What happens to make an idea blaze up like a raging grass fire or 12-alarm catastrophe? What conditions have to exist to give birth to a magical viral trend that infects the human imagination?
Fire and water both move along the lines of least resistance. Social alliances, the common ground among people, move like that too. Like attracts like. We say, “I have that in common with them. I’ll follow them. I wanna be like them. I talk like them. I dress like them, I share their values, and I think like them. They represent my interests. I trust them. I am loyal to them.”
Who do you choose to follow?
When you choose to belong to a group, to your new “tribe”, you are exercising your power, right? Together we are strong, more than the sum of our parts, right? Not always. In fact, joining a group often reduces your power. Movements and mobs can form a critical mass that sweeps away individual critical thinking and just plain common sense.
There is a growing pseudo activism online. Click if you like or dislike. Subscribe. Become a fan. Click to become a follower. Vote; join a list server; check in with your online communities. New applications through cloud computing promise to never make you think. They’ll do the thinking for you, based on your previous behaviour. Wow. Utopia!
It all begins when you choose to belong.
Belonging is a basic human instinct, according to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Belonging often means voluntarily giving away something to acquire a benefit. We think we consciously determine what we give away based on perceived value or urgency. Most immigrant kids are approached within 48 hours of landing in Winnipeg to join a gang for protection. We join professional groups to network and reach farther into our fields of practice. We choose to go to temple or church to celebrate shared beliefs. The truth is that most people in groups behave in predictable, unconscious ways and can be manipulated.
38 people watched for half an hour while Kitty Genovese was chased and stabbed to death in Queens. No one helped BECAUSE 38 neighbours heard Kitty’s screams. Nobody called the police because in a group, responsibility for acting is diffused. Nobody takes ownership; nobody gets the blame. Had she been attacked on a lonely street with just one witness, she might have survived. (Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point, New York: Back Bay Books, 2002)
New York psychologists Latane and Darley found that the greater the numbers of witnesses to an event, the less the chance someone will act to intervene. A single witness to smoke from fire or an epileptic fit will respond to help 75% – 85% of the time, while people in groups will respond on average only 31% – 38% of the time. We are paralyzed in the safety of numbers.
No one intervenes because no one else intervenes.
It can’t really be a problem if the group accepts the behaviour, right? Groupthink can take the sting out of making decisions and help you filter rapidly through complex arrays of information. Groupthink online rewards impulsive dependence on technologies to satisfy human needs. Groupthink anywhere dissolves the courage of your convictions. Without independent critical thinking, sight can’t become insight. Without original insight, real action rarely occurs.
Rather than ask what conditions have to exist to give birth to a viral trend, I’m curious about what might be missing that permits an epidemic to infect the human imagination, especially a harmful or destructive one. In nature, it would be lack of diversity and openness to random, unexpected change. It would be characterized by a vacuum, a tightly clustered, starved ecosystem devoid of elbow room, unable to adapt and invent new paths.
When opposites do not attract.
In the absence of empathy for differences, how “they” are different from me can start to take over and define me. It can entrench who I think I am. I am not like them. When I strip away her name, I can forget that she has two eyes, two ears, and feelings and hopes like I do. I can erase our common ground. I can steal away his humanity. I can objectify “the other”. I can remove the other’s individuality. I can justify atrocities against them. They become an “it”, an “Axis of Evil”. That’s how one country prepares to make war on another. That’s how children are conditioned to stand by and watch passively while one child bullies another. The norm is set by the group. Follow the rules and flourish, in the confines of the group.
In “The Emperor’s New Clothes” Hans Christian Andersen weaves a simple children’s story about two tailors who promise the Emperor a new suit of clothes that will be invisible to anyone who is stupid or incompetent. The Emperor himself is afraid to admit he can’t see the suit. Rather than be declared unfit as a leader, the Emperor parades naked among his subjects, until a child cries out, “But he isn’t wearing anything at all!”
What tribe are you following?
It’s not easy to shift your brain out of automatic, top-of-mind-numbing virtual ruts. You’re missing that euphoria of endorphins coursing through your body when you’re plugged into your network. It’s scary. Things are a bit fuzzy at first. You feel disoriented, like stepping out into the sunlight after winter hibernation. But it’s worth it. You begin to see with new eyes. Look deeper. When sight transforms to insight, it can prompt action – authentic action…your own independent insightful action. Insight is not served up when you click “like” or “dislike”.
This looks quite good but I have to talk to my people first so they can tell me if I like it or not.