Tribe
      In cultural anthropology, theoretical type of human social organization based on small groups defined by traditions of common descent and having temporary or permanent political integration above the family level and a shared language, culture, and ideology. In the ideal model of a tribe, members typically share a tribal name and a contiguous territory; they work together in such joint endeavours as trade, agriculture, house construction, warfare, and ceremonial activities. Tribes are usually composed of a number of smaller local communities (e.g., bands, villages, or neighborhoods) and may be aggregated into higher-order clusters, called nations.
As an ideal type, the tribe is regarded by cultural evolutionists as the form of social organization that developed into a stratified society and, eventually, into the type of social organization known as the primitive state. As an ideal type, the tribe derives its unity not from a territorial identity but from a sense of extended kinship.

Encyclopedia Brittanica
1. The organization, culture, or beliefs of a tribe. 2. The sense of entity of a tribe.

Taken from the Laurasian Lexicon
     Asatru, according to the above definitions, is a tribal way of life. It derives first and foremost from a dedication to family, whether near or extended, adopted or tied in bonds of sincere friendship. It assumes short-term goals, sense of history, and long-term aspirations to be community-based and common to all members, as well as intrinsic to the individual.
     Where problems arise they arise from a general lack of comprehension, from short-sightedness, egoism, greed and the unwarrented hostility such ignorance provokes.


Tribalism Problems

       "Tribalism problems are problems caused by racism, sexism, homophobia, nationalism, and the like. War and civil unrest are partly tribalism problems....You can think of tribalism problems as those that would be solved if all the people in the world were identical clones. Things that help alleviate tribalism problems are travel, mutual economic dependence, education, and an atmosphere of open-mindedness and tolerance."
-BK Skinner

       Northvegr stresses the above - in the form of education, open-mindedness and tolerance. In this age, nothing else is acceptable, practical, or desirable. While we may not agree fully with the paragraphs below, they are telling in certain aspects.

      "Religion is also mightily empowered by its principal ally, tribalism. To call religion instinctive is not to suppose that any particular part of its mythos is untrue -- only that its sources run deeper than ordinary habit and are in fact hereditary, urged into existence through biases in mental development that are encoded in the genes.
Such biases are a predictable consequence of the brain's genetic evolution. The logic applies to religious behavior, with the added twist of tribalism. There is a hereditary selective advantage to membership in a powerful group united by devout belief and purpose. Even when individuals subordinate themselves and risk death in a common cause, their genes are more likely to be transmitted to the next generation than are those of competing groups who lack comparable resolve.
      Human nature is biologically based, and it is relevant to ethics and religion. The evidence shows that because of its influence, people can readily be educated to only a narrow range of ethical precepts. They flourish within certain belief systems and wither in others."

      This speaks to the fact that what we are individually, and where our own personal and family evolution is leading us is most well tended - and has the most hospitable and most secure room to grow and flourish - will only be found within our own paradigm. What is innate within us, most often even beyond our present knowledge (and waiting to be uncovered), is where we feel most home, most secure, and where we feel the most freedom - whether we understand this feeling or not. We know it when we come upon it.
      "The spirits (god) our ancestors knew ultimately fled first the rocks and trees and then the distant mountains....But we cannot live without them. People need a sacred narrative. They must have a sense of larger purpose, in one form or another, however intellectualized. They will refuse to yield to the despair of animal mortality. They will find a way to keep the ancestral spirits alive.
      "The continuity of the human line has been traced through a period of deep history a thousand times as old as that conceived by the Western religions."
- Excerpted from Edward O. Wilson, Pellegrino University Research Professor and Honorary Curator in Entomology at Harvard University, in his book Consilience

       In supporting each other, as was done when community was smaller, more isolated, more interwoven and more in touch with the realities of the other worlds around us, we strengthen and protect not only ourselves as a tribe but the entirety of Miðgarðr. And we may always take into consideration that we are now indeed again small, more isolated from each other, and hopefully now beginning to keep more in touch, which is unlikely to change in the next few decades to any appreciable extent. In learning to appreciate the diversity even amongst ourselves we are weaving ourselves together; in learning to appreciate our various backgrounds and environmental differences, we all evolve.

      "Is it a mistake to anathematize the human species as such, for much of the time indigenous people are as victimized as the place itself. For when the place is plundered, then its flora, fauna, and people all suffer. Hence, the loss of diversity and vitality involves a double-displacement -- both natural and human -- under the homogenizing onslaught of hyper-industrial global monoculture. One wonders whether anything has an inherent right to exist in and of and for itself? Or can everything be appropriated?"
-David McCloskey, founder of the Cascadia Institute and co-chair of the New Ecological Studies Program at Seattle University.

      Those that would wipe out tribal differentiation are in effect fueling the mentioned ‘‘hyper-industrial global monoculture’’ model. We have seen the effects of this paradigm. Indeed, can everything be appropriated, even the spirit and memory of our ancestors? If we bend to this model, we may as well shrug off any thing identifying us as individuals or families. Throw away your last name entirely. Throw away your family history, in fact, throw away the history of the human species itself.
      We are free to adopt members into the tribe, those that are sincere and honourable, those that uphold the same model of living, the same aspirations and have the same resolves. Tribalism is a way of life based on the models our ancestors either lived or aspired to attain. If those of other tribal histories or backgrounds find our ways comfortable, rewarding, and ‘‘livable’’, especially in this age where such communities are rare, they are more than welcome to share in our lives - but only if they fully comprehend that an oath to our Elder Kin is unbreachable, an eternal tie from urdhr to skuld. This is not a ‘‘religion’’ per se, nor is it a casual pasttime, Asatru is a way of life.