Welcome to Econ Talk, Conversations for the Curious, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.

I'm your host Russ Roberts of Shalem College in Jerusalem and Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Go to Econ Talk. in to today's conversation. You'll also find our archives with every episode we've done

going back to 2006. Our email address is mail at econ talk.org we'd love to hear from you. Today is September 3rd, 2024, my guest is Cultural Psychologist and author Michael Morris of Columbia University.

His latest book and the subject of today's conversation is Tribal,

how the cultural instincts that divide us can help bring us together. Michael welcome to

e-con talk. Thanks so much it's really an honor to be here. I've listened to

your show from time to time over the last year and it's really one that engages with ideas

beyond the beyond the sound bites and so it's really an honor to be here.

Appreciate it. Let's start with the title of the book. We have discussed the book

Tribe on this program and it is a by Sebastian Younger and tribe and tribal and tribalism have I would say

neutral interpretations they have negative interpretations and I think you're trying to reclaim the word

tribal. What does it mean and why is it important to reclaim it?

It's a great question to start off with. I think that we've heard the word tribal,

tribalism a lot in the last decade. I started to write the book, you know, almost a decade ago and the word was not as frequently used then.

And I worried at times that the meme would pass before I ever finish the book,

but it turns out there's enough tribalism to go around, you know, that's still alive and well.

But I feel like the notion of tribalism, the notion that we have some

evolved group instincts that affect our thinking has been seized upon by the pundit class and by

politicians from time to time to express a kind of despair and express a kind of, yeah, I would say cynical despair.

So, and you know, Tom Friedman wrote a very prominent article some years ago now where he said

we've we've acquired a virus of tribalism from our Middle East adventuring that makes us look at political opponents as

enemies who must be attacked you know and as elections as things that must be denied.

...