Tribalism is dangerous. In a literal sense it is defined as:

"the state or fact of being organized in a tribe or tribes."

In the more common sense in our modern times it is defined as:

" a way of thinking or behaving in which people are more loyal to their tribe than to their friends, their country, or any other social group"
- Oxford dictionary

In this, I am speaking of the latter definition, another way to express this is in the "us vs them" mentality. By "tribe" in this context, I am referring to anything that is used as a means of identity for an individual such as, religious affiliation, political affiliation, race, ethnicity (a shared cultural or national tradition), nationality, etc. I will demonstrate that it is this form of tribalism that has produced the myriad expressions of prejudice that permeates throughout human society, from racism to jingoism. But first I must point out a few things so bear with me.

Prejudice is defined as: a preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience.

Initially tribalism was mildly beneficial to human society, as it was a means of establishing social cohesion within groups from antiquity by creating a sense of a shared existence in such forms as, laws, traditions, common practices and culture. In the context of evolution, it is believed to have been hard wired into our brains, since humans are a social species, anything that keeps groups together is conducive to the continuation of our species.

Now that I have given credit where it is due, I will demonstrate how tribalism is dangerous and how it has lead to the many forms of prejudice we see today. I will start with religious affiliation, and use the Abrahamic religions as an example, this is only because I am the most familiar with the 'big 3' but as I have already shown in the context of evolution, tribalism is much older than 4000 years old.

In this case the 'tribe' is religious identity. Within the Abrahamic religions an expression of tribalism was the emphasis on orthodoxy vs heterodoxy (correct teaching vs incorrect teaching) whereby religious leaders would rally their followers by glorifying their own interpretation and demonizing all others. This was a tool to keep unity among followers by closing the ranks and preventing any such possibility of an exchange of ideas that would weaken the hold the clergy had on the masses. This practice in large part was what lead to the continuation of the crusades, and was justification for the violence between Catholics and Protestants, or between Shia and Sunni Muslims, the issue of succession for Muhammad was the initial cause, but to this day it is the practice of tribalism that continues the violence between denominations. In Judaism a more direct example was the call for the Jews to kill the Canaanites.

In this case the 'tribe' is racial identity. A more specific expression of tribalism is in the ideology of racial division, this lead to a form of prejudice known as racism. Again we see a link to religious affiliation, as in the concept of the great chain of being, where it was believed that God created every human each according to their own kind and forbade the practice of inter-racial marriage. To this day it is this belief that is used as justification by groups such as the KKK for holding to their ideology. Another example of this can be found in the beliefs of The Nation of Islam whereby Wallace Fard Muhammad taught that the original peoples of the world were black and that white people were a race of "devils" created by a scientist named Yakub (the Biblical and Qur'anic Jacob) on the Greek island of Patmos.

For the sake of brevity I will give one more example of how tribalism produced another form of prejudice,known as jingoism by this i am referring to excessive bias in judging one's own country as superior to others, an extreme type of nationalism. So it follows that In this case the 'tribe' is national identity. In going back to the context of tribalism that I am referring to, a way of thinking or behaving in which people are more loyal to their tribe than to their friends, their country, or any other social group. An example of this is in the United States' ongoing conflicts with Native peoples throughout the 19th century, formally known as the Indian Wars. In order to justify territorial expansion by military force, the federal government took the position that Indians were a threat to American greatness, and their resistance should be met with swift force in order to deal with the problem.

I will have to end it there but I believe that I have sufficiently demonstrated that tribalism is the father of all prejudice.

Thank you for your time.