Social Dynamics Stories

To illustrate the ideas, I begin with a favorite example of mine, which illustrates how two different approaches to a problem result in dramatically different results: one an example of positive social dynamics, and the other an example of very negative social dynamics. My pastor when I was quite young (Norma Jones) shared this story as an illustration of heaven: The story is told of a Christian who died and ascended to the pearly gates to be admitted into heaven. But before he entered he made an unusual request. He asked to be allowed to visit the other place for a few minutes, just to satisfy his curiosity about the realm. So the Christian was allowed to journey, briefly, down into hell to take a look. There, in hell, he saw a strange sight. Thousands of people were seated at long banquet tables. The tables were piled high with all manner of delicious food. However, each seated person was tied to their chair, and also had one hand behind their back. To the other hand was tied a large, long spoon. Each one could reach the food and scoop it up, but because the spoon was so long, they could never manage to put any of it into their mouths. This was indeed hell. The Christian quickly returned to the gates of heaven and was duly admitted inside. However, he was at first disconcerted to find almost exactly the same scene in heaven as in hell. There were also thousands of seated people, also long banquet tables piled high with delicious food. Each person was likewise tied to their chair; each had one hand tied behind their back, with a large, long spoon tied to the other. There was no way anyone could ever manage to get this bounty of food into their mouth. However, there was one difference. The people in heaven were using their spoons to feed each other.

There are a fair number of common phrases that relate to this notion of social dynamics, and give it a physical/scientific flavor (e.g. the use of the word "pressure", or "cycle"):

• keep up the pressure
• peer pressure
• good money after bad
• Once bitten, twice shy
• Pavlovian response
• vicious cycle
• checks and balances
• catch-22
• spinning out of control/downward spiral
• infinite loop
• domino theory
• monkey trap
• fox in the henhouse

• keep up the pressure:
  a quarterback is harried by the defense, and so makes a bad pass;

• peer pressure:
  a girl is pressured by her trusted friends to smoke pot;

• good money after bad:
  

  An automobile turns out to be a lemon, and repair after repair is made with no end in sight; or a war (whatever!).

• Pavlovian response:
  in Pavlov's case, a dog was trained to salivate at the sound of a bell, because the bell became associated with the arrival of food:

• vicious cycle:
  

  The Hatfield clan in 1897.

  A famous example is provided by the story of the Hatfields and the McCoys in American history of the 1800s: a dispute over a pig leads to the killing of one family member by by another family; in retribution, the victim's family kills a family member of the murderous family; and so on, ad infinitum and ad nauseam.... The good news is that, in the case of the Hatfields and the McCoys, a truce was eventually called. No such good news when you're talking about the effects of disabilities in many cultures. The kids are treated as second class citizens, and so become more and more so as the cycle spirals.

• checks and balances:

  Our governnment is famous for its three branches of government which serve as a system of "checks and balances" to stablize our government. Whenever one branch gets too strong, another (or both) rises up to swat it down.

• catch-22 (aka "damned if you do, damned if you don't"):
  

  "Ducking the Witch [Trial by water] One 'foolproof' way to establish whether a suspect was a witch was ducking. With right thumb bound to left toe, the accused was plunged into a convenient pond. If he or she floated it proved an association with the black arts, with the body rejecting the baptismal water. If the victim drowned they (sic) were innocent. Given the curious position of the prisoner, it was more likely they would float (Farrington 58)." (http://www.shanmonster.com/witch/traits/ducking.html) But then you'd be declared a witch, and so killed. So you were "damned if you do, damned if you don't," another good phrase exemplifying a catch-22.

  A "witch" was "cleared" in 2006, who'd been convicted by ducking in 1701!

• spinning out of control/downward spiral:
  a person is prescribed a painkiller, which is perfectly reasonable. But the drug is addictive, and the person may find that their drug use causes them behave in conflict with society. This leads them to do more drugs, to ease this new pain, which increases their alienation, etc. Eventually they end up dead. My favorite pop culture version of this is John Prine's Sam Stone.

