Ruminations on Society......

I seem to find a lot of time on my hands…. So I apologies In advance for the long winded nature of this blog. Sorry Dave, I know I’m breaking one of the rules of blogging!

This week I’d like to introduce you to a little idea I call, Simon’s model of Society.

A word of warning, what I am doing here is not, I repeat not science. It is merely the beginnings of a hypothesis, a mind game. If anyone reading this would like to do the experimentation and work to prove or disprove any of this, have at it!

What is society? A society is a group of humans or other organisms of a single species that is delineated by the bounds of cultural identity, social solidarity, functional interdependence, or eusociality. That being said, I started to ask how important is our society? Can we survive as individuals without our society? It permeates every aspect of our existence as human beings. From our media, to food production, to our reproduction we are guided by society. In fact the line becomes quite blurred when we talk about the biological human and the human society. Is it possible that it is human society that defines us as human beings? It is most certain that it was society that allowed us to develop cities, agriculture, arts. In fact, some would argue, it is most likely this that separates us from the animals. So if we are no different than other animals biologically in the way our bodies work, in our chemistry, what makes us believe that our society is so different either? And what is the role, or myth of the individual in all of this?

About a year ago, I found myself watching an aerial photo set of tribal people’s villages on the internet. At one point I started seeing a pattern in the trails left by the people and I started thinking if there was a mathematical formula dictating that behavior. I remembered seeing several films that focused on showing our cities at a wildly accelerated rate. I was struck by how antlike the behavior of people was at that speed. Could you use that formula to predict the behavior of streets in cities?

Almost at the same time I saw a wonderful TED lecture by Stanford University professor Deborah Gordon on her study on Sonora ants. This study showed that ants can change their predetermined role in their society to suit the needs of society. The interesting thing was that there was a model of behavior that regulated this. For example forager ants can change to warrior ants to defend the colony but warrior ants could not become forager ants. There seems to be some kind of hierarchy at work. She goes in to much more detail about the parallels between humans and ants but for the sake of brevity you can read about it here: http://www.aliciapatterson.org/APF1904/Foster/Foster.html

The ants too had a pattern in the construction of their colony.

So if we take that leap and transpose animal societies upon our own we see some startling similarities. Forester ants changing to warrior ants and the surge in enlistment in the military after 911 comes to mind. A well as birth rate surges in time of war and statistically more males being born.
Patterns created by our cities are errly similar to the same ones constructed by termites and ants, as a specific way to work with an environment. Both ants and termites instinctively know how to build fungi farms and air conditioning in their mounds.

So would it be too much of a stretch to assume that our society is no different than the societies of other animals, granted more complex. That the same behavior controls both species? It is obvious that creatures that evolved societies as a survival mechanism have a huge advantage. And where does that leave the role of the individual in all of this.

My question is, are we all predisposed genetically to our role in life? Do we have a specific function in our society, perhaps like ants but more complex? It is reasonable to state that some people are more genetically disposed to certain tasks than others, let’s say how math skills run in family groups. Could it be that the yearning I feel to be an artist is a function of society, and somehow by becoming an artist that I would fulfill my role in society? What would be those roles in our society?

Perhaps our myths led a clue. It seems that almost every human society has the same types of archetypes’ within its myths. Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung both pointed this out in their life’s work. There is the Hero, The journeyer, the trickster, the child, the great mother, and the wise old man. These can be thought of as exaggerations or stereotypes of real human behavior. Perhaps they are a reflection of the roles that we take in our society. Take me as an example. I believe that I would fall under the trickster mythology. The trickster deity breaks the rules of the gods or nature, sometimes maliciously (for example, Loki) but usually, albeit unintentionally, with ultimately positive effects. It can be said that through my artwork that I reflect what I see, sometimes in a grotesque way, which can ultimately help society. Why is it that I am happiest when I am fulfilled doing this? Do artists serve a benefit to society?

And now here is the catch, I believe with all my heart that we as individuals can become anything we want to in society provided we have enough resources and time. This is a very powerful theme in our society in our mythology and media. So how can I reconcile the two? How can we be preprogrammed to a specific role in society and have the ability to choose any role we want? Is that choice an illusion?
Another thought, what if these biological systems are merely scaled reflections of other systems? Perhaps our society represents a complex organism and we as individuals are just “cells” within the context of that organism fulfilling our role? There are interesting parallels here as well. Society attacks threats to itself just as the immune system reacts to a pathogen. We see this scaled phenomenon in the physical universe all over the place. From the orbits of satellites, to the orbits of galaxy’s. From the patterns created by growing neurons in our brains to the pattern from the widest survey of the universe.
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/08/14/science/20060815_SCILL_GRAPHIC.html

The patterns are remarkable the same. Or perhaps we are just really good at recognizing the similarities in patterns.

So this leads us to some interesting fundamental questions. In the context of society, do we really have free will? Or are we, like the cells in our body, happiest when we are fulfilling our predetermined role within the organism of society? Can we as individuals make the choice to change from a worker ant to a forager ant? I’m not sure I know the answers to these questions, but then again perhaps I don’t want to. Perhaps I want to just be a happy little cell in the fabric of our society.