Sinteza – nr.

62, Cluj Napoca – Bucuresti,

2019

TRIBAL
ROMANIA
Emocracy and neotribalism

Vasile Sebastian Dancu

Abstract. For three decades Romania has been in a continuous fragmentation. The
emotional unanimity of the revolution has dissipated and, instead, the crevices, the
cleavages, as sociologists call them, have appeared. Politicians did not excel in seeking
consensus, rather wishing to seduce broken segments of the social body through themes
suitable for division. Instead of seeking to harness positive emotions, natural belonging,
seeking to enhance people’s qualities, they chose the easier path to reinforce possible
differences and contradictions..

Throughout this period an emocracy has crystallized, a variant of democracy in which

emotion tips the balances in information’s favour and facts become less important than
subjective impulses. At this stage of our democracy, affective indoctrination of the citizen is
already a rule, dramatized decisions or the construction of telejustice shows only reinforce
the birth of elective reflexes conditioned by affections.
Neotribalism can be facilitated by new digital technologies and social media. Social media
has created opportunities for both cross-cultural pollination and for us to fit into ideological
ecological chambers, as a powerful global tool and global weapon. Social media offers a
platform to express individualized feelings and tastes, but, most of the time, the mentality
and conformity of the manpower seem to govern. Recent experiments show that the
behavior of others has a deeper effect on the use of aggressive language than anonymity.
Algorithms strive to distinguish between content that is truly offensive and language that is
not offensive in contextNeotribalismul poate fi facilitat de noile tehnologii digitale şi social
media.

But social fragmentation also corresponds to a fragmentation of human values. Basically,

we no longer recognize ourselves and we do not recognize in the same value system, we
reject the values of a modernity that was believed at one point a final stage of evolution, an
end of history, as Fukuyama believed. In a society that runs after enrichment and profit,
fragmentation leads to islands that seek to define civilizational ideals within micro-groups,
ideals that in many situations become true counterculturesDar fragmentării sociale îi
corespunde şi o fragmentare la nivelul valorilor umane.

The empirical research carried out in the last decades by IRES reveals a fragmentation of the
conceptions and beliefs on the axis of ideas that segment the population. Social evolution
shows that these “tribes” united by emotion or feelings can have longer or shorter lifetimes.
Sometimes it takes a short time because the evolution of things and the media succeed in
showing public performances that change the emotions that coagulate micro-groups.
 Tribal Romania. Emocracy and neotribalism

