A society akin to bubble wrap.
I first employed this metaphor, when I was reflecting upon and writing about my experience of living in New Zealand.
In New Zealand, it seemed to me at the time, there was a tendency to create homogeneous and mutually indifferent social groups. I thought it a consequence of New Zealand’s wealth and safety. Mutually indifferent homogeneous groups could peacefully coexist (more or less) because, in New Zealand, there are plenty of resources for everyone.
At the time, for autobiographical reasons (more on this in a future post), I thought this a uniquely Kiwi tendency. In recent years, I’ve come to think it may be a human tendency.
For the most part, it seems to me, most people prefer to associate with people very much like themselves and will only associate with dissimilar people if circumstance demands it and perhaps only when their well-being and survival requires it. In conditions of safety and wealth, humans tend to associate with — and look out for — only their own kind.
The seemingly inevitable outcome of this tendency is that indifference too quickly and too easily turns antagonistic and aristocratic. Once a homogeneous group starts to think that the stars on their bellies make them more special than everyone else, it’s all too easy for them to conclude that only they are entitled to the resources they control and, overall, they should have more resources than everyone else. All too quickly, it is us vs. them and the war of all against all looms.
For as long as there has been empire, priests, philosophers and politicians have conjectured that a shared religion, history, or set of values could provide the social glue to hold different communities together. I think there is sufficient empirical research to indicate this hypothesis is bollocks and I have argued as much in a peer reviewed publication. On my view, religion, ideals, values or history don’t hold people together, people hold people together, and we only create the necessary attachments when we interact with each other on a regular basis.
When I reflect on the present ails of Western society, I return again and again to this apparent tendency to create homogeneous social groups. It seems to me that our ails arise precisely because small homogeneous groups take control of some domain of society, exclude people not like them from it, and, eventually, loot the resources to their own advantage and to the harm of others.
Is this tendency towards homogeneity an unstoppable fact of human existence? Is it possible for a heterogeneous community to persist over time? Will a heterogeneous community always congeal into indifferent and then hostile homogeneous communities? Is a heterogeneous community, properly-speaking, even possible? Is heterogeneous association an accidental and ephemeral moment in the short transition from homogeneity to homogeneity?
Thoughts?
Sarah
February 17, 2011
I wonder if there can ever really be a homogenous society or group. Even if you get a seemingly homogenous group there will still cliques and factions within. My first thought goes to royal courts where everyone was noble, in the same class, same race etc. But there were still groupings and perceived differences based on very little.
Sterling Lynch
February 17, 2011
Good point! The human capacity to distinguish between “us and them” seems insatiable. To make the same point in a different way, whether or not a group is homogeneous depends on the level of analysis. In the same way, that a table seems solid at one level of analysis and mostly air at another, a group may appear “homogeneous” at one level of analysis and very “heterogeneous” at another level of analysis.
So, the question of whether or not a a group is homogeneous is a bit of a red herring. Sameness, then, is not especially relevant to the problem. In the same way some ethnocultural groups who were once considered dark skinned are now considered white skinned, the answer to the question of similarity is fluid.
So, whether or not we see “same” or “like me” will be rooted in something else.
I think this line of reasoning emphasizes the role of the attachments we make through association.
And it points to the role and importance of being accountable to people who we don’t necessarily regard as part of “us.”
Andrew Trigg
December 10, 2011
In regards to your views about NZ as a society, your analyses are not inaccurate. But one relevant factor that you don’t discuss is the large proportion of Kiwis that do not live in the country, with between 1/6 to 1/5 of NZ citizens living in a state of diaspora at any given time (and many of these being the more educated/productive members of its society). This is partially due to its geographical isolation making foreign travel considerably more expensive than in Asia, Europe or America, such that a trip overseas will typically involve working somewhere foreign for a prolonged period of time, and not mere vacationing. This unique combination of geographical isolation and significant migration may partially explain why such homogeneous groupings are more noticeable in NZ than elsewhere.
Sterling Lynch
December 10, 2011
Hi Andrew,
Thanks for reading and commenting.
I think your point about the Kiwi diaspora is well made and accurate. If there is any truth to my claims about New Zealand culture, it’s only true of the people who live in NZ itself.
Furthermore, I now see a lot of similarity between New Zealand and Ottawa, where I live now and where I grew up.
Ottawa, like New Zealand, is a place people tend to leave if they want to discover and embrace the unknown, the new, or the different. Those who stay tend to stay because they are content with what’s more familiar to them.
And like New Zealand, Ottawa is town of bubbles.