So… how do “values” come into it? Cynical prior: they are arbitrary badges that national-level factions use to organize goat-stealers into effective political/military forces
I do agree with that! With the caveat that *recently* some tribes (the US red/blue split most obviously) have started using the term “values” explicitly. I don’t know the history of this. I vaguely think it came into vogue in the 1970s, but that could be quite wrong.