For three decades Romania has been in a continuous fragmentation. The

emotional unanimity of the revolution has dissipated and, instead, the crevices,
the cleavages, as sociologists call them, have appeared. Politicians did not excel
in seeking consensus, rather wishing to seduce broken segments of the social
body through themes suitable for division. Instead of seeking to harness positive
emotions, natural belonging, seeking to enhance people’s qualities, they chose
the easier path to reinforce possible differences and contradictions. If Mircea
Vulcănescu launched in the interwar period the debate about the two Romanias,
discovering the major cleavage between a rural civilization - traditional and left
behind and an urban civilization - modernized, industrialized, after the fall of
communism, Adrian Nastase or Traian Băsescu talked about two Romanias
starting from the analysis of the votes, last time, in 2017, the former prime
minister reminiscing about a Romania of the vote and one of the street, referring
to 2017, when there were ample demonstrations against a government that had
been installed with a comfortable majority in Parliament.
But beyond the political, normal and healthy fragmentation for
democracy, which has produced interesting cleavages like: how soon the
economical reform or privatization must be done, if unification with the
Republic of Moldova is appropriate, how much autonomy local communities
should receive, an unprofessional societal and political management has
produced cleavages that can hardly be eliminated in the future. I only refer to a
few, who had greater visibility. The conflict between the private environment
and the state employees, the latter being viewed as fat people who are carried by
the weak, the one between the diaspora as the best part of the nation and those
who remained in the country, that is the least talented and skillful or that of the
„toothless elders” and young revolutionaries guided by high ethical values and
cosmopolitan attitude. In the last years there has been an even tougher debate,
between the sovereign state and the weak state, adapted to the globalization that
must respect the decisions taken elsewhere, that is, between the sovereignists
(accused as being Russia’ slaves) and the internationalists (lovers of
Europeanization and NATOization). All these debates were marked by
emotional outbursts strongly crystallized in political crises or moments of
intense collective emotion.
Throughout this period an emocracy has crystallized, a variant of
democracy in which emotion tips the balances in information’s favour and facts
become less important than subjective impulses. At this stage of our democracy,
affective indoctrination of the citizen is already a rule, dramatized decisions or
the construction of telejustice shows only reinforce the birth of elective reflexes
conditioned by affections.
In France, some interesting works have emerged on this topic, as early as
past decades. Knowing the affective dimension of politics, P. Ansart shows that
there is a tradition already in the analysis of this phenomenon, even though in
the last century, the tendency towards positivism that has influenced the social
sciences has caused the emotional influences on the policy to be ignored.
Beyond this, however, in the last decades, a series of questions related to
interesting topics have crystallized: how political feelings are born within social
segments and how they are nourished and reproduced; how certain moments of
radicalization are emotionally nurtured or how these political passions are
structuring voting behaviors.
“The political universe is crossed by more complex phenomena, which
far exceed the psychology of the actors. There are also social logics that cause
anxiety and violence, illusions and disappointments. We observe collective
mechanisms of idealization, projections in the imaginary, phenomena of denial,
especially in successive rewrites of history”, showed, more than 30 years ago,
P. Braud. One of the most important American researchers in political
psychology, G.E. Marcus wrote: The role of emotion in politics is ubiquitous
both because emotion allows experience to be encoded with its evaluative
history and because emotion allows contemporary circumstances to be quickly
assessed. Beyond recognizing this theme in the research area, in Romania, by
mimicking or using in all electoral campaigns foreign consultants, the
investment in emotional messages and the generalization of the political conflict
as a form of differentiation, replacing the dialogue and debate, produced quite
rapid effects.
The emotion propelled by political messages, but also by the television
soap operas was the best catalyst for the tribalization of Romania, for the birth
of micro-groups, a smash of Romania in segments, somewhere in the hidden
structure of the collective consciousness. The arguments in this article seek not
to be the bearers of too neat value judgments.

Neotribalism

Continuous fragmentation and segregation make us all more crowded in

communities but separated in spirit and in many of our beliefs. We become
tribal because we come to combine the spirit of solidarity with those with whom
we agree, with the aggression towards others.
Although there is a need for institutions that receive diversity within
them, within the affective groups we seek to defend ourselves against diversity.
The tribe keeps warm in a cold world, a world in which more and more
community landmarks are disappearing. Confidence in the church is weakened,
and the traditional family is undermined by divorces that affect almost half of
marriages in the last 5 years. Now the individual gains in relation to the group,
especially through digital skills, and this detachment from traditional groups
makes the individual seek new affiliations. The society is fractured into an
infinite number of micro-groups built around common affinities. Some sort of
ideologies – which are born and die quite often, because people share tastes,
values and lifestyle elements. As Untold becomes an international community,
the nation state is less and less interesting. The vectors of identification become
stronger than the institutions because they have the advantage of being chosen
by individuals and are based on shared emotions and passions.
The digital favors tribalism, realizing, as M. Maffesoli writes: “the
synergy of the archaic with technological development”. Seth Godin, a highly
successful author in the world of marketing, emphasizes that neotribes are based
on the principle of belonging and are always looking for charismatic rulers and
leaders. In general, neotribes exclude the idea of domination of one, they will
not necessarily have a father figure, but always seek guidance.
We are living in a time similar to the fall of the Roman Empire, as M.
Maffesoli says, a kind of parenthesis of the history in which the old gods are
dead, and the new ones have not yet been born. Neotribes lead guerrilla wars on
moral principles and challenge traditional centers of power. A collective actor is
created as a counterweight to the central power, and the boundaries between
neotribes are conceptual, not physical. Although neotribes are temporary
communities and are emotionally unstable, they also produce a fragmentation of
individual identity.
There is a getaway from the biological family to create the affective,
sentimental family because we are living more and more in a culture of feeling,
where the binders are admiration and taste. The morale propagated and in the
name of which wars are waged is a moral without obligation and sanction.

