E. O. Wilson Quotes

Human beings are a social species. We like to hang together in groups, just like wildebeests, just like lions. Wildebeests don't hang with lions because lions eat wildebeests. Human beings are like that. We do what that group does that we're trying to identify with.

It shows 'us vs. them', and I'm on the 'us' side.

I think it's just in human nature: if you've got two guys fighting, and you don't really know them, you're going to root for the guy who comes from your country.

Before I was nine I had learned the basic canon of Arab life. It was me against my brother; me and my brother against our father; my family against my cousins and the clan; the clan against the tribe; and the tribe against the world and all of us against the infidel.

People inside of belonging systems are very threatened by those who are not within that group. They are threatened by anyone who has found their citizenship in places they cannot control.

The idea is, we're still a society where we recognize and see and even sometimes seek members of our own tribe, whatever that tribe is. It could be ethnic, religious, geographic, political.

Politics feels, on what I have seen of it, like joining a tribe, and a lot of it is about unspoken ways of behaving.

There are three basic fundamentals of Arab society, shame, honor, and revenge.

There are two things that seem to be at the bottom of our constitutions; one is a continual tendency towards politics; the other is family pride; and it is strange how these two feelings run through all of us.

Belief that your tribe is good and other tribes are evil is what everyone thought for most of human history.

It's not just human nature to associate in tribes. It's deeper than that.

You only have to glance at the daily news to see how passions are stirred by claims of exclusive loyalty to one's own kin, one's own clan, one's own country, and one's own church. These ties that bind are vital to our communities and our lives, but they can also be twisted into a noose.

Also, I think that, you know, it's tribal behavior. I don't think that Pat Robertson, for instance, doubts that we evolved. He is simply representing a tribe.

I think the fact that us as a race still continues to be very tribal and we haven't really moved away from that over hundreds and hundreds of years of experience.

My premise is that there's something hardwired into our DNA, that we as a species came and evolved from caves and clans and tribes, and therefore, we as a species care more about the things that are local to us than we care about the things that are 'over there' from us.

The capacity for humans to come up with ever-increasingly granular in-group versus out-group demarcations is truly breathtaking.

In the larger world, tribalism is an enormous problem, as it ever has been: both strength and idiocy borne from belonging.

Cultural activity is what makes us human.

Everyone likes fantasy to get away from everyday life, but I think 'Game of Thrones' is not like fairies and unicorns. It's very relatable to everyday life. It's not too fantastic - just a little bit.

Forming communities - even and especially ones based on strong loyalties and allegiances - is in our DNA. It's what's kept us alive for millions of years.

Nature is not slow to equip us in the prison-uniform of the party to which we adhere.

Everybody tends to merge his identity with other people at the speed of light. It's called being mass man.

I do believe, separate and apart from any particular election or movement, that we are going to have to guard against a rise in a crude sort of nationalism or ethnic identity or tribalism that is built around an us and a them.

Human nature, as manifested in tribalism and nationalism, provides the momentum of the machinery of human evolution.

I don't belong to any side. What's more, I think flags are nothing but painted rags that represent rancid emotions. Just seeing someone wrapped up in one of them, spewing out hymns, badges and speeches, gives me the runs. I've always thought that anyone who needs to join a herd so badly must be a bit of a sheep himself