Global Outlook 2018: The Return of Tribes

Technology, Nationalism and the Social Divide

Photo: Bob Wick, BLM California

Nation states are divided, the EU is under fire and ideological fringe groups are gaining in influence across the world. Instead of dialogue, opposing parties’ wars of belief now dominate politics. What matters is belonging, rather than facts. We are experiencing the return of premodern tribal thinking.

At the heart of this tribal attitude lie struggle and survival in a hostile environment. Forty years ago, the visionary media theorist Marshall McLuhan said, ‘The tribal world is not friendly. One of tribal people’s main kinds of sport is butchering each other.’

The new tribes of like-minded individuals offer a sense of belonging. Identity arises through exclusion: us against them. The goal is interruption and destruction – without future perspectives and without history. Today is what counts. And the social media that should be bringing us together is in fact intensifying the formation of tribes.

The peaceful world has passed its peak.

What are the new major tribes and who are their chiefs?

Uprooted global elites versus local populations: who’s winning?

Are we returning to an archaic premodern state?

Is moderate nationalism the only alternative to tribal Darwinism?

Will the things that divide us soon become more significant than the things that unite us?

17.00
Introduction
David Bosshart (CH), GDI Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute
Tribal Behaviour: Why Now and What it Means for the Economy, Society and Politics

David Goodhart (UK), journalist, author and Head of the Demography, Immigration and Integration Unit, Policy Exchange
Somewheres and Anywheres: New Tribes and the Social Divide

• Populist success is based on differing values and economic divisions.
• The population’s more rooted and conservative 50 % of «Somewheres» like social openness less than the educated and mobile 20 to 25 % «Anywheres»
• Yet Anywheres have come to dominate the agenda in most developed countries
• Now the Somewheres have used their political voice to challenge that Anywhere domination

Olivier Alexandre (FR), sociologist and research fellow, The National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS)
Decoding the Silicon Valley Mindset: Will Nerds Be Tomorrow's Elite?

• Silicon Valley is primarily an economy of game and investments
• Its inhabitants: mostly high-wave, leisure-seeking young men
• The truth of this new entrepreneurial society is ambiguous at best
• The winners: only a handful

Panel discussion with David Goodhart and Olivier Alexandre
Tomorrow's Tribes: Common Traits, Common Threats

Break

Peter Sloterdijk (DE), philosopher, cultural scientist and writer
Prehuman and Late Culture - Revisited

• On the reproduction of the old in the new
• Approaching the phenomenon of tribalism from the perspective of philosophical anthropology

Conversation with Peter Sloterdijk and David Bosshart
Tribes and Cultures: Who Has Power Tomorrow?

20.00
Apéro Riche

Date
22 January 2018

Further
Language

Presentations in German and English. German presentations will be simultaneously translated into English.

Changes of the programme

The programme is subject to change. If an event does not take place, fees will be refunded. Further claims are ruled out.

Cancellation

If you are unable to attend, please let us have your cancellation in writing. The fee will be reimbursed on cancellation until 18 December 2017. After this term and until five full working days prior to the event we will charge 75% of the fee. In the event of later cancellations we will charge the full participation fee. Substitute participants welcome. Please name these under: tribes(at)gdi.ch

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CHF 190
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