Tribalization of Romania

Romania is fragmented and it is in a continuous fragmentation, every

year, especially under the influence of politicians who always try to create
demarcation lines, to take as many categories of people as possible, polarizing
society with every possible occasion. Some might say that in such way there is a
differentiation and that it is a modern thing. It is not so, and it is simple to argue
why. Within the process of normal differentiation, the segments of society can
coexist, respect each other, can be associated in actions that do not concern the
criterion by which they differentiate. In the case of tribalization, we have a
differentiation by segregation, the micro-groups develop negative identities,
based on conflict. The elements of cohesion within these groups are rather
emotional, sentimental, and emotions are about conflict with other segments.
Our politicians are always looking for these segments to place their flags
as some rulers of islands which only they’ve discovered. Sometimes, they
succeed, but most of the time, they don’t even know that these islands exist
because they are less interested in people, they often look only in their own
mirror and they are excited about the cohorts of flatterers which are brought by
their adjutants.
Tribes are born through several mechanisms. The media provides
weaponry for an emotional perception of reality. Day by day, soap operas with
real characters and everyday subjects explode on TV screens. Day by day, most
of the population is bombarded by discourses as new and new crises appear that
show poor governance every day. Policy makers, instead of doing anti-crisis
projects and strategies, go to the television or use social media to make
emotional speeches. They blame each other, show compassion for the victims or
suggest impulsive solutions, unattainable, but with a sentimental impact. People
are divided into groups that adhere to this show and adhere to some or other of
the populist views. If the normal differentiation of a nation by religions,
regional identities, ethnicities, center and periphery, urban or rural residence
adds value to a nation, tribalization on emotional groups weakens cohesion and
often blocks development, beyond polluting human and social relations.
Tribalism uses selective solidarity, emphasizes the protection of an emotion and
the things that derive from it; cultivates fear of others, fear being a stronger
emotion than other. Within the new tribes, political or not, conformism is
encouraged, and the pressure for conformism is very high. Social networks and
Facebook groups show how much violence all members of the group use when
someone makes the mistake of getting out of the taboo sphere. When a member
of the contesting political body “dared” to go on a television that frequently
criticizes this political group, such a violent reaction arouses that the politician
is forced to declare that he was wrong and that any presence on that television
should be boycotted. Not only is the behavioral and attitudinal conformism
encouraged, but also the moral conformism. The recent case of President
Băsescu and the court decision related to being a security informant, now makes
his adulterers justify that no matter what his choice was, it was necessary,
spraying this stigma that they used until then in the diabolization of other
members of the political body. The behavior of the members of these tribes is
marked by mimicry and formal solidarity, which goes to the smallest details,
because the tribe does not allow too much differentiation than that between the
Olympus of some leaders and the supporters of the idea-emotion.
The one who has analyzed, in the last decades, the phenomenon of
retribalization, the French sociologist M. Maffesoli writes that the circulation of
affections and passions constitutes an efficient cement for social structuring
(Maffesoli, 1993: 69), neotribalism consisting of fluidity, periodic assemblies
and dispersions” (Maffesoli, 1993: xv). In addition, people from the new tribes
also practice nomadism from one group to another, depending on the emotional
attachments and flows of emotions that are constantly born in society. Some
tribes may be connected in joint projects, but this is not a rule, this fluidity is
unique in history. A paradoxical feature is that neo-tribes confess explicit goals
of social, economic or political change, but their implicit purpose is the
continuation of social interactions. Membership in these tribes is often
expressed by “secret” signs, such as ways of speaking and certain slogans or
signs. The explicit contract of the social is replaced by the secret, with
conviviality and proxemic.
Important in Maffesoli’s work is the indication of studying more than
individuals the ways in which an emotional energy that comes from the masses
and which can have major or unexpected effects, as can be seen in the case of
the stock market or elections, the case of Brexit or Donald Trumps’s election,
being already important examples. It is worth analyzing these new social
fragmentations because certain important disturbances in terms of solidarity and
identity mechanisms based on gender, social class, nation or race appear, and
the valuable idea is that the recomposition of identities leads to temporary
identities, individuals are “constantly rebuilding”, by reference to certain
sources of meaning and collective expression.
Neotribalism can be facilitated by new digital technologies and social
media. Social media has created opportunities for both cross-cultural pollination
and for us to fit into ideological ecological chambers, as a powerful global tool
and global weapon. Social media offers a platform to express individualized
feelings and tastes, but, most of the time, the mentality and conformity of the
manpower seem to govern. Recent experiments show that the behavior of others
has a deeper effect on the use of aggressive language than anonymity.
Algorithms strive to distinguish between content that is truly offensive and
language that is not offensive in context.
We are not talking about social differentiation, but rather about radical
division, and the difference is made by the aggressiveness of the language and
the tone of these segregations. According to the tribal concept of polarization of
the group, the individual identity is less important than the identity of the group
or, for this problem, the survival of the group, and polarization of the group is
the most used solution when it comes to increasing cohesion.
Of course, the modern state is impacted by two centripetal forces, that is
integration and globalization, but also centrifugal.
 A recent sociological study in the United States finds that political
surveys and years of being at swords points during elections have convinced
many people that the US has become a 50:50 society, divided into two opposing
political tribes and caught in a spiral of conflict and division. American
sociologists have found “a large segment of the population whose voices are
rarely heard over the cries of partisan tribes”. The fragmentation of society in
the age of social media and partisan news stations became dangerously tribal,
fueled by a culture of outrage and crime. For the combatants, the other party can
no longer be tolerated and no price is too high to defeat them, and serious
debates on the economy, social issues or national security are no longer possible
because they are filtered out and take place in a war between the political tribes.
It is necessary, as the authors of this report say, for a reconstruction of the
segmented society, for studying these lines of division in search of the
construction of a collective meaning.
And in Romania we have a hidden architecture of beliefs, of our vision of
the world, matrices through which individuals interpret the world and connect to
groups and provide differentiation criteria stronger than social position, gender
condition, position on the social ladder, residence environment or education
level; these are conclusions that are very clear from our sociological studies.

