"Tribalism": a great term for what's wrong with the world today in general. I'd been fishing for a word, calling it "the team sports mentality" for lack of something more insightful and concise.
Most of the meaningful (and most interesting/worth talking about) events in humanity's history have been because of an us-vs-them mentality. Even something good and benign like landing on the moon was partially because of a desire to best, and differentiate from, another world superpower. The critique ("wrong with the world today") is if this is a good way to go about it when it's used in the extreme (or tending towards being extreme), not the quality of the results. Does the means justify the ends?
The money comes from those with us-vs-them mentalities (your example of the Moon shots), but that isn't where the urge to innovate usually comes from.
when it's used in the extreme (or tending towards being extreme)
That's what I was trying to get across -- extreme behavior considered to be normal. Everyone on the freeways driving either 45 or 90, no sane moderation.
It's not binary. I'm speaking of a matter of degree, and about US culture specifically. Meaning: we're becoming a polarized nation, two Americas (America and 'mer'ca). Of course the human race has always had tribes. But tribalism (tribalitis?) means: too much tribal loyalty.
Just cursorily, first there were the colonies - some of which felt more British than others - who well into the 1800's were essentially nations: you had your Georgia mans and your Virginia mans and so on. Even during the secession there were more than two groups people associated themselves with.