  Here's another good one, cited on the from the weather underground:

  It was autumn, and the Indians on the remote reservation asked their new Chief if the winter was going to be cold or mild. Since he was a new Indian Chief in a modern society, he had never been taught the old secrets, and when he looked at the sky, he couldn't tell what the weather was going to be. Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, he replied to his tribe that the winter was indeed going to be cold and that the members of the village should collect wood to be prepared. But also being a practical leader, after several days he got an idea. He went to the phone booth, called the National Weather Service and asked,
  "Is the coming winter going to be cold?"
  "It looks like this winter is going to be quite cold indeed," the meteorologist at the weather service responded.
  So the Chief went back to his people and told them to collect even more wood in order to be prepared. A week later he called the National Weather Service again.
  "Is it going to be a very cold winter?"
  "Yes," the man at National Weather Service again replied, "it's going to be a very cold winter."
  The Chief again went back to his people and ordered them to collect every scrap of wood they could find. Two weeks later he called the National Weather Service again.
  "Are you absolutely sure that the winter is going to be very cold?"
  "Absolutely," the man replied. "It's going to be one of the coldest winters ever."
  "How can you be so sure?" the Chief asked.
  The weatherman replied, "The Indians are collecting wood like crazy!"

• infinite loop :
  anyone stuck in a traffic circle should be able to understand this one!;)

• domino theory:

  I first heard of this in the context of the Vietnam war. The domino theory as I understood it was that if one country or state (such as Vietnam) fell to the communists, then its neighbors would soon fall; then their neighbors would fall, ultimately leading to the communist take-over of all of southeast Asia.

  The domino theory has close ties to the mathematical idea of induction (see for example this site).

• monkey trap:
  

  From The Schiller Institute

  this from Will The End of Oil Mean The End of America?: "In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig tells the story of a South American Indian tribe that has devised an ingenious monkey trap. The Indians cut off the small end of a coconut and stuff it with sweetmeats and rice. They tether the other end to a stake and place it in a clearing. "Soon, a monkey smells the treats inside and comes to see what it is. It can just barely get its hand into the coconut but, stuffed with booty, it cannot pull the hand back out. The Indians easily walk up to the monkey and capture it. Even as the Indians approach, the monkey screams in horror, not only in fear of its captors, but equally as much, one imagines, in recognition of the tragedy of its own lethal but still unalterable greed." The author (Robert Freeman) goes on to give us his take on the message: "Pirsig uses the story to illustrate the problem of value rigidity. The monkey cannot properly evaluate the relative worth of a handful of food compared to its life. It chooses wrongly, catastrophically so, dooming itself by its own short-term fixation on a relatively paltry pleasure. "America has its own hand in a coconut, one that may doom it just as surely as the monkey. That coconut is its dependence on cheap oil in a world where oil will soon come to an end. The choice we face (whether to let the food go or hold onto it) is whether to wean ourselves off of oil to quickly evolve a new economy and a new basis for civilization or to continue to secure stable supplies from the rest of the world by force."

  Of course the monkey trap is a wonderful piece of bad dynamics that applies to hundreds of situations. I thought of it recently in the context of Jesus' story of the rich young man. Here it is, in the King James Version:

  
  Mar 10:17 And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?
  Mar 10:18 And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.
  Mar 10:19 Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Defraud not, Honour thy father and mother.
  Mar 10:20 And he answered and said unto him, Master, all these have I observed from my youth.
  Mar 10:21 Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.
  Mar 10:22 And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved: for he had great possessions.
  Mar 10:23 And Jesus looked round about, and saith unto his disciples, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!
  Mar 10:24 And the disciples were astonished at his words. But Jesus answereth again, and saith unto them, Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God!
  Mar 10:25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.
  Mar 10:26 And they were astonished out of measure, saying among themselves, Who then can be saved?
  Mar 10:27 And Jesus looking upon them saith, With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible.
  Mar 10:28 Then Peter began to say unto him, Lo, we have left all, and have followed thee.
  Mar 10:29 And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel's,
  Mar 10:30 But he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life.
  Mar 10:31 But many that are first shall be last; and the last first.

