Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging

by Sebastian Junger

what made him different was the fact that he’d taken responsibility for me.

Robert Frost famously wrote that home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.

Humans don’t mind hardship, in fact they thrive on it; what they mind is not feeling necessary.

But as societies become more affluent they tend to require more, rather than less, time and commitment by the individual, and it’s possible that many people feel that affluence and safety simply aren’t a good trade for freedom.

They can be surrounded by others and yet feel deeply, dangerously alone.

Early sources report that the Bella Coola, the Ojibwa, the Montagnais, the Arapaho, the Plateau Yuma, the Southern Paiute, and the Zuni, among many others, experienced no suicide at all.

self-determination theory, which holds that human beings need three basic things in order to be content: they need to feel competent at what they do; they need to feel authentic in their lives; and they need to feel connected to others.

authority is almost impossible to impose on the unwilling.

one of the most commonly punished infractions was “failure to share.”

Oxytocin creates a feedback loop of good-feeling and group loyalty that ultimately leads members to “self-sacrifice to promote group welfare,” in the words of one study.

“When people are actively engaged in a cause their lives have more purpose… with a resulting improvement in mental health,”

he found that social bonds were reinforced during disasters, and that people overwhelmingly devoted their energies toward the good of the community rather than just themselves.

codified its moral behavior into a set of laws and penalties might never have to make a choice that puts her very life at risk.

determined that the leaders during this period were entirely focused on group morale and used skills that were diametrically opposed to those of the men who had led the escape attempts. They were highly sensitive to people’s moods, they intellectualized things in order to meet group needs, they reassured the men who were starting to give up hope, and they worked hard to be accepted by the entire group.

found that a person’s chance of getting chronic PTSD is in great part a function of their experiences before going to war.

the majority of those veterans were over the age of fifty.

said that many combat veterans actively avoid the VA because they worry about losing their temper around patients who they think are milking the system.

Our society is alienating, technical, cold, and mystifying.

Israel Defense Forces have by some measures a PTSD rate as low as 1 percent.

If anything, these token acts only deepen the chasm between the military and civilian populations by highlighting the fact that some people serve their country but the vast majority don’t.

Israel, where around half of the population serves in the military, reflexively thanking someone for their service makes as little sense as thanking them for paying their taxes.

All the praise in the world doesn’t mean anything if you’re not recognized by society as someone who can contribute valuable labor.”

Secondly, ex-combatants shouldn’t be seen—or be encouraged to see themselves—as victims.

community—of

tribe—would be the group of people that you would both help feed and help defend.

rampage shooting has never happened in an urban ghetto, for example; in fact, indiscriminate attacks at schools almost always occur in otherwise safe, predominantly white towns.

income gap between rich and poor continues to widen, many people live in racially segregated communities,

“If you

want to make a society work, then you don’t keep underscoring the places where you’re different—you

you underscore your shared...

require powerful people to put themselves last, and that he was one of those people.