An intermittent tribal business · My next tribal enterprise · To distinguish is to know. · The civilized hate and fear tribal people · Tribes and communities
Quinn uses an illegal business as an example of a tribal business. Although he calls no attention to this fact, what point is implicit in this? At the end of The Sting, the participants divide up the proceeds of the sting–and then what? Make a conjecture about what they do next.
Besides the ones the author suggests, what are some activities you’d like to see offered at a Circus of Learning? Suggest some sites in your own area that would seem suitable for the kind of Circus of Learning that Quinn describes.
Do you know of any enterprises in your area that seem to you to be as tribal as, say, the Rimsky-Korsakoffeehouse?
Does it “sound plausible” to you that tribal people get more out of life? Would it have sounded plausible to you before you read this book?
Reacting to revelations in the fall of 1999 that the government did in fact shell the Branch Davidian compound with pyrotechnic devices, one of the survivors of the ensuing conflagration said they’d been saying this “for years,” explaining that “people just automatically believed what they were told because the government and certain members of the press did such a good job of demonizing the Branch Davidians.” Does Quinn’s idea that “the civilized hate and fear tribal people” satisfy you as an explanation of people’s readiness to “believe what they were told”?
Do you find it hard to imagine “totally decent” people being attracted to the tribal life?
