There could hardly be anything more important than truth, right? Most people wouldn’t dare say so. And yet we very often put “tribe” before truth. And perhaps we should.
At the risk of picking at an old wound, let me share a story from the early months of COVID. We didn’t know much at the time, except that the virus was transmitted through the air and that it could kill, and that therefore masking and/or social distancing was deemed paramount.
I recall a social media exchange with friends of mine in Philadelphia, where one, an avid runner, wondered if it was ok to go for a jog without having to wear a mask, feeling both the need to get out of the house and do a cherished activity lest they go stir crazy, and the pained request that they do so without having to put a cloth mask over their face while huffing and puffing down the street.
Again, it was early days. So most people were aware that we didn’t know what we didn’t know, and were rightly erring on the side of caution. So I would’ve accepted any number of responses, such as:
* “Sounds like it would be good for your physical and mental
wellbeing so go for it, but be careful and try to stay away from people on your
run”
* “I’d caution you to pick an odd time so there’s no one around you”
Instead, there was very much a spirit of “how dare you act like those mask-deniers, you know better than to be like that.” You could say those things from a place of science (“the experts say mask up at all times”) or humility (“we simply don’t know, so don’t do anything potentially dangerous”). But you could also say those things from a place of tribalism (“our side listens to reason and does the right thing, while the other side is blatantly ignorant”). And it sure seemed like the venom was coming from the latter reason, lightly masked if at all in the former reason.
Maybe this example is in too much of a gray area. So let me offer another, more stark example from the same era. I recall someone posting a picture of themselves kayaking solo on the river, wearing an N95 mask, and all of the friends commented positively along the lines of “that’s how you do it” and “way to set a good example” and even “that’ll show those anti-maskers.” Here the mask is truly unnecessary, since you are in the middle of a river far from any other human’s ability to cough or sneeze on you. And yet the solidarity with “wear a mask at all times” was more important than the common sense of “no mask needed when no chance of contracting or spreading the virus, so paddle away without covering your mouth.”
To be clear, at the moment as well as with hindsight, I think mask mandates were important for a period of time, certainly during the earliest days of uncertainty as well as the subsequent days of rampant spread. As this was a public health crisis involving an infectious disease, communal efforts were more important than individual freedom. To blatantly deny the importance of universal participation, even coming from a place of cherished values like freedom and skepticism and comfort, was worthy of pushback and condemnation.
But I also believe in common sense, and in adapting to changing conditions and greater information, so I was fine with running outside without a mask even at the height of COVID, just as I was fine with people making their own decisions once the virus had subsided substantially. My point is not that masks were good or bad, but rather than we seemed to arrive at our conclusions and express our positions based on what tribe we were part of or wanted to not be seen as a part of, rather than our best understanding of the truth at any given time.
And I’m not sure that’s necessarily bad. As important as truth is, tribe is also important. Now, this can be taken to absurd measures that cause people to lose the plot, where the goal seems to be to express solidarity with your own and stick it to others, rather than doing what’s best for the greater good. But, in general, humans are social creatures and a certain amount of peer pressure to conform to what is right is healthy for our survival and thriving.
Now, I’m not sure we have calibrated our “truth vs. tribe” meter correctly in these divisive days. Nor do I like when people act tribal and fudge the truth, but then claim that they are all about the truth. You can pick any number of hot topics to apply this lens to. I chose COVID because it is a recent thing we all went through, our very survival was on the line, and because of that there were many “truth vs. tribe” moments.
What are your thoughts on this particular example? Maybe you’ve reacted with horror at my words, so engrained was it back then that to not mask was to court death and set a poor example for others. Maybe you look back on that time and think to yourself that, yeah maybe we didn’t know much back then but in retrospect masks weren’t as necessary for as long as we had them. Still others thought that masks were unnecessary from the beginning, whether right or wrong. I’m sure there are a range of perspectives on this. I can say that I’m probably one of the very few people on the planet who, during that era, was in rooms where I was the only one masked and also in rooms where I was the only one not masked. In other words, I hang with a pretty diverse crowd, on all issues including this one. It’s a good example that in life and death matters, we often choose tribe over truth. And, ironically, when we do so we often solidify our tribes by considering them to be based on truth, and other tribes to not value truth, even as we ourselves are devaluing truth to do so.
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