Sebastian Junger’s ‘Tribe’
Image by Tim Hetherington
By Dan Friedman December 27, 2016
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.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
