Heroes Not Zombies

Human beings are very, very social creatures. By that, I mean we connect with others, cast our thoughts and imaginings into whatever we are paying attention to, and by creating these bonds, these links, these resonances with “others” we change ourselves.

We’ve known this in biology for a few years now but it’s still a concept which is developing. We continue to isolate the individual from their environment and their relationships when we study them. But that is never going to be a successful strategy. If we really want to understand someone we must, at very least, consider their social environment. Why?

Because we become what we do, and we do what we notice others doing. Look at this photo. Did this phenomenon start in Paris? This “love locks” idea of fastening a padlock to a bridge? Maybe, but you can find the same phenomenon around the world now. However, just looking at this example in Paris – it’s hard to see any spaces left to fix another padlock…..SO many padlocks have been attached! I wonder who fixed the very first one?

Of course, there’s a “meta” level in this photo, because I didn’t just photograph the locks, I photographed this guy taking a photo of the locks. I, sort of, did what he was doing…..which makes me wonder now if anyone was taking a photo of me taking a photo of this guy photographing the locks…..

Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and Tiktok thrive on this basic human characteristic…..we seem compelled to copy, to mimic, to repeat and to share what we witness. How quickly has “taking the knee” spread around the world in recent weeks? And why now? It’s not that this gesture appeared for the first time this year…..but this year, it’s caught on and spread like wildfire.

As I understand it the field of economics hasn’t caught up with this insight yet. The currently dominant “neoclassical” or “neoliberal” model seems to think of every human being as an individual, living autonomously, independently making their own choices in complete separate isolation from everyone else. Well, human beings are not like that. Happily there are newer schools of economic thought which are based on the understanding that human beings are such social creatures…..that it’s a mistake to assume we are all independent free agents making uninfluenced personal choices.

When I started out on these daily posts at the beginning of the lockdown period here in France back in mid March, I mentioned the fact that we are all influencers. Whatever we do influences other people. And that’s why I decided to share these little pieces of wonder, amazement, delight, beauty and understanding……to, hopefully set off all those fabulous phenomena in other people wherever they live……to hopefully increase the wonder, amazement, delight, beauty and understanding in YOUR life, as well as in mine.