ANTS TO ANTIFA

A nonfiction book argues that humans are essentially tribalistic, contending that their modern departure from their origins sparked their ruination.

For most of their history, humans lived in small tribes, social arrangements that dominated their existence for hundreds of thousands of years. According to Stewart, those tribes promoted solidarity, loyalty, and commitment. Within a group, members could expect to be “known, loved and trusted.” Over time, the weaker tribes were eliminated by dint of natural selection, leaving groups of generally equivalent power. This equality made peace a much more attractive option than war, produced neighborliness, and promoted the cultivation of negotiation skills. In fact, the tribal impulse is a deeply natural one, and “gang conventions” are “hard-wired into our brainstem”: “For most of us, our identity is derived from our relationships with other people. We are gangsters.” In this refreshingly irreverent meditation, the author examines tribalism wherever he finds it—ants, street gangs, even bacteria—in order to rediscover what has been lost in “our experiment with notional freedom, enlightenment,” and an atomized society. Stewart makes some original and thought-provoking arguments. For example, he claims that street gangs are likely right to reject a “bourgeois conformist” lifestyle and refuse to pay taxes or “cringe before petty government officials.” Unfortunately, the more conventional arguments he forwards regarding humans’ natural sociability and the destructive effects of excessive individualism are very familiar. This is not the typical academic study—Stewart’s eclectic, freewheeling style is closer to Guy Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle (1967) than to anything found in scholarly literature. This can make for rollicking good fun. But ultimately, the book fails to provide a systematic analysis. Moreover, the volume often turns hotly polemical, taking shots at both “fascist social dreamers” who push diversity and “subversive libertarians” while complaining about “feminist anti-natal screeching.” With so many examinations of this rich subject available to readers, Stewart’s work may struggle to find an audience.

A lively but uneven study of human society.