Sebastian Junger’s ‘Tribe’
I was going to say how much I enjoyed the personal whimsy and occasional profundity of Joseph Skibell’s “My Father’s Guitar,” a collection of autobiographical and stylish stories. But then, the tribes spoke at the ballot box, in the United Kingdom and then in America. The outpouring of (often unacceptable) antipathy towards people outside of your own group needs to be understood in the context of the strong feelings of belonging and home that certain groups, certain tribes, engender. Sebastian Junger’s “Tribe” is a powerful yearning for and explication of the tribe from a war reporter, a cosmopolitan, a writer who probably feels that we should all universally love one another but really don’t. He puts his finger right on the sore spot of capitalist alienation and explains how much we want to belong yet how deeply sore we are.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO