Oftentimes that telling involves a rousing debate, referencing philosophers, ideals, and supreme-court cases - but the end result is the same. Or maybe not completely wrong, but you've overshot the nugget of truth that was in your argument and ended up in Nevada when you should have stopped in Cedar City. That was the role my good friend, and past debate partner, played for me this weekend. You can read his response to my post on social tribalism here, we ended up having a multi-hour discussion which ended up with Locke.
My post condemned the use of labels to separate ourselves into groups that would cause others to lose the nuances of our own personalities in the dogmas of the group, or even inadvertently limit our own thoughts as we attempt to conform to preexisting labels. Upon further exploration of the idea, perhaps the problem isn't the labels themselves. Labels are an important part of any social-contract (there's Locke), and are necessary to a well-functioning society. The source of the problem is when we discard all other aspects of ourselves in an attempt to conform with a single group, rather than using labels to describe ourselves.
Many of the social ills and perceived affronts occur when we fail to separate the essence that is 'us' from the labels we've taken on to facilitate social interaction. When we see commentary on a certain group's ideologies as a commentary on ourselves personally. This oversimplification occurs because viewing others as nuanced individuals is hard, it's hard to really truly view ourselves as nuanced individuals. But the best way is seldom easy. The sophisticated society we enjoy today is capable of accepting complex personalities and I submit that in order to progress we must begin to separate ourselves from the labels and groups we use to facilitate social interaction.
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