The end of the second season of the series has finally arrived. The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian), on Disney +, and we take advantage of all the emotions that this last chapter has aroused in us to analyze one of the guiding themes of the season (don't worry, this article is free of spoilers).
The topic under discussion is none other than tribalism and that we tend to have (and defend) a worldview, a set of beliefs and values, depending on the place where we were born. And that our loyalty to this group to which we belong is beyond the moral considerations of the acts themselves.
Dark Side and tribalism
Four recent studies have suggested the existence of a social norm according to which two competing groups or teams cannot be supported simultaneously. You can only be loyal to one group. That is to say, we are binary, and Manichean, when it comes to defining the world: there are the good and the bad, the Dark Side and the Light Side. Naturally, we always believe that we are on the right side.
Any individual who expresses mixed loyalties may be seen as a potential threat, not a true member of the group, and may be rejected or excluded. It is something that happens, for example, with the character of Migs Mayfield They infiltrate an Empire base of operations to get the exact location of the Star Destroyer. Moff Gideon to be able to rescue Grogu (in the chapter The Believer, the penultimate one of season two).
His loyalties are flexible, and that has allowed him to reflect from the sidelines and notice that we are all, in part, a function of where we were born. That we are all bad or good depending on who describes us.
That reflection is what will also push Din Djarin, commonly known as "the Mandalorian" or "Mando", to take off his helmet and break his code. At the end of the day, your code is just another discretion imposed by the group to which you belong in order to differentiate yourself from enemy or opposing groups.
Breaking loyalty with your group can not only condemn you to social exclusion, but is burdensome in every way, as suggested another study published in Journal of Experimental Social Psychology which states that the moral value of loyalty is above the moral value of honesty. Therefore, people who lied to benefit their groups under conditions of loyalty judged their deception as ethical, even though his actions harmed others.
Consequently, people who are dishonest out of loyalty feel that they are acting ethically and morally. But outsiders disagree and see such actions as immoral and evil, unless they themselves lie out of loyalty.
The researchers were interested in what happens when loyalty rubs up against values like honesty and justice, and to demonstrate this they worked with almost 1,400 participants over the course of four different studies.
Ultimately, the researchers found that when people were called upon to be loyal, their moral views on deception and honesty changed.
For this reason, in politics, the true psychological basis of voting is not beliefs but group identity, that is, ingroup bias and tribalism. Feeling that we are part of something bigger than ourselves. That others accept us. That we wear the colors, the flags, the songs or a beskar helmet, and that we merge with them in a kind of social dance that basically produces dopamine. That happens here and, also, in the Star Wars galaxy. Because, as far as we know, the Jedi have brains like ours. And also the Mandalorians.
If your level of geekism is high, you can delve into these and other philosophical questions in the penultimate and last chapters of the second season of The Mandalorian in the next viewing (this time with spoilers):
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'The Mandalorian' shows us that we tend to be loyal to a group even if we cause evil
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.