The political or militant tribes simply brought for the Romanian society
the image that we are a conflict society. Everyone claims something from the
state, the state has, in a way, become a kind of common enemy. Contempt and
hatred are cultivated within these groups. The political contempt is a new
acquisition and is best illustrated by the acceptance and promotion in the
political vocabulary of a vulgarity from the repertoire of football galleries in
Romania, the phenomenon “Fuck PSD”.
In the fifth wave, the Internet brings the greatest communication
revolution: everyone has the right to speak. No respect for meritocracy or
competence, only a slight censorship. Opinions are the same, each can be
expressed through networks, disappearing the idea of society of positions. The
vertical society characterized by traditional types of centralization, guided by
norms, principles and regulations, where strategies and forms of social or
political planning were encouraged, filtered by the traditional media is on the
verge of extinction. The audience reappears on the stage of history, but in
different forms from those anticipated since the beginning of the last century by
Gustave Le Bon, Ortega Y Gasset or Eduard Bernays.
The public is already energized by fanatical egalitarianism in social
networks and is dramatically positioned against the center, the overlapping
structures and the organized society in general. The public does not necessarily
want power, it does not want to replace the elite, it just wants to hack those who
lead, and it just wants to put continuous pressure on the elites who manage
certain sectors of society.
Amy Chua, in a recent book with slightly prophetic valence, writes that
Americans tend to look at the world in terms of territorial national states;
capitalism versus communism, democracy versus authoritarianism and the free
world versus the axis of evil, ignoring the complex primary group identities of
the world and thinking about democracy as a unifying force, a far too
reductionistic idea.
But social fragmentation also corresponds to a fragmentation of
human values. Basically, we no longer recognize ourselves and we do not
recognize in the same value system, we reject the values of a modernity that
was believed at one point a final stage of evolution, an end of history, as
Fukuyama believed. In a society that runs after enrichment and profit,
fragmentation leads to islands that seek to define civilizational ideals within
micro-groups, ideals that in many situations become true countercultures.
The Internet facilitates this fragmentation and division of the worlds. In a
recent paper, Bruno Patino analyzes the fragmentation of attention and
compulsive behaviors in the face of continuous stimulation by electronic media,
talking about addiction in a society he calls “stroboscopic society”, projecting
the need for personal detoxification, at least a decoupling for several times a day
from these digital stimuli or setting up areas without signal, similar to the areas
where smoking is prohibited.
For several decades, Ronald Inglehart, author of the well-known The
Silent Revolution, had already launched the thesis of a post-materialist stage, a
thesis that included the idea that individuals escape material insecurity and are
already oriented towards values that put the need for belonging at the center of
the system, the expression of self and individual autonomy. These requirements
can no longer be fulfilled in the large society, so it is preferable to withdraw into
small groups, with tribal aspect, where they can express themselves, where there
are no strict rules and hierarchies, groups that can easily offer the chance to
walk off or accept multi-membership. Even if the thesis of the American
sociologist contains an evolutionary premise, in the sense of progress, today we
see that fragmentation can have negative and not structured valences for today’s
societies.
Neotribalism today was anticipated even in the work The Crowd: A Study
of the Popular Mind by Gustave le Bon who wrote, in 1895, that it is not
absolutely necessary to have a psychological crowd for individuals to be
physically present, it is enough if they share the same emotion. The example of
the claims of the yellow vests who demanded neither more nor less than the
resignation of President Macron, the modification of the Constitution or the
dissolution of the Parliament in Paris confirmed LeBon’s hypothesis that the
feeling of the number makes the crowds believe themselves invincible and that
everything is possible.
Informational chaos serves the dissolution and fragmentation, the
democratization of access to raw information, produced by the circle of those
close to you, unverified, creates parallel circuits that, many times, parasitize the
normal circuit, that of the media or institutional communication.

