Alexandra Robbins Quotes

The key thing about us is that we all belong to multiple tribes. Even if we are predisposed into dividing the world into 'us' and 'them,' it's incredibly easy to manipulate us as to who is an 'us' and who is a 'them' at any given moment.

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

I think when there's so much information to be eaten up, and so many ways to do it, people cling to groups. I think we, as monkeys, want to live in smaller groups.

Natural selection has duped us with an emotion that encourages group thinking. It is an emotion that makes us act as if for the good of the group; an emotion that brings pleasure, pride, or even thrills from coordinated group activity.

I think better of our behaviour as individuals than I do when we see ourselves as members of a group. It's when people start forming groups that we have to watch our backs.

The mission of parties is to keep the people divided into factions, that they may be unable to do anything for themselves.

What everyone knows" is the line between us and them.

Tribalism is the most powerful force in the world.

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

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

One of us... One of them... One of us... One of them... A rhythm playing like train wheels on a circular track -- never ending but going nowhere.

Intolerance of groups is often, strangely enough, exhibited more strongly against small differences than against fundamental ones.

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.

Popular thought appeals to crowds, gatherings and tribes, who use it as a way to guide the herd. It is very evident in protests - sometimes the very people doing the protesting have NO IDEA what they are talking about.

I don't see tribalism ever really disappearing entirely. I just think that people are almost hardwired to identify as groups. And that sort of group identity always runs the risk of being chauvinistic.

When everybody in a group is susceptible to similar biases, groups are inferior to individuals, because groups tend to be more extreme than individuals.

Isolation always perverts; when a man lives only among his own sort, he soon begins to believe that his sort are the best sort. This attitude breeds both the arrogance of the conservative and the bitterness of the radical.

Polarization affects families and groups of friends. Its a paralyzing situation. A civil war of opinion.

The modern tribalism of the left demands that each person choose a group and then agree with everything that group agrees with. And anybody who leaves that group is stoned to death.

You ever notice that? Any time you see two groups of people who really hate each other, chances are good they're wearing different kind of hats. Keep an eye on that, it might be important.

I decide to do what I always do when I'm not sure what's going on: I act like everyone else.

Most people are sheep, and they need the support of others.

Nobody sees people as people. It's all how they relate to my little group.

The crowd has a way of being right.

A human group transforms itself into a crowd when it suddenly responds to a suggestion rather than to reasoning, to an image rather than to an idea, to an affirmation rather than to proof, to the repetition of a phrase rather than to arguments, to prestige rather than to competence.