Scott Alexander on The Ideology is not the Movement

Here is a long, quality post by Scott Alexander on the many facets of tribalism throughout ordinary life.

A few takeaways:

Deaf people sometimes don't want to hear. Why? Because deaf people have their own social tribe they relate to. They'd lose it if their handicap were destroyed show would their membership.

I wonder how many deaf people would think this way if they fully knew what they were missing by being deaf. If we asked people which of the five senses are most and least important sense was, would "hearing" be more or less important than if we asked deaf people?

Autistic people sometimes think the same way as the deaf example. "Cultural genocide" might be a fair way of describing a cure of autism.

The Rationalist Community far are more likely to be INTPs or INTJs in the Myers-Briggs personality test. Hey, I'm INTJ. I've always felt like these people thought like me.

This:

"I worry that attempts to undermine nationalism/patriotism in order to fight racism risk backfiring. The weaker the “American” tribe becomes, the more people emphasize their other tribes – which can be either overtly racial or else heavily divided along racial lines (eg political parties)."

I wonder how much fighting racism becomes a distinguishing mark for one tribe (progressives), discourages other tribes from embracing the same value.