I recently bought a great documentary that realistically interrogates our current and frightening environmental challenges. I wanted to share one small section, which, in the past, I’ve heard in various forms. In the film, “the parable of the tribes,” was recited by Ran Prieur. This is an over-simplified explanation of how violence seeps into peaceful landscapes and spreads. This blew my mind the first time I heard it, so I’m curious to hear what you think.

Imagine a bunch of tribes living in an area peacefully. One of the tribes, for some reason—instead of living in balance and in peace—they decide to make a bunch of weapons and conquer the next tribe and turn them all into slaves. The other tribe has three choices

1. If they run away, the paradigm of the violent tribe expands into their territory.
2. If they submit to slavery, the paradigm of the violent tribe expands into their territory.
3. If they decide to make a bunch of weapons to fight back, the paradigm of the violent tribe expands into their territory.

This process continues and spreads around the world until it’s full of violent people who build weapons and fight and enslave others.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 21st, 2008 at 9:35 am and is filed under identity. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will be moderated but will appear as soon as humanly possible.