Ch. 10: The Hive Switch
Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2012 12:20 am
Ch. 10: The Hive Switch
Long post, but it's a rich subject.When I began writing The Happiness Hypothesis I believed that happiness came from within, as Buddha and the Stoic philosophers said thousands of years ago. You'll never make the world conform to your wishes, so focus on changing yourself and your desires. But by the time I finished writing, I had changed my mind: Happiness comes from between. It comes from getting the right relationships between yourself and others, yourself and your work, and yourself and something larger than yourself.
If I recall correctly, Dawkins' argument against group selection was that adaptations on the individual level produce effects that may seem devised to benefit the group, but no selection at the level of a group is necessary to explain how humans formed tight social groups. The argument to the contrary seemingly rests on the assumption that groups had high permanence in our earliest years. At least we know that group selection has been less conceivable once societies became larger and more fluid in composition.Yet Haidt works very hard to put it into an evolutionary framework, with group selection being the only basis he can think of for such a switch to be around. Maybe, but maybe not, too. There is evidence that such ecstatic practices are based in the same right-brain processes that meditation taps into (now, isn't that incredibly ironic?) and that they are experienced as mystical openings to others, or melting of the boundaries between me and others (or even me and the universe). So yeah, maybe it is all about groupishness, but maybe it's about empathy, or about short-circuiting selfishness, or other processes which may or may not have been selected for. I mean, it's possible for example that they work within mind and culture to solve other problems (think of Ehrenreich's "Dancing in the Streets" telling about men and women cross dressing or flirting wantonly) that most likely have no connection to solidarity against rival groups.
I suspect multi-purpose capacities are the rule rather than the exception. Running can be a response to totally different situations. It may very well be that the capacity for such suppression of individual self-interest evolved as a response to the usefulness of carrying logs together, or to the usefulness of driving herds of ruminants off cliffs, or to the usefulness of killing alpha bullies. It doesn't really matter, except in some abstract scientific sense.DWill wrote:In 2012: The surprising thing about this hive switch is that it developed as a feeling of complete union with our social group, but now it can be triggered even when we are alone in nature.
In 2020: All of the instances of loss of individuality that Haidt mentions are different; so I would agree with you that saying they all share the same origin in natural selection can be questioned. I suspect that with the "awe in nature" loss of self, something different is going on than in the experience of uniting with other human beings. The first isn't "hive" at all, in my thinking, while the second is.
Sometimes the medium is the message. I found myself utterly repulsed by CNN the other day as newscasters (with no mask on) interviewed a politician (with no mask on) all making the point that the president showed lack of leadership by refusing to wear a mask. Umm, what's wrong with this picture? Let's face it, news as entertainment thrives on conflict, and even before Fox was ginning up conflict and division as part of its appeal, CNN was appealing to our sense of self-righteousness against Reagan. These influences are not easy to throw aside, and in some sense Trump's movement was just caving to the pressure that had been building up for decades.DWill wrote:National emergency is another way that the hive switch is activated, or can be. In the current crisis, we're told that we have a common enemy around which to unite, and while there has been some of that, it hasn't been enough to overcome our divisions. Leaders are important, and if they continue to carry messages of division, then an opportunity has been lost.
Yes, I am pretty agnostic about group selection. I rather suspect that group success developed memes of cultural practice much faster than it developed biology of cooperativity. Did that "select" for cooperativity? Does it really matter? I mean, if I was trying to sell research based on the idea that morality is mostly biological instinct, I would want to argue that group selection is really, really important.DWill wrote:If I recall correctly, Dawkins' argument against group selection was that adaptations on the individual level produce effects that may seem devised to benefit the group, but no selection at the level of a group is necessary to explain how humans formed tight social groups. The argument to the contrary seemingly rests on the assumption that groups had high permanence in our earliest years. At least we know that group selection has been less conceivable once societies became larger and more fluid in composition.
I listened to the Audiobook of S. Junger's "Tribes" on my way across country this week, as we moved my father-in-law into our home. Junger makes a good case that we experience a sense of transcendence from group urgency. Interesting that he divides two roles of social leadership, the sachems of peacetime processes and the war leaders of war processes, but both of these are associated with pagan deities and with a transcendent sense of meaning.DWill wrote:Talk about uniting into a large group, at a national level as I first mentioned, runs into problems in Haidt's opinion. That's potentially a bad hive emergence, as his example of Mussolini's exhortations shows. It's small hives within a society that tend to make the society as a whole more focused on the welfare of groups rather than of individuals only. Plus, this is like spreading the groupishness so it doesn't become destructive. More bowling leagues equals more benign social bonding. Of course, both large bonded groups and small can go bad, so I think this just speaks to the dark-side nature of our groupishness, whether in big groups or small. It's interesting that for conservatives, loyalty and authority tend to reinforce hive mentality on a national level. My hive, love it or leave it, as they might have said in the old days.
Just on this point quickly. I've noticed lately in my favorite broadcast, "The PBS Newshour," more of the reporters trying to get bring out disagreements between, say, governors and Trump, or to encourage them to make criticisms more directly. I don't like that in news reporting. "The Newshour" I would have said was evenhanded, until recently. If Trump is going to suffer politically for his failings during the covid-19 crisis, the voters should have the say.Harry Marks wrote:Sometimes the medium is the message. I found myself utterly repulsed by CNN the other day as newscasters (with no mask on) interviewed a politician (with no mask on) all making the point that the president showed lack of leadership by refusing to wear a mask. Umm, what's wrong with this picture? Let's face it, news as entertainment thrives on conflict, and even before Fox was ginning up conflict and division as part of its appeal, CNN was appealing to our sense of self-righteousness against Reagan. These influences are not easy to throw aside, and in some sense Trump's movement was just caving to the pressure that had been building up for decades.DWill wrote:National emergency is another way that the hive switch is activated, or can be. In the current crisis, we're told that we have a common enemy around which to unite, and while there has been some of that, it hasn't been enough to overcome our divisions. Leaders are important, and if they continue to carry messages of division, then an opportunity has been lost.