Tribal Elders

Last time, I wrote about the idea of giving government over to Plato’s philosopher-kings or the Progressive Party’s equivalent, the panel of experts. These are systems, based on an advanced form of highly technical civilization, that sound good in theory but don’t always work out—if ever. The flip side would be some reversion to Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s idea of the “noble savage,” living in a state of nature and uncorrupted by modern civilization and its stresses.

Which is, of course, poppycock. No human being—or at least not anyone who survived to reproduce and leave heirs with skin in the game—lived alone in a blessed state, like Natty Bumppo in The Deerslayer. Early life before the invention of agriculture, city-states, empires, and complex civilizations was tribal. Groups of families interrelated by marriage—often to a shockingly bad genetic degree—functioned as a closed society. But while the economic organization might be socialistic, communal, and sharing, the power structure was not. The tribe was generally governed by a chief or council of chiefs. If they operated as a group, then various leaders were responsible for hunting and gathering to feed the tribe, or maintaining social order and ostracizing social offenders, or conducting the raids and clashes that kept the tribe whole and distinct from their similarly aggressive neighbors.

We like to think that the tribe was ruled by the wisest and best: the best hunters, the gravest thinkers, the bravest warriors. Sachems and warleaders who exercised restraint, were mindful of the needs and opinions of others, and thought only about the good of the tribe. And, indeed, if someone who rose to the position turned out to be incompetent, a fool, or a coward, then the tribe would wisely get rid of him—always a him, seldom or never a her—pretty damn quick.

But for the most part, members of the tribe were accustomed to obedience. They listened to the Big Guy—or Big Guys—because that was what good tribe members were supposed to do. That was how the system worked. You did your duty, and you didn’t judge or consider other possibilities. And this sense of purpose—or maybe it was fatalism—meant that the best and bravest did not always rise to the top. To judge by the tribal societies that remain in the world today, probably not even often.

What we see in today’s tribal societies—although I’ll grant that they may be contaminated by the influence of surrounding, more “civilized” societies—is an environment where the strong man, almost never a woman, rises to the top. Leadership is not granted from below, as in a democratic structure, but seized from at or near the top, usually at the expense of another strong man who has missed a beat or misread the environment and taken his own safety for granted. “Uneasy lies the head,” and all that. In modern parlance, gang rule.

Leadership in a tribal society is a matter of aggression, boldness, chutzpah, and ruthlessness. The leader spends a lot of time enforcing his authority, polishing his legend, and keeping his supposed henchmen in line. And that’s because he knows that the greatest danger to his position comes not from disappointing the general public but from underestimating any particular lieutenant who may have decided it was time to test his own loyalty upward.

In such societies, the public tends to become fatalistic about the governing structure and its players. The leader may have made some promises about making things better: more successful hunts and raids, more food for and better treatment of women and children, a new stockade for the camp, an adequate sewage system away from the wells, improved roads, a new park or library—whatever sounds good. But that was in the early days, while the sachem or war leader was trying to justify kicking out the old boss and installing a new hierarchy. The leader also had to be nice to—and take care of—the shaman, priest, or holy man to whom the tribe listened when they wanted to learn their personal fortunes and weather reports.

But once the tribal leader had taken things in hand, had ensured the trust and feeding of his lieutenants and the local shaman, and maybe made a few token improvements, he could settle into the real business of leadership, which is defending his position and reaping its rewards.

And there are surely rewards for those who are in command of a society, however small, and able to direct the efforts, the values, and even the dreams of its members. For one thing, the tribe will make sure that the leader eats well, has the best lodging, and has access to whatever pleasures—including the best sexual partners, whatever the tribe’s mores—that he needs to keep him productive for their sake. His children will be cared for, given advantages, and possibly placed in line to succeed him, because even primitive societies are aware of the workings of genetics, that strong and able fathers and mothers tend to pass these traits on to their children.

A leader partakes of these good things because, as noted earlier in the description of philosopher-kings, the leader is still human, not a member of any angelic or advanced race. Humans have personal likes and dislikes, wants and desires, a sense of self-preservation and entitlement. If a leader is not raised in a tradition that trains him from an early age to think of others first, look out for their welfare, weigh the consequences of his actions, and guard against his own pride and greed—the sort of training that a prince in an established royal house might get but not necessarily a player in push and pull of tribal politics—then the self-seeking and self-protective side of most human beings will develop and become ingrained.

And a leader who indulges these instincts will tend to encourage his family to follow. If the chief’s son thinks your cow should become his, then it’s his cow. If the chief’s daughter says you insulted or assaulted her, then that becomes your problem.

And if the leader indulges these selfish aspects of human nature, and the tribal members notice and feel slighted, then the leader may become caught in a downward spiral. The more he is challenged, the more he represses. A tribal society generally does not have an effective court system or secret police that can make people disappear from inside a large group. Everyone knows everybody else’s business. The leader’s immediate circle of henchmen is as likely to turn public dissatisfaction into a cause for regime change as a plebian is to rise up and assassinate him.

Promoting mere human beings into positions of authority and superiority without a social compact and agreed-upon codes for actual conduct and consequences is no guarantee of a happy and productive society. At best, it will churn enough to keep bad leaders from exercising their bad judgment and extending it through their children for generations. At worst, it makes the other members resigned and fatalistic, holding their leaders to no higher standards and inviting their own domination.

No, the “natural order of things,” in terms of the leadership function, is no better than the best concepts of a literary utopia. A formally ordered, representational democracy is still the best form of government—or at least better than all the others.