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ljcarey011 's review for:
Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging
by Sebastian Junger
This book dropped my jaw again and again, and not in a good way. The author does a very superficial job of interrogating his beliefs and practices lots of confirmation bias while at the same time refuting his own opinions and theories in the next chapter because he apparently can't be bothered to keep track of things. What really, really angers me about this book is that there are interesting moments, where the author shares facts and insight from field professionals. Then he gets distracted by a pet theory, bulks it up with mental leaps, and sputters off into the abyss.
The author adores the noble savage myths, lumps a diverse group of people with diverse beliefs and practices under the name "American Indians" and treats them as interchangeable for the first ~1/2 of the book, refers to them as a Stone Age society, despite what we know about their advance governments, city designing, and agricultural accomplishments, and fails to acknowledge the role of racism in his tales. Also: pet peeve. Why does he spell Lakotah with an "h?" I honest to God googled it. My first hand experience with Lakota individuals is short, but I stood in probably 8 community buildings, spoke with 100s of Lakota individuals and read dozens of signs, and not a single one included an "h" in the spelling. My google search seems to agree based on a search of Lakota Nation. I trust them more than the author.
He makes mental leaps about the differences between men and women, despite our now established recognition that assigning behaviors by gender isn't backed up by science, and much of what we consider gender divides are actually due to long trained societal norms, not differences set in stone by genetic differences. He is so deep in his white male power fantasies about the tribe that he doesn't even catch himself when he makes claims about "Stone Age" societies not having a hierarchy because all the men come together to shun the badly behaving men, not just the leader. The men. Men. Men only. Do you know why that is men only? Because in most societies ("Stone Age" or not) they are hierarchical along lines of gender. If all you see is men, then you're not seeing the vast majority of society, including women, children of any gender, and non-binary people. If you can't see the hierarchy because you only study the top strata, you're doing a shit job of researching. (Just today my mother was horrified that I tried to stop and help someone with vehicle issues, because as a woman that could get me killed or raped, whereas for men that's far less likely, and they never get talks like "never leave your drink alone" which leaves us female types potently aware of how dangerous everyday life is. That is, IMHO, 99% of the reason you don't see women helping with physical things. Because it's mostly strangers and it puts us at risk. Does the author interrogate why women help in one way and men in another? No, he's too busy buying into the gender role binary and skipping on.)
The author claims he thought referencing throughout the text would be distracting, as such, he often presents his opinions and mental math as facts. There were places where I knew he was using superficial knowledge and that a more thorough reading of the text I suspected he was building off of would unravel his theory. Hard to search out what document he was using because he failed to drop a tiny little digit down to allow fact checking against any references. He also, at least twice, spends a chapter arguing something, and then in the next chapter skims over a comment or statement that completely unravels his entire argument. Sloppy. Lazy. Confirmation bias all over the place. Just an absolute disappointment because I think the topic is interesting and he mostly did a poor job discussing the military and American Indian groups. (No comment on whether that should be the properly used term, as he decided it is thanks to that one person he spoke to, and he clearly believes groups are a monolith.)
Overall, a huge disappointment.
The author adores the noble savage myths, lumps a diverse group of people with diverse beliefs and practices under the name "American Indians" and treats them as interchangeable for the first ~1/2 of the book, refers to them as a Stone Age society, despite what we know about their advance governments, city designing, and agricultural accomplishments, and fails to acknowledge the role of racism in his tales. Also: pet peeve. Why does he spell Lakotah with an "h?" I honest to God googled it. My first hand experience with Lakota individuals is short, but I stood in probably 8 community buildings, spoke with 100s of Lakota individuals and read dozens of signs, and not a single one included an "h" in the spelling. My google search seems to agree based on a search of Lakota Nation. I trust them more than the author.
He makes mental leaps about the differences between men and women, despite our now established recognition that assigning behaviors by gender isn't backed up by science, and much of what we consider gender divides are actually due to long trained societal norms, not differences set in stone by genetic differences. He is so deep in his white male power fantasies about the tribe that he doesn't even catch himself when he makes claims about "Stone Age" societies not having a hierarchy because all the men come together to shun the badly behaving men, not just the leader. The men. Men. Men only. Do you know why that is men only? Because in most societies ("Stone Age" or not) they are hierarchical along lines of gender. If all you see is men, then you're not seeing the vast majority of society, including women, children of any gender, and non-binary people. If you can't see the hierarchy because you only study the top strata, you're doing a shit job of researching. (Just today my mother was horrified that I tried to stop and help someone with vehicle issues, because as a woman that could get me killed or raped, whereas for men that's far less likely, and they never get talks like "never leave your drink alone" which leaves us female types potently aware of how dangerous everyday life is. That is, IMHO, 99% of the reason you don't see women helping with physical things. Because it's mostly strangers and it puts us at risk. Does the author interrogate why women help in one way and men in another? No, he's too busy buying into the gender role binary and skipping on.)
The author claims he thought referencing throughout the text would be distracting, as such, he often presents his opinions and mental math as facts. There were places where I knew he was using superficial knowledge and that a more thorough reading of the text I suspected he was building off of would unravel his theory. Hard to search out what document he was using because he failed to drop a tiny little digit down to allow fact checking against any references. He also, at least twice, spends a chapter arguing something, and then in the next chapter skims over a comment or statement that completely unravels his entire argument. Sloppy. Lazy. Confirmation bias all over the place. Just an absolute disappointment because I think the topic is interesting and he mostly did a poor job discussing the military and American Indian groups. (No comment on whether that should be the properly used term, as he decided it is thanks to that one person he spoke to, and he clearly believes groups are a monolith.)
Overall, a huge disappointment.