The idea that nobility can exist in the tribal mind is linked to the conviction that the authentic tribe exists.

The category tribal often got juxtaposed against that of the civilized mind in twentieth century thought and pushed anthropologist Levi Strauss to talk about the noble savage. In his brilliant commentary he ultimately pointed out that the urban civilized mindset has much more in common with its imagined counter-point – the thoughts and way of thinking of the savage.

He took great pains in pointing out that this observation is distinct from that of the idealized tribal that many modern intellectuals value: the rousseauseque idea of the savage world as being noble, something for the modern world to idealize.

What the Levi-Strauss argument did was to deconstruct the categories tribal and savage itself and yet allow them to be imbued with enchantment and magic. To be able to see aura and enchantment in the mundane is the most unique of all gifts.

However, it is a complex gaze. It simultaneously unravels categories such as the noble and the civilized as absolute ones. It opens up the way to look at the ordinary (ordinary in every sense) as being imbued with aura as – having the ability of being both noble and savage together, and having several other qualities that make up the complexity of human experience.

To elucidate:

To be excited by the fact that you are meeting a royal – can be mechanically balanced in a modernist mind – by being equally excited on meeting a tribal. This can be represented as being just and egalitarian.

However – since these communities never exist in their pure sense (all royalty is complexly constructed by convenient omissions and additions and all tribal communities have evolved and adapted and been connected to global spaces and histories as well) – to come to terms with the disappointment on meeting someone who is neither royal, aristocratic or civilized nor is savage, tribal and authentic is the biggest challenge of all.

Those who manage to do so are indeed liberated from the vast landmine of categories and labels that litter the contemporary world.

There are few who manage to do that and it is a moment to be cherished when you meet them!