More specifically, if it posed a threat to your family or your close friends, you'd press a red button that deleted those that could cause you harm. Hell, I don't know anyone who wouldn't harm a fellow human being with an honest-to-God smile on their face just to defend their dog. 

Tribalism is part of the human experience. It's pretty much a standard feature in the Hominidae species as a whole. 

This instinct for tribalism informs a lot of the decisions we make, ranging from how we take care of our family to how we run our businesses. Many corporations are successful because of the sense of tribalism they form with their customers. Customer loyalty is its own brand of tribalism and keeps up a steady flow of cash coming into the business so that the customer continues to get a steady flow of the product they prefer. 

"I'm a Dapper Dan man!" says George Clooney's character angrily to a storekeeper in the movie "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" 

Recently, the corporation Lululemon has been learning its lesson the hard way. Like many corporations, Lululemon tried to introduce an element of wokeness into its brand in an attempt to appeal to a wider customer base, but this didn't help them; it only hurt them. While the corporation would never admit that it's gone down a bad path by abandoning its loyal tribe, its founder, Chip Wilson, absolutely will. 

Wilson left Lululemon in 2015 and has watched the brand decline ever since. In an interview with Forbes released on Tuesday, he lambasted the leadership's decision to be more "inclusive," which includes using models who don't look healthy at all, defying the brand's original focus of providing dynamic sportswear for athletic people:

When it comes to the modern-day Lululemon playbook, Wilson still has a flurry of grievances. There’s his personal (and you guessed it, controversial) preferences, like his distaste for Lululemon’s “whole diversity and inclusion thing” and the appearance of the people in its ads, who he claims look “unhealthy,” “sickly” and “not inspirational,” as he outlined to Forbes. “They’re trying to become like the Gap, everything to everybody,” Wilson says. “And I think the definition of a brand is that you’re not everything to everybody… You’ve got to be clear that you don’t want certain customers coming in.”

Wilson touched on something very interesting. When the company departed from its tribe of athleticism and hard work, it invited in an element of laziness and unhealthy behaviors. 

Lululemon went from inspiring health and improvement to pardoning sloth and unhealthy lifestyles. The abandonment of its values and its tribe made society a little bit worse. 

The lesson here is obvious. People might think that being tribal is a bad thing and that we need to be welcoming and inclusive to all people. Like everyone should belong everywhere they go! But not only is that unrealistic, it's incredibly bad for society. 

The world is not a one-size-fits-all place. To try to make it one only invites degradation to a tribe, causing it to lose its identity and the values that it holds. These values might be exclusive to a specific group, but they're often values that improve society as a whole, making the world better for everyone. 

What some might see as "inclusivity" at Lululemon is really just a decline in standards that inspires people to feel like lower standards are okay, thus creating unhealthy habits and lifestyle choices that echo in their own lives and in the lives of people around them. While Lululemon might be a small example in the grand scheme, these kinds of choices are being made by many corporations and groups all the time, and the results have been noticeable. 

No one should try to be something for everyone. Your tribe should always come first, and if you abandon your tribe, you abandon your identity, your values, and your standards.