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From: macrakis@harvard.ARPA (Stavros Macrakis)
Newsgroups: net.nlang.africa
Subject: Re: tribes
Message-ID: <123@harvard.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 15-May-85 11:16:06 EDT
Article-I.D.: harvard.123
Posted: Wed May 15 11:16:06 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 16-May-85 21:45:37 EDT
References: <906@hou2h.UUCP> <729@ssc-vax.UUCP> <735@gloria.UUCP>
Organization: Aiken Comp. Lab., Harvard
Lines: 13

> A tribe is a social unit organized by direct communication--for example,
> face-to-face speech.  The "nations" of the world have discarded tribalism
> for central nationalism, which is organized by print communication.

Rubbish.  You can have nationalism without literacy, and tribalism with it.

> Electronics is undoing this, and promises to organize the whole world into
> one big "tribe."

Tribalism refers not to whether people communicate, but whether they
identify themselves and others as members of some ethnic group.  There
is no evidence that ethnic consciousness is diminished by modern
communications.