The tribes of profound Romania

Behind certain behaviors or aggregations that lead to the image of a

mental uniformity or even a simplification of the area of popular beliefs,
opinions or trends under the influence of mass culture and consumption,
sociologists observe a fragmentation of conceptions and beliefs along the axis
of ideas that segment the population, sometimes in radical manners, manners
that make true wars erupt, especially in the case of events with a major
emotional burden. Social evolution shows that these “tribes” united by emotion
or feelings can have longer or shorter lifetimes. Sometimes it takes a short time
because the evolution of things and the media succeed in showing public
performances that change the emotions that coagulate micro-groups. An
example is the phenomenon of migration from the East to Europe, a migration
that became a real European crisis in 2017. If at the beginning of the crisis the
public opinion in Romania was structured in 65% positive attitude towards the
migrants, including their accommodation in Romania, in three weeks, only
through the pressure of the media and a strong bombardment of images, the
majority attitude changed radically in a rejection approaching 70%. There are
also ideas, beliefs and emotions that structure in the longer term the division of
public opinion in at least two tribes, sometimes in opposition, sometimes even
in conflict. Here I refer to the political activism, which remained at a rather low
level or the inertia of trust in certain institutions in Romania.
1. The tribe of the politically active versus the tribe of those parallel to
politics. In Romania, those who are interested in politics are always between
30-35% of the population. They largely declare that they get their information
on television or on the Internet and that they are attracted to the daily political
spectacle. In general, they have quite clear political ideas, but they also modify
in some cases the party or the candidate who disappoints them. The 65-70%
who feel like strangers in this territory are absent in some cases, and when they
go to the vote, they decide rather late, a part even on Election Day. Most of
them listen to the advice of their relatives or friends, and in general, they know
very little or not at all about the candidates and their programs. This part of
political Romania lives especially when it is triggered by emotional shocks, for
example when they are told that foreigners are stealing the country, that because
of the corruption of the politicians the country has been impoverished or that a
political character is taking us out of Europe and blocking our European funds,
and the Romanians left there will be sent home.
Of course, in these cases, the superactives in politics also become great
disseminators and influencers, and some are fighting for life and death, in the
name of a rationality that they proclaim to awaken in others from the narcosis
produced by these fears. Overall, 36% of Romanians think the vote is useless,
most of them in the area of liabilities, those parallel to politics. Among those
parallel to politics is the segment made up of 62% of Romanians who 6 months
before the presidential elections this autumn (2019) did not have a candidate yet
to support. In the same way, two weeks before the 2019 European elections,
59% of those who declared that they were going to vote, were still not sure who
they would vote for.

