At the time fascist forms of neo-tribalism emerged, the Great Depression was from the only form of distress that the modern era inflicted on people.  Another significant influence, although less commonly remarked upon (perhaps because people had more trouble articulating what they found troubling about it, or how it could be remedied) was a sense of dwarfing gigantism about the modern world in general.

Even in the 1930s, modern life took place on a scale unlike anything that had come before it.  The trend has since accelerated to a point where it is substantially easier to recognize--especially when we consider our current situation in its larger historical context.

Most of human history has been lived out in the context of tribes and villages--environments in which virtually everyone knew everyone else, and where just about everyone had some sort of ability or character trait that was recognized and valued by the others.  

When it came to skills, the largest frame of reference most people ever had to deal with was roughly 100 people.   If among a group of people that size, you were the best athlete or cook, storyteller or musician, warrior or weaver, you were not just recognized and valued, you were considered a thoroughly remarkable human  being.

Today, our frame of reference is so vast as to preclude even people who have traditionally been considered extraordinary from feeling like much of anybody.

As an athlete, being the best among 100 people may get you on your high school team, but not necessarily anything more--and even being that team’s captain isn’t considered much of an accomplishment, since in everybody’s minds, the “real” athletes are the infinitesimally small subset of the population whose exploits we follow on television.  If you’re the best musician or storyteller among 100 people, your prospects for feeling like a “somebody” are even dimmer.   As for cooks, even if you’re so talented that you earn your living as a professional chef, who cares?  The only culinary artists most people have heard of or accord much significance to are celebrity chefs--the ones with their own television shows and best-selling cookbooks.

For the vast majority of people without unusual talents, opportunities for “amounting to something” in the contemporary mega-world have become even scarcer.    When not much of anyone knows you, not much of anyone can value your character traits.  Our frequent moves from neighborhood to neighborhood and city to city have inhibited the formation of traditional webs of deep connection with extended family, old friends, and longtime neighbors.  This has left many people feeling not only isolated, but insignificant.

Compounding our difficulties, the modern media have brought about a tectonic shift in our sense of our position in the world relative to those whose names and likenesses have increasingly come to dominate our consciousness. 

We have evolved into a society where everything  important appears to take place on the other side of a screen.   We tend to perceive this realm  as a magical, even mythical place--in a sense, our modern-day Olympus--and accord commensurate status to the beings we perceive as inhabiting it.

While all ages have had their famous people, the rise of television has enabled modern celebrities' presence to be felt in a much more gripping and experiential  way.   Instead of just being names sometimes printed in accounts of a world that was obviously far removed from the direct and tangible reality of our everyday existence, celebrities' moving (and speaking) images have become an inescapable part of our lives.

The more immanent the presence of celebrities has come to feel to us, the less significant the real people around us have begun to seem.   And since we ourselves do not appear as glowing images on a screen, how important could we be, either?  We can easily come to believe that our natural role in the order of things is nothing more than to watch our betters from the darkness of our own obscurity.

The effect of our media-centrism has thus been to  establish a psychological equivalent of the old feudal order, with a "celebritocracy" occupying the upper reaches of society in the  manner of the old aristocrats, and all the rest of us relegated to the status of inconsequential serfs. 

In an environment such as this, a tribe can fulfill profound longings and needs.  It can offer us something of stature to identify with, a way to be taken seriously, a chance to finally be a participant rather than always just a spectator, and a feeling of connection to replace our isolation.