Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets

The Ties That Bind

And why should they not be? Humans have lived in structured groups, under the influence of others, for at least 50,000 years. Group living gave them obvious advantages; they could hunt together and protect themselves more easily. One could become expert at hunting, another at making fires, and yet another at making weapons. But living together required a new level of complexity—and complicity—including communication, hierarchical organization, and that impression management we mentioned earlier. And now, at last, we may have come to a workable rationale for our do‐gooders. Now we may be able to begin understanding the spectacles of modern life, from five‐year plans and poverty programs to financial manias and wars to end all wars.

You see, one of the drawbacks of group living was that group identity made humans rivals of each other. They could now band together to exterminate a rival tribe—to gain themselves reproductive advantage. The cost of losing this kind of struggle—death—was so great that they had to evolve social systems and bigger brains to encourage solidarity and punish freethinking. (According to some scientists, larger brains evolved merely to handle the increased data‐processing needs of large, sophisticated group structures.)

And here seems to be the explanation for why groups take their politics, sports, and cultures so seriously. Without that unifying glue, a group might not be able to survive the lethal struggles with other groups. A rival ...