2. The tribe of revolted (25-30%) versus the tribe of conformists (70-75%).

The revolted think against stereotypes, they are opposed, they are politically
active and they don’t feel inadequate by the fact that they are few, in relation to
a rather inactive and amorphous mass. In a 2019 IRES survey, the revolted are
the ones that show total agreement for a number of possible political projects:
 Electoral threshold for entering in Parliament to decrease from 5% to 3%
39%
Foreigners cannot buy land in Romania
42%
Only those who have a stable residence in Romania should be able to
vote 40%
Reintroduction of the death penalty for very serious crimes
35%
The state should support with funds the church and religious cults
24%
Private universities should be abolished
22%
Romania should become a tax heaven
22%
Let’s give up some sovereignty attributes to be led from Brussels within a
federal Europe
16%
To halve the number of universities in Romania
17%
Minimum age for voting to be 15 years
17%
President of Romania to be elected by Parliament
17%
The state should accept same-sex marriage
13%

Politicians know that these issues do not have a majority and the revolted do not
receive satisfaction. However, if sociologists asked practitioners, they could
observe that these topics have a majority of over 50% in the active constituency.
Both the PSD and the PNL electorates, as well as those of the new parties,
accept these themes of “revolt”. Romania would change a lot if they had more
courage and would analyze the incidence of these issues only on the electorate
that actually goes to the vote that is somewhere half of those on the electoral
lists.
3. The tribe of transition winners (around 35%) versus tribe of transition
victims (65%).
The Romanian society is considered by most Romanians as a deeply
unfair society, marked by flagrant inequalities. Most Romanians consider
Romanian society to be rather unfair - 67%, while only 26% say it is rather fair.
The perception that the Romanian society is unfair is more prevalent among
women and people aged 35 years. Almost 50% of Romanians believe that in the
last 5 or 10 years, inequalities between people in Romania have increased, while
2 out of 10 think they have remained the same, and 3 out of 10 think they have
decreased. At the same time, 44% of the subjects of a national study conducted
by IRES believe that in the future, inequalities between Romanians will
increase, while 29% believe that they will remain the same, and 19% that they
will decrease.
Victims, in proportion of 42%, think that the most important factor of success
in life is luck and chance, and the winners that the individual merit, as well as
the influence of the environment in which you are born are the most important
factors of success, 28% of the respondents. The victims, almost 7 out of 10
Romanians see inequalities of wealth in Romania as too high, the winners are
less attentive to these things. However, one third of the victims declare
themselves satisfied with their social and economic situation. When it comes to
the main reason why some people are poorer than others, most interviewees
believe that this is because of the society that does not give them chances -
52%, while only 23%, most of the winners, think it is about causes related
to their merit and talent, and 20% about lack of luck or chance.
4. The tribe of euro-optimists (45%) versus those of skeptical euro-realists
(55%). For many years Romanians have been the most optimistic fans of
European integration without reservations and, sometimes even without a
project, around 8 out of 10 Romanians being enthusiastic. Now, only 45%
believe that Romania will become a European state like the other states from the
first 15. 45% of Romanians believe that our country is poorly regarded in
Europe, however 81% of Romanians believe that joining the European Union is
a good thing for our country.

