The session was led by a master, demonstrating the movements from atop a park bench. We copied his actions, and from time to time he would come down and make his way among us to check on our progress. What was striking was that as soon as we no longer had the master to follow, everyone in the group would get stuck trying to repeat the sequence at exactly the same point!
We would then get a prompt from the master, proceed further into the form, and yet again the entire group would come to a dead stop at another point further on in the form. Intuitively, this does not make sense. With each of us learning the form directly from the master, how was it that twenty individuals could get stuck in the same place? This is the herd instinct at work. Consciously we perceive ourselves to be following the master, yet simultaneously, on a subconscious level, the strongest influence we experience is that of the group.
This is a demonstration of the impact of a group of strangers on each of the individuals within the group. Imagine how much stronger the influence will be for people who spend each day with each other such as one’s colleagues at work. The impact will be greater still from people we have known all our lives, such as our family. this effect is no doubt part of our biological programming as a species. There is none of us, regardless of our degree of affinity to groups, who is exempt from this. We can with increased awareness temper its effect, but we cannot escape it altogether. Even the Refusniks, who reject the group altogether, end up defining themselves in relation to the group, albeit in the negative.
Being a member of a group or tribe like this has its advantages, but there is also a cost. The more you are integrated into a tribe the harder it becomes to function autonomously, and the more of your personal integrity you sacrifice. Eventually you reach the stage where a group of individuals becomes a single collective entity, and its members function only as constituent parts, not discrete individuals.
Tattoos, piercings, uniforms, even hairstyles, all signal our tribal affiliation to those outside as well as those within the tribe. In this regard, there is no difference between the grey pin-striped suit worn by the banker and the gang colors worn on the jacket of a member of a motorcycle club.
This identification with tribes is so deeply ingrained in us that whenever we encounter someone for the first time one of the first things we do is categorize them in terms of which tribe they belong to. If they do not fit any tribe we know of, we simply label them as weird and place them in the tribe called the eccentrics. This then becomes the immediate basis upon which we judge them as good or bad, friend or foe, high or low status, even attractive and unattractive.
By objectifying everyone in this way, we are not experiencing them in their fullness, but only through that narrow sliver which conforms to our own tribe’s view. They in turn are returning the favour and doing the same to us. They are objectifying us as we are objectifying them
By objectifying others, we are simultaneously objectifying ourselves. In this way, we are distanced from both ourselves and those around us, within and without our tribe. Relationship of course becomes a mere shadow of what it could be. This is the price we must all pay to join the herd. Each of us has to ask the question only we, and we alone, can answer for ourselves: Is it worth it?
John Berling Hardy is dedicated to helping people to cut through the artifice which dominates our lives. For more of his writings please visit www.playingtheplayers.com
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