Tribal Epistemology

Glover's most uncomfortable contribution to moral psychology was the observation that belief often follows identity rather than leading it. The person who adopts a tribe's position does not weigh evidence and arrive at a conclusion that happens to align with the tribe. The adoption precedes the weighing; evidence is then processed in the light of the already-adopted position. This is not stupidity or bad faith. It is the normal operation of social cognition, and it is why genuine reconsideration is rare even among thoughtful people. Glover documented the mechanism in ethnic conflicts, religious disputes, and political polarization — contexts where the tribal stakes were high and the evidentiary costs of defection were real. He would recognize the AI discourse of 2025–2026 as a textbook case. Triumphalist and elegist positions have hardened into tribal markers; the silent middle, which holds both truths in tension, has no tribe to validate its ambivalence and therefore remains silent.