Friends are people who ...
a) like to have tadpole-eating contests
b) like to collect potatoes
c) have similar DNA
Yah, that'd be DNA. People become friends because we see resemblances and apparently those resemblances run deeper than impressions and are from the DNA. (LiveScience: Friends Have More DNA in Common than Strangers)
Which shouldn't be surprising for monkeys. We need our troop or our tribe where of course our DNA is similar to the other members, we're probably related.
But we don't do that as the American Dream is the house with the white picket fence and the Leave it to Beaver family. It's a cute image but it's a nightmare for the tribe as it isolates you from it altogether. There is no greater loneliness than suburban America where the loudest sounds are lawnmowers and people breeding. However, as soon as the breeding stops, they fan out ... and start it all over again in a different suburb.
Then they turn to Facebook because they're lonely and they make thousands of friends but none of them mean anything as you really can't tell about the genetics until you can be with someone for real. These are not tribes but rather stamp collections. They show how much we need the tribe but the social networks don't do anything at all to fulfill it. In fact they make it worse by diverting from things that could solve the problem and really make people fulfilled rather than teasing them with it.
American individuality is all very well ... except it conflicts with tribalism, any kind of rational economics, and makes life just as boring as it can possibly be. Together is synergy, gestalt, etc so individuality is necessarily not that and is consequently less. It's logically impossible to be anything else ... unless you're Jimi Hendrix. Sometimes we get one of those ... but not in every house in suburbia.
Somewhat akin to that is the focus on singers on American TV contest shows. There's never any emphasis on the band and the singers are often excellent but so what. They make stars ... they don't make bands and, for example, look back at the sixties. What have you learned or do you remember. Yah, bands. There is synergy in bands. There cannot possibly be synergy with a soloist.
It's the same with virtuoso guitar studs. Some are so good they don't need a band but very, very few. Synergy is an important thing whether it's a symphony orchestra or your tribe, it's all the same.
Corporations try to create a phony tribalism and people even buy into that because we're so desperate for it. When you can't get it at home, get it at work. Ja, arbeit macht frei. These aren't just your coworkers, they're your partners and, gee, I'll bet we could be friends. (Women hardly ever get this right. People at work are not your friends. There is no friendship when you compete for money and, what's more, there shouldn't be as that's why people get cheated.)
There's a whole lot of sociology in this and I'm not even going to try to make a serious dent as those much more educated than I are probably pursuing this. What I wonder is whether you are.
a) like to have tadpole-eating contests
b) like to collect potatoes
c) have similar DNA
Yah, that'd be DNA. People become friends because we see resemblances and apparently those resemblances run deeper than impressions and are from the DNA. (LiveScience: Friends Have More DNA in Common than Strangers)
Which shouldn't be surprising for monkeys. We need our troop or our tribe where of course our DNA is similar to the other members, we're probably related.
But we don't do that as the American Dream is the house with the white picket fence and the Leave it to Beaver family. It's a cute image but it's a nightmare for the tribe as it isolates you from it altogether. There is no greater loneliness than suburban America where the loudest sounds are lawnmowers and people breeding. However, as soon as the breeding stops, they fan out ... and start it all over again in a different suburb.
Then they turn to Facebook because they're lonely and they make thousands of friends but none of them mean anything as you really can't tell about the genetics until you can be with someone for real. These are not tribes but rather stamp collections. They show how much we need the tribe but the social networks don't do anything at all to fulfill it. In fact they make it worse by diverting from things that could solve the problem and really make people fulfilled rather than teasing them with it.
American individuality is all very well ... except it conflicts with tribalism, any kind of rational economics, and makes life just as boring as it can possibly be. Together is synergy, gestalt, etc so individuality is necessarily not that and is consequently less. It's logically impossible to be anything else ... unless you're Jimi Hendrix. Sometimes we get one of those ... but not in every house in suburbia.
Somewhat akin to that is the focus on singers on American TV contest shows. There's never any emphasis on the band and the singers are often excellent but so what. They make stars ... they don't make bands and, for example, look back at the sixties. What have you learned or do you remember. Yah, bands. There is synergy in bands. There cannot possibly be synergy with a soloist.
It's the same with virtuoso guitar studs. Some are so good they don't need a band but very, very few. Synergy is an important thing whether it's a symphony orchestra or your tribe, it's all the same.
Corporations try to create a phony tribalism and people even buy into that because we're so desperate for it. When you can't get it at home, get it at work. Ja, arbeit macht frei. These aren't just your coworkers, they're your partners and, gee, I'll bet we could be friends. (Women hardly ever get this right. People at work are not your friends. There is no friendship when you compete for money and, what's more, there shouldn't be as that's why people get cheated.)
There's a whole lot of sociology in this and I'm not even going to try to make a serious dent as those much more educated than I are probably pursuing this. What I wonder is whether you are.
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