Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging

The Introduction to Tribe is a tight, five-page recollection of why Junger set out to hitchhike across the northwestern United States after college. He describes growing up in a sedentary New England suburb where nothing ever happened that was dangerous enough to test people’s ability to rely on each other. For Junger, this meant that his neighbors were never connected in the sense of being part of each other’s tribe—because, as he puts it, the “sheer predictability of life in an American suburb” never warranted it (xiv).

For Junger the young man, this scenario gnawed at his desire to test himself, to put himself in a situation where he had very little control: “How do you become an adult in a society that doesn’t ask for sacrifice? How do you become a man in a world that doesn’t require courage?” (xiv). He thus finds himself on the side of a highway in the middle of Wyoming, where a man approaches him and hands him a lunch box containing a sandwich, chips, and an apple. Junger explains that the man was an out-of-work and homeless coal miner who had walked a mile out of his way to make sure that the young hitchhiker was ok.