***Mild Spoilers for Raya and the Last Dragon***
Raya and the Last Dragon, Disney's most recent animated feature film, offers a much needed lesson for today. Its theme and message are timeless and are sorely needed in the fractured world in which it finds itself. While the moral it espouses is not new, those who practice and preach it are as endangered in our world as the dragons are in its.
In Raya, the story begins six years after society collapses, and centuries after a war that nearly destroyed the world. Five hundred years ago, creatures called Druuns, shapeless monsters that turn living things they envelop into stone, ravaged the world, petrifying humans and dragons alike. Humans had no defense against them, but dragons had the power to fight them. Despite their magic, even the dragons succumbed. When only a handful of dragons remained, the final dragons forged their powers into a gemstone which neutralized the Druuns permanently, allowing humans to flourish again.
No longer threatened by the Druuns nor guided by the dragons, humans behaved as humans do, splitting into factions and becoming mistrustful of others. Their world, Kumandra, splits into five countries representing the body of a dragon - fangs, spine, heart, talon, and tail. For 500 years, the tribes enjoy an uneasy peace. While they don't trust each other and are always prepared for battle, power is roughly equal across the tribes and a multilateral cold war results.
Raya's father Benja leads Heart and protects the gemstone containing the dragons' power. The story begins when Benja decides that it's time to reunite all the tribes and invites the leaders from Fang, Talon, Spine, and Tail for a state dinner in hopes that reunification will eventually develop. Raya befriends the princess of Fang, Namaari, who gives Raya a dragon necklace as a token of friendship. In return, Raya takes Namaari to see the dragon gemstone. Namaari, however, attacks Raya and calls in Fang troops, as her plan had been to befriend Raya so that Fang could capture the gemstone.
Benja immediately comes to help Raya protect the gemstone, while the other tribes' leaders arrive shortly thereafter. Benja again pushes for peace and unity, but he is shot in the leg. Immediately after, all the tribes begin fighting for the gemstone, and it falls to the ground and breaks into five pieces. The Druuns immediately reappear and resume their war on humans. Each tribal leader grabs a piece of the stone and escapes. Raya helps Benja leave, but Benja throws her into the river to save her from the Druuns shortly before he turns to stone.
The movie jumps six years into the future, as Raya tries to undo the damage from that night and bring back her father. The plot follows Raya as she seeks the last dragon who is said to have survived its battle and then to recover the pieces of the gemstone. The real challenge Raya must overcome, however, is her lack of trust. After seeing her father and his dream of unity die because he took a step towards peace and trusted others, and because she herself trusted someone who betrayed her, Raya lost any faith in people she had. Raya's arc hinges on this distrust, and she must overcome it to bring back her father and her people and unite Kumandra.
The world today is a lot like Raya's Kumandra, especially politically. Over the past few decades, the country has become intensely tribal along political lines. Red states and blue states only begin to describe the level of animosity seen. On Twitter, on news sites' comment pages, on cable news networks, we call the other side names, ascribe to them malicious intent, attribute their motivations cynical self-interest. These forums, unfortunately, reward tribalism. The more someone calls the other side corrupt and the more extreme their language, the higher their tribe raises them.
Another outcome of this is that even those people in the center, not wanting to fight, can't escape the frenzy. Tribalism not only strengthens the extreme elements, but it affects how we see the less extreme elements. If you're not "us" you're "them", and since you are good, "they" must be bad. Tribalism muddies our perception of people. Even though those who disagree with you may be better people than many of those who agree with you, you're pushed into thinking the opposite. We look for reasons not to trust one another.
On Twitter, I've had many disagreements with people on the other side of the political schism. I've tried immensely to keep things polite, and I've never made things personal or questioned anyone's motives or put someone down in even the mildest way. While my sparring partners have used mild personal attacks, they've never said anything egregiously insulting to me. Generally, when a personal attack is used against me (and they have all been relatively tame), I call attention to it. Half the time the reaction is to abandon it, the other half is to criticize me for being sensitive.
How Twitter reflects the conflict in Raya, though, is that it is extremely difficult to get someone on Twitter to either admit a good argument from the other side that hurts their own side, or even to admit somewhere they agree. These are obvious manifestations of tribalism, the inability to even slightly side with another tribe. Acknowledging either is a type of olive branch to the other side, an act of good-faith. To date, I have only once been the recipient, and it took multiple back and forth tweets and me digging up a quotation from a public figure which directly proved my own argument. But until I provided a direct quote, my opponent would not even acknowledge the possibility of a different interpretation. Tribalism prevented him from even entertaining the notion that there was any interpretation of an ambiguous quote other than the one he defended.
The moral of Raya, is that to be a strong, united people again, we must be able to trust others and they have to trust us. Until we are prepared to stop judging each other based on the worst actions of the worst elements and demonstrate we are worthy of trust by going out on a limb and exposing ourselves, we will continue to come apart.
The great irony is that the people who would most benefit from this lesson already believe themselves to be the paragons, to need no lessons in humanity. I'm sure you do, yourself, dear reader, so I urge you to ask yourself, and push others to ask themselves, which tribe are you in? When you're arguing with the other tribe, do you seek common ground? Do you seek to narrow the scope of disagreement or to expand it? When you disagree, do you immediately assume that the other person is ignorant, unintelligent, indoctrinated, or cruel? Do you interpret their arguments in the worst possible way or the best? Honestly answering these questions will enable you to determine how tribal you are.
Whether you want a world where mistrust and hatred prevail and define us is a different question.
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