Following the Herd

(Source)

Had three to four inches of the white stuff here in Little Rhody from Monday night into Tuesday morning, with all of the traffic mishaps which that often entails. On the way into work, there were the timid drivers, who slow down to about five miles an hour if it's snowing, and the insane drivers, who figure, as they have four wheel drive, that their brakes will work just as effectively on snow/slush/ice as they do on dry pavement.

While timid is frustrating (I cannot abide driving at five miles an hour when the conditions will allow 20 on a straightaway. sure corners are different, but really?), insane is often terrifying. Folks barreling along at 10 to 20 miles an hour over the speed limit when the roadway is messy and slippery are just crazy. But my point here is that people who are perfectly capable of getting from point A to point B in a motorized conveyance without running into anything, seem to completely lose their minds when there is wet stuff falling from the sky.

On the way to work Tuesday morn, there was a traffic slowdown just a mile short of my destination. While it is a school zone (where the law requires us to drive past the school at 20 mph or less) and going slower is a way of life during the school year (in Little Rhody the school lights flash all day as opposed to some states - like Colorado - which only flash those lights when the wee ones are actually coming to school, or going home), Tuesday morning saw traffic come to a dead stop.

Okay, I thought to myself, probably an accident or a breakdown, one (or more) lanes are closed.

Yup, it might have been a breakdown or perhaps a minor fender bender (I didn't see any visible damage or car parts littering the roadway) but the gawkers were out in full force. Slowing to a walking pace to see the tow truck guy putting a vehicle on the back of his flatbed. No bodies, no gore, no crumpled body work, nothing.

I could see that there was naught to see from fifty yards away, why stop and see nothing? Which made me think, "Our species is such a herd animal." But are we?

So I went surfing, the Interwebz of course, to see what I could see.

Psychology Today's website has a number of articles on that topic, as does Quora's website. The difference being that the articles on Psychology Today are seemingly written by highly educated types in the field of psychology, the "answers" given on Quora are suspect, at best.

Quora's purpose is stated as "Quora is a place to gain and share knowledge. It's a platform to ask questions and connect with people who contribute unique insights and quality answers." Which is not an unreasonable description of what goes on over there. IMHO, it's also a place which belies the old saw, "There is no such thing as a stupid question."

Oh dear, yes, there are stupid questions, there are thousands upon thousands of stupid questions. On the bright side, the number of stupid answers far outweigh the number of stupid questions. Just subscribe to Quora, it's often informative, often entertaining.

But after reading a couple of answers to the "Are humans herd animals? query, I had to stop. Some of the answers were odd, to say the least, like -

Humans ‘were’ herd animals and now can only be called as social animals. This is the result of evolution and addings to human knowledge and awarness. The bio-physo advancements in the human beings has made humans from heard to social animal. Yes, ‘changed’ from just a herd animal to social animal, as the human awarness increased with time, gaining new social, psycho,philo- and housing-concepts.

As should be defined; the term herd is used for certain animals which come together or are brought together by humans for their collective behaviour. This term is limited to only practical procedures related to these animals, like; food search, shelter (according to habitat, if naturally), and breeding I must add.

However, when we talk about social animals, there is a defined struture for interection and connectivity between the groups. The primitive neccessities of for survival are based upon these structures, but in a complex way than herding. One another important fact of it is that the limitations are not bounded to only practical procedures, but include the concept of reasonating and conscience (as in humans).

Furthermore,

In herds, there is no concept of dependence, only for some basic survival neccessities if that includes. But in Social-animals, there is the concept of dependency in each and eavery action, whether done individually or in a formed group. This dependence is not, however,always direct, but most of the times indirect, and their is always the connectivity between thoughts which makes it impossible for one to stand out as an “lone survivor”. Even if one is not physically or economiaclly, or even philosophically connected to the society, he/she is always psychologically inter-connected with the society.

So yeah, Humans ‘are’ only Social-animals.

I didn't correct the English or grammar above. No, I didn't agree with that answer. The following, from Psychology Today, was much more interesting -

The philosopher Hannah Arendt famously argued that the atrocities of the Holocaust were not caused by psychopaths but by ordinary people placed under extraordinary pressure to conform. Since then we have learned that the pressure need not be extraordinary at all. In fact, it may not be experienced as pressure, but as relief. Human beings are herd animals. We survive only in highly coordinated groups. Individually, we are designed to pick up social cues, coordinate and align our behavior with those around us. Recent research has shown that social disapproval provokes the brain's danger circuits. Conformity soothes.

A far more interesting answer, not just because I agreed with the basic premise. We are, in some ways, herd animals. Not completely, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Sure there are outliers, like the guy (typically, females of our species tend to be far more sociable in my experience) living all by himself off in the mountains. He needs no human contact to survive. And those types are not all sociopaths, if that's what you're thinking.

Do I think that we are herd animals? Yes and no. Yes, for the many who refuse to think for themselves and let themselves be stampeded off in whatever cause du jour their "betters" decide is a cool thing to have or do.

F'rinstance, the down turn in the economy back around '08-'09. The Meejah said things were going to get bad, save your money, the "experts" predicted various doom and gloom scenarios, so the herd beings didn't go out, they stayed home, didn't buy stuff they wanted, didn't go out to entertainment venues. So yeah, less money was spent, places had to shut their doors, people lost their jobs. Well, the experts said so. The bolt of lightning out on the Plains spooked the herd and the "prophecy" was self-fulfilling.

Yeah, it's more complicated than that, but basically that's what happened. An election is held, the herd stampedes on Wall Street and stock prices go down (or go up) with no more rational explanation than that the herd got spooked.

But not all humans are herd animals. Some are pack animals, some can be considered in the same vein as a pride of lions. Small proactive groups, they don't follow the mob, they actually (and the Meejah hate this) think for themselves.

After all, we are a rather complex species (I've heard us called "upright apes with fancy shoes," that might have been Shaun, I don't recollect). We're too scrawny to be predators like the tiger or the lion. We don't really have the stamina to hunt like the wolves or the African wild dogs. We're born weak and defenseless.

But we're awfully adaptable. It's that big brain combined with those opposable thumbs which make us a very formidable predator. We're also omnivores (yup, we'll eat damned near anything), like bears (cue a bear in the comments). We band together to protect our young (who take forever to develop!) and we learn fairly quickly compared to some species. We can also pass that knowledge along to our young (without the help of the Department of Education, thank you very much). Sure, an individual lion will kick our ass one on one nearly every single time, but get a bunch of us together, the lion is toast!

An interesting thought for a day which was highlighted by a bit of snow and part of the herd passing slowly by a traffic mishap, rather like a herd of wildebeest munching grass while watching the lions eat one of their late compadres. Perhaps it was one of those "there but for the Grace of God" moments.

But there were others who drove by without a glance, probably thinking that the lions might still be hungry!

Looks pretty from the kitchen door...

What sayest thee?