Many of us in America and Europe are tiptoeing back into the office. For some, it’s a relief; for others, a curse. Either way, as we reacclimatise it is worth considering how the Covid-19 lockdowns have increased our tendency to be tribal beings.
Most of us have already confronted this in relation to our families and friends as lockdown forced us to define our social ties with the kind of crass hierarchy you normally only see on a school playground.
Think about it: in March 2020, we all had to select who was in our isolation “pod”. Everybody else was in a wider circle involving remote communication. The reverberations of this enforced tribalism will last for years. After all, a tribe is defined both by who is in it and who is left out.