The Faire (Harrow Faire #5) - Kathryn Ann Kingsley

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Tribalism is the true poison of human nature.

At some point in our lives, we choose somewhere to belong. Oftentimes it is whatever situation into which we were born. A family, a religion, a society, a country…it matters not. Tribalism, willing or unwilling, is a toxin that we all drink. One we actively seek out for ourselves. One that we will happily imbibe each time it is offered to us.

Why?

In the earliest years, this concept of “tribalism” was quite literal. Human society in its infancy was formed by the simple need to hunt and survive. We invented such constructs in order to protect ourselves against the predators—both human and otherwise—that skulked in the darkness and would take from us what we needed to live, breed, and persist.

It is simple to understand why, as early animals, humans clung to each other. Yet in most societies we no longer need to worry about roving packs of coyotes who would pick our bones clean in the night. We live comfortable, protected lives.

So why do we still find the need to divide ourselves? Why do we seek out ways to define our being in such a manner?

Because it is not enough to simply be human.

We must be important.

In the crowd that enumerates humanity we are small, insignificant, and unimportant. In our search for seity, for importance, we must narrow the lens and increase the magnification. We continue to do this again and again, over and over, smaller and smaller, until we find somewhere that we are special.

Where we matter.

Religion. Nation. Sports. Political affiliation. Sexual orientation. Entertainment preferences. The list goes on. We find ways to narrow our tribe until we find our niche. The place where our seity may be seen and appreciated. We carve out for ourselves a place to belong in the false hopes that it may leave an impact upon the world when we are gone.

But that is not the only reason. If it were simply that, it would be an unenlightened but utterly benign reminder of the evolution of the species. It would be the residue of all those frightened nights huddled together in a cave, afraid of the tigers in the dark.

There is another, far more insidious, far more dangerous impetus for the divisions in our nature in which we willfully engage. And it lies in the darkest recesses of the heart that society at large refuses to acknowledge. For if we were to look into the pit of our own nature and speak the truth, we are not the noble creatures we pretend to be.

But allow me to shed some light upon it for the purpose of this discussion.

Humans need hatred.

We need to despise others with every breath we take.

We survive off it. We revel in it. We wish to scream our disgust at our enemies. We want to exalt in our victories over our defeated foes. We want to crush them beneath us. For we are “us,” and we despise “them.”

Even when guns and armies are omitted, we find a reason to hate our neighbors. The immigrant who looks different from us. Those who defy our tribalistic rules of sexuality, love, and religion. Those who stand against our political beliefs. We look down our noses at them, call them fools and sinners. Hate them with the very core of our being. We wish them harm. We wish them ruin. We celebrate when they are brought low.

We languish when they are raised high, because to share our status with them is to devalue ourselves. There are only so many poker chips upon the table, and we hate to share. And we hate those with whom we must share our seity.

We seek our tribes.

Not merely to have an “us.”

But because we require a “them.”

We must hate.

We must destroy others.

That is what it means to be human.

-M. L. Harrow

Cora was falling.

She didn’t know to where. She didn’t know for how long. But as the darkness rushed by her, she could make out shapes that were barely discernible. They were just out of view and moving too quickly for her to make sense of what she was seeing. But it didn’t matter. She was falling.

So, she did the natural thing. She screamed.

She wondered if she would fall forever.

Right until the moment she stopped.

And the stopping was worse.

Pain. Searing and stabbing through every part of her body, she could do nothing about it except feel it. She couldn’t even scream anymore. Even that was taken from her. Everything else, including her thoughts, shattered—her mind