Recently, I've been thinking about this idea a lot in the context of our history and the evolution / growth of our communities, and I wonder if it might be a fundamental concept in sociology / human behavior. I haven't seen it, although that doesn't mean it isn't there somewhere.
We usually think about our communities as being in tension between individualism/collectivism, and I think this heuristic applies well to that conversation. That is, for an individual person it is always more feasible to go with the flow, as it were, as opposed to fighting for a more wholesome, collective solution, which could have serious personal consequences.
The flip-side of this heuristic is return on energy in evolutionary theory, which is that human behavior usually aims for the least possible energy expenditure for the most gain. IOW, we guarantee the most return on our effort by doing as much as we need, but no more - going with the flow and not fighting the tide of change.
To provide a concrete example you could look at something like the infrastructure being built for cars in the early 20th century, or the size of property lots / housing. In theory, even if an individual person understood the long-term consequences of these decisions, it would be almost impossible for them to devise a political solution that actually stopped the decisions being made. On a personal level it would be political suicide.
A few corollaries I can think of
I don't know if there is much conversation to be had here, but I thought it was an interesting thought worth sharing.
We usually think about our communities as being in tension between individualism/collectivism, and I think this heuristic applies well to that conversation. That is, for an individual person it is always more feasible to go with the flow, as it were, as opposed to fighting for a more wholesome, collective solution, which could have serious personal consequences.
The flip-side of this heuristic is return on energy in evolutionary theory, which is that human behavior usually aims for the least possible energy expenditure for the most gain. IOW, we guarantee the most return on our effort by doing as much as we need, but no more - going with the flow and not fighting the tide of change.
To provide a concrete example you could look at something like the infrastructure being built for cars in the early 20th century, or the size of property lots / housing. In theory, even if an individual person understood the long-term consequences of these decisions, it would be almost impossible for them to devise a political solution that actually stopped the decisions being made. On a personal level it would be political suicide.
A few corollaries I can think of
- Dominant ideas in culture end up having a kind of inertia that is resistant to change
- Most politicians will give the appearance of being helpful, but there isn't much incentive for genuine leadership and devising real solutions
I don't know if there is much conversation to be had here, but I thought it was an interesting thought worth sharing.