  This is a great moment in the Bible.

  The passage above is directly preceded by two other seminal moments in the Bible, each illustrating different parameters in social dynamics:

  This is a good one for all the holier-than-thou Christian-labeled you meet. Humans are liable to ignore any "inconvenient truths", while focus on any sins they don't believe they, themselves, suffer from:

  Mar 10:11 And he saith unto them, Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her.
  Mar 10:12 And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery.

  And here's another, much more positive, that gives some critical advice:

  
  Mar 10:13 And they brought young children to him, that he should touch them: and his disciples rebuked those that brought them.
  Mar 10:14 But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.
  Mar 10:15 Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.
  Mar 10:16 And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them.

  Why did the disciples rebuke those who brought children? What were they thinking? Evidently that children are not important, or perhaps bothersome. It reminds me of another passage in the Bible in which one presumes too much:

  Luk 14:7 And he put forth a parable to those which were bidden, when he marked how they chose out the chief rooms; saying unto them,
  Luk 14:8 When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room; lest a more honourable man than thou be bidden of him;
  Luk 14:9 And he that bade thee and him come and say to thee, Give this man place; and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room.
  Luk 14:10 But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee.
  Luk 14:11 For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

• Fox in the henhouse:
  

  When I learned how CEO salaries are determined, I really fully understood the meaning of this expression. That boards are made up of upstanding citizens like CEOs; that CEO 1 sits on Board 2, while CEO 2 sits on Board 1; and that boards set the salaries of CEOs.... It's pretty clear from that much information what can happen: salaries that spiral upward, with each CEO making the other happier and happier. "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours." The only people who lose are the customers, who pay higher prices for goods, and the stock-holders (although they're assured that, if you want quality, you've got to pay for it....).

  ---

  You can probably think of some more good examples.

  I'm especially interested in situations that exhibit what I call "bad dynamics": when do we apply pressure, say, that acts counter to our objectives? Or when do we fail to apply pressure when we should?

  For example:

  • everyone wants to have lovely children, but we all know "spoiled children". One method almost guaranteed to produce a spoiled child is for the parents to give the child everything he or she desires. Generally this results in a child who will throw a terrible conniption fit if they don't get what they want. They've been perfectly well conditioned to do this: it's no accident; it was perfectly predictable, based on their upbringing.

  • Another good example of bad dynamics, more relevant to Haiti, is the following: rice has been grown in Haiti for a long time. But it is a relatively labor intensive and expensive process. US growers dump their excess rice in Haiti at a price so low that native Haitian growers can't compete, and so they go out of business. The Haitian consumer is now at the mercy of outside growers, and has lost an important class of citizens -- those who can produce rice. If the outside supply should dry up, it won't be easy to re-institute the rice-growing industry: knowledge may have been lost, and the lands may have been appropriated for other purposes.

    Furthermore, if competition has been eliminated until there is a single supplier, then monopolistic practices may drive the price up through the roof. The consumers enjoy a short term low cost to rice, but end up paying more in the long run because of havoc that the short term benefit produces.

    And the ones who "win" are too often multi-national companies who are only too happy to simply move on once they've reamed the locals. A good example in the coal mining country of Appalachia (still going on, unfortunately): miners took horrible risks, owed their souls to the company stores, and in the end are now unemployed and their homes are flooded out by mountain-top removal (which is just one type of environmental degradation they've suffered). Here's John Prine again, with Paradise, illustrating some bad dynamics. The short term benefits are good; the long-term benefits are terrible.

  • On the US political scene, I listen to George Bush justify US belching carbon emissions because we can't jeopardize jobs. When the atmosphere is unbreathable, it won't matter that we have jobs -- we'll still be dead.

    Governmental policies need to take into account the long-term -- but voters decisions are based on the short-term. This is an example of bad dynamics. Only real leaders can buck this trend, but voters won't forgive them, and so they will be replaced by nincompoops. Sad, but true.

Keywords: feedback, relationships, interplay, flow charts, graphs, flows, pressure, conditioning, stimulus, response