The tribal personality

Success in a tribal society, in the sense of success in living long enough to produce viable offspring, depended on physical health, intelligence, compliance with the tribal norms, and the ability to tolerate a life in which there was not much scope for initiative, independent planning, or intensity of experience. It is easy to guess that boredom and depression would be best avoided by getting some influence over others, to make them comply better with the tribal requirements: killing and torturing enemies and wrongdoers, and whatever forms of communal jamboree were in favour.

It is not difficult to see the successful tribal personality in the sort of person able to tolerate the oppressions of modern collectivist society; they have not been selected for ambition and independence, and easily accept situations in which they have scope for neither.

But even if tribes in fact were as we have suggested, might not other types of tribe have evolved, which would have been just as successful but with a greater respect for individuality? Might not a cooperative society of independent, ambitious individuals be as successful, or even more so, in surviving as a group? Was there any logical necessity in the pattern of tribal groups of unambitious individuals, not very purposeful, highly tolerant of social oppression?

No doubt there were variations in the characteristics of different tribal groups, such as those between warlike American Indians and more peaceful, vegetative groups, but it would appear that until civilisation began, tribal groups rarely permitted much variation in lifestyle, and demanded a high degree of conformity to the tribal procedures. It seems to have been only with the start of civilisation, which depended on the development of a sophisti­cated idea of possession, that societies arose in which it was possible for independence and initiative to be used in a variety of ways, so that different personality types began to be favoured.

Once this process took place, however, societies which permitted individual variation and independ­ence gained control of the environment more rapidly than those which did so less, and the former tended to take over the territories of the latter, so that the areas of civilisation spread, and the areas of greatest civilisation spread their influence the most.

This process, however, was reaching its culmination very recently with, say, the influx of European influence into Africa and America. So the societies with the greatest scope for individuality seemed to be on the verge of global dominance. The terminus of European hegemony was in sight, however, leaving little scope for competition between societies with differing principles.

Extract from Celia Green, The Corpse and the Kingdom