Olympic Stadium: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Summer Olympics 2016
We humans are extremely tribal. During his global expeditions, Charles Darwin observed behavior in which individuals sacrificed self-interest to tribal benefit. It occurred to him that the innate biological propensity to pursue self-interest might be partially curtailed by a biological inclination toward cooperation. In The Descent of Man, he describes how a propensity for cooperation may have provided an advantage in inter-tribal contests for survival.
When two tribes of primeval man, living in the same country, came into competition, if (other circumstances being equal) the one tribe included a great number of courageous, sympathetic and faithful members, who were always ready to warn each other of danger, to aid and defend each other, this tribe would succeed better and conquer the other … The advantage which disciplined soldiers have over undisciplined hordes follows chiefly from the confidence which each man feels in his comrades. … Selfish and contentious people will not cohere and without coherence nothing can be effected. A tribe rich in the above qualities would spread and be victorious over other tribes.
Essentially, Darwin is asserting that tribalism was a survival advantage throughout our evolution. In the modern era, this is evident in nationalistic pride, sports affiliations and ethnic loyalties.
Most breakthroughs such as the invention of the light bulb, the radio, and the airplane — grew out of many small advances made by different people in different countries. When history gets turned into a simple story (“X invented Y”), certain individuals are accorded the credit for the invention by the tribe that is writing the history. Nikola Tesla developed much of the technology for the transmission of radio signals, but Marconi was the first one to make a transatlantic radio transmission and was given credit by most of the world for the invention of radio.
In 1943, the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Co. of America sued the United States, for patent infringement during World War I. On June 21 of that year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Marconi’s 1904 patent on tuned circuits was not valid because similar ideas had been previously patented by patents of Nikola Tesla and of Oliver Lodge in 1897. The Supreme Court ruled that Tesla’s 1897 patent on fundamental radio frequency tuning preceded Marconi’s, thereby crediting Tesla with precedence in the creation of the essential elements of radio. So the Serbians celebrate Tesla as the inventor of radio and the Italians celebrate Marconi as the inventor. When a member of our tribe is recognized for some special achievement, we all steal a little credit for ourselves. Just watch the jubilant fans at a sports event yelling, “We won!” Who is the “we”? The fans did nothing but cheer.
