This past weekend a lady journalist was emailing me some questions about my work when she mentioned that she was being shoved off a sidewalk by Muslim men and asked me to guess what continent she was on.

You guessed it as well, Europe.

A friend sent me the link to Ann's recent story that referred to the incident, and I quite enjoyed it. Ann ends up her story asking if anyone can tell her why humans always seem to ‘circle back around to racism.’

My short answer is that there is no such thing as a non-tribal human society, and as the scale of society grows toward the supposedly non-tribal, but actually mono-tribal, global ideal the building blocks of the tribe erode. Then when the unnaturally bloated society begins to fracture and tribal affiliation becomes as sought after as joining the elite at the center of empire once was in colonial times, what you end up with is a cultural caricature, just as Geronimo in a suit was a cultural caricature 120 years ago. I’ll be exploring this ‘feral tribalism’ factor in the next installment of ‘Of Lions and Men’.

In the meantime check out Ann’s piece on Takimag through the link below.