5. The tribe connected to the diaspora (55%) versus the tribe of

autochthonists (45%). Recent surveys show that almost half of Romanians
have at least one close relative abroad, along with them are some percentages
who are ideologically connected to the idea that the diaspora is made up of the
most active and illuminated Romanians of the years spent in real democracies.
Overall, 63% of Romanians have a good and very good opinion about
those who went abroad and only 26% have a bad and very bad opinion. The
intellectuals are the most permeable to the myth of the saving diaspora, 72%
having a good or very good opinion about the diaspora, as well as those living
in the urban area. 46% of the Romanians are those who have a relative who
went abroad, of whom almost 70% are relatives of 1 st degree. Half are gone for
over 6 years, over 80% work in fields such as construction, elderly care,
agriculture, transport, cleaning, in general work which is rejected by the citizens
of the old Europe. Half of these relatives are away with the family, half are
single, and more than a third are permanently gone, only a quarter of them think
they will return, and 25% of those who left have children at home. 56% send
money home, so they have a great influence on the rest, and 35% communicate
daily on Facebook or by telephone with those at home. Among the fans of the
Diaspora, there are 72% of Romanians who declare that our country suffers a
great loss having so many inhabitants across the borders. In the camp of those
who are not so excited about the departed Romanians there are 15% who say
that Romania wins from this phenomenon, while 9% think we do not lose, but
we do not win. The autochthonists have among them 22% who say that the
departed Romanians should not vote in the country because they pay taxes
elsewhere, and 19% oppose the vote by correspondence. In addition, 50% of
Romanians believe that the right to vote of Romanians outside the borders was
respected in 2014, when those living outside the country sat in huge queues to
vote. Among those who oppose the diaspora’s vote are not only the elderly over
65, but also 20% of those with higher education. The diaspora has proven its
efficiency in mobilizing votes in Romania in the last elections, even though the
presence of Romanians at the polls is still quite small, their contribution being
somewhere around 3% of the total vote. However, especially in future elections
they will be a favorite target for candidates and campaign teams. Already a
candidate has proposed a draft law to reduce taxes for those who will return to
Romania. There are other projects such as offering some amounts for starting
businesses or other forms of material or financial persuasion.

5. The tribe of capitalists (“recipe capitalists”), between 15% and 20%

versus the camouflaged socialists, blocked in transition, 80-85%.

Living in a hybrid system, where capitalism is confused with the market and
where the “transition” seems a never-ending process, the Romanians are divided
into two tribes. Right-wing discourses confuse capitalism with democracy, and
that of the recent left, the one feeling inadequate and theoretically ill-prepared,
prefers not to express itself in order not to be reminded that they had a
connection with the Soviet East.
 Although the majority are the “turned-off ones”, the camouflaged
socialists are the majority of Romanians (82%) and they believe that “the state
should better regulate competition on the market”, 62% of them think that the
major state-owned companies should not have been privatized in the 1990s. An
overwhelming proportion of Romanians (90%) believe that the first responsible
for job creation is the state and then the private sector, 85% believe that the first
responsible for the well-being of the people should be the government / state
and only then the individual. About the winners of the transition, those who
managed to get rich or do some entrepreneurship, 63% of Romanians have a
bad and very bad opinion. An attitude that has evolved negatively over the last
30 years was the opinion on how those who made assets in Romania succeeded:
60% believe that they made wealth by breaking the law, 17% think they did it
through relationships, and another 7% indicate luck. Only 11% of Romanians
believe that the assets were made through work and social merit. The
camouflaged socialists, 67% of Romanians here, believe that “Socialism was a
good idea, wrongly implemented”, as well as 66% of the nationals who believe
that before 1989 it was better. In the cohort of camouflaged socialists are those
who evaluate the evolution negatively: industry (81%), political situation
(74%), infrastructure (65%), education 69%), happiness of Romanians (68%),
health 65%), labour market 61%), the standard of living (59%).
With all the tribalization which creates a massive majority for a strange
socialism, placed directly in front of the choice between living in capitalism or
socialism, 50% choose socialism and only 44% capitalism. Our society looks
like an iceberg, where the past pulls harder than the present, the past tends to
pull massively towards the bottom of the ocean. Once again we see that
emotional adherences to ideologies are minimal, people vote or act without
regard to their deep-seated beliefs, freedom being in a Spinozian definition, a
kind of accepted need. On the other hand, we cannot fail to observe a certain
behavior of duality.

6. The tribe of monarchists (20-25%) versus the tribe of republicans (75%

-80%).

In Romania, if we ask the question “Supposing that next Sunday a referendum

on the choice regarding the form of government in Romania would take place,
and the options would be: maintaining the republic and moving on to the
monarchy, what would you vote for?, 62% would opt for the republic and only
21% for the monarchy, a homogeneous option distributed in the population,
except for the educated ones who prefer the monarchy in a larger proportion
(34%). When it comes to Republicans, most of them cannot explain the benefits
of a republic compared to the constitutional monarchy. In search of a father
figure, over 60% of Romanians prefer a personalized regime (the presidential
republic or the monarchy).

