When arguments for federation are raised in a

tribe where the mainstream funding and wisdom is dominated by, as you

say, "unapologetic realists", if, indeed, that's what they actually are,

then the arguments seem much closer to tribal or religious in nature.

Oh, bullshit. All this talk of tribes and domination and so on. Look, 

I havnt had a single penny for my ontological work. It is almost 

impossible to obtain funding for ontology work in the USA at present.