a shared map, communication becomes nearly impossible. If one tribe’s epistemology dismisses empirical evidence as irrelevant (or as the propaganda of an oppressive system), while another insists on its primacy, dialogue collapses. Each tribe’s map becomes incomprehensible to the others, a foreign terrain over which no meaningful exchange can occur.

The Danger of Babel

This is more than a cultural or intellectual crisis; it is a political one. History warns us of what happens when communication fails: violence becomes the default mechanism for resolving disputes. In the absence of dialogue, tribes rely on domination, coercion, or eradication. The Babel of tribes has left us perilously close to this edge.

Violence thrives where mutual comprehension withers. When we no longer see others as rational actors who might be persuaded or negotiated with, they become enemies to be subdued. This is the logic of war, and it is already manifesting in our polarized societies. Riots, insurrections, and culture wars are the harbingers of deeper fractures to come.

Restoring the Commons

Is there a way back? The answer lies not in abolishing tribalism—it is too ingrained in human nature—but in transcending it. To communicate across tribes, we must first acknowledge the legitimacy of each tribe’s ontological and epistemological commitments, even if we do not share them. This requires:

1. Cognitive Empathy: The effort to understand how others construct their maps of reality. This is not the same as agreement; it is the prerequisite for dialogue.

2. Epistemic Humility: Recognizing that no single map captures the full complexity of the terrain. Every tribe’s perspective is partial, including our own.

3. Rebuilding Shared Spaces: Institutions must be reimagined as neutral grounds where diverse tribes can interact without fear of domination. This might mean reforming education, the media, and digital platforms to prioritize deliberation over spectacle.

4. Strengthening System 2 Thinking: Encouraging critical thinking, slow reflection, and the questioning of one’s own assumptions can help counteract the impulsive tribalism of System 1.

These steps are daunting, and success is far from guaranteed. But without them, the only alternative is escalation. A world of many tribes cannot survive without the capacity to negotiate its differences. The dogs barking in the night may howl louder and louder, until all that remains is the silence of conquest or mutual destruction.

To build a better future, we must begin by listening—not to rebut, but to understand. The Babel of tribes must become a conversation, or it will become a battlefield.

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To continue please head to the Index at the Knowledge Mapping Toolkit:

The Cartographer’s Toolkit: Methods for Building Knowledge Maps in the Age of Manipulation