What should be done?

Most analysts could simply answer: nothing. Fragmentation is a

consequence of post-modernity, it reinforces the independence of the individual
and enriches society through its diversification. Yes, some may say, drifts are
possibile, such as the Chambridge Analytica scandal, Brexit or the election of
Donald Trump, but we have to only follow these drifts and control them. It may
seem that the major manifestations of the Occupy movement or the “yellow
vests” movement may seem to have been triggered by the activation of
emotional bubbles, but we talk here also about neglecting the social imbalances
that have accumulated in developed societies and which burst into protests.
Large media trusts, opinion leaders, lose their influence, and identities are
objectively diversified. The fact that the interests are multiple in society is
something that increases the level of competition for resources, and the
competition can arbitrate the selection of values. Worse is when political or
other discourses exploit fragmentation and seek to create barriers or conflicts
between these groups or seek to institutionalize conflict as the only form of
relationship between neotribes. Inciting against emigration, against social
workers, racist electoral campaigns are examples that show that one of the most
common negative phenomena today are negative political identities. In the last
rounds of elections the emotional energy that led to mass presence was the
repulsion, the feeling of rejection, even the hatred, these are new internal
springs that bring everyone together who goes to vote against a political leader
or a party.
When sociologist Z. Baumann spoke about the “liquid society” as
opposed to the “solid” society, he observed that the consumer society has the
effect and fragmentation by promoting autonomy and freedom: freedom of the
morals, freedom to end restrictive social relations, freedom to assert different
values and new ones, questioning the relations considered too authoritarian, but,
it is important to clarify, the social control has not disappeared, only has taken
different forms, more attenuated, but very strong.
And the Romanian society goes through a deep depression; almost 80%
of Romanians say that the country is going in the wrong direction, trust in
institutions and politicians is at a very low level, pessimism and the inability to
project in the future are very high. Permanent political conflict uses these
anxieties trying to link them to politicians, parties or even social categories.
Can anything be done to lessen these intertribal wars or make these tribes
stop the separation and the real or symbolic conflict? Richard Sennett, an
American sociologist, thinks this is possible. Even if the society has become
less cooperative, we should try to reduce the influence of negative identities,
prevent the withdrawl of individuals in intimacy or in tribes that base their
cohesion on negative emotions. He believes that social policies and politics in
general should always seek to put into practice social practices of collaboration,
to always create spaces for connecting with others. Solidarity is not the key, the
American sociologist asserts paradoxically, because solidarity kills differences
and diversity, it can also be based on appeal to emotions and can be organized
for non-moral causes.
For example, solidarity with the weak ones has led to a conflict of those
who produce, against those who consume more. With all the continuous call for
social solidarity, writes Sennet, capitalism has gone ahead and the gap has
increased, likewise inequalities. Another solution would be to build
relationships with others with empathy, rather than with sympathy. Sympathy is
close to condescension and mercy, it makes you superior, empathy is better in
relationships with others. Finally, there is a need for new institutions,
institutions that receive diversity within them, not just those that can defend
diversity, institutions with porous borders, and not rigid ones.

Following this logic, we should reinvent the mechanisms of

collaboration because they do not exclude differences or disagreements,
they include interpersonal relationships and require our ability to
communicate, understand differences and reach common goals. To move to
the collaborative model is not simple, countless individual or collective
blockages are invented today by sociologists. Competitive models,
hierarchical structures and strict specialization within the capitalist society
can be structural brakes. But maybe it would be worthwhile to try such
projects, in local communities, inside, but also between organizations, in
and between institutions. The paradox can be this: we could revive our
fragmented world as we discover each other, hence an emotion is born
greater than all the others, than the emotions that today separate us and
keep us captive in postmodern tribes. Maybe tomorrow, the emotion will
manage, at least in part, to gather, magnetically, the islands in which we
disperse our society and the cohesion that we once thought as being
organic.
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