I would like to explore with the reader a concept I refer to as "social inertia" or "social momentum". I first pondered this idea about two years ago while considering possible strategies for redirecting human societal development.
All groups of humans have a certain social mass to them, much like physical objects have real mass. This mass provides these groups of people with a kind of social gravity that, like real gravity, exerts a force on other groups and individuals. Not only does this mass give social groups gravity, it also means that while moving in a particular direction—all social groups are constantly in motion—these groups will have a tendency to continue heading in the same direction until they encounter another social body that can affect their movement. Social groups in which people share distinctly original customs and traditions are unique cultures. Generally speaking, the people of a given culture or social group interact with each other on a regular basis.
Having identified and defined social groups, social mass, and cultures, I would like to discuss the apparent lack of social or cultural inertia of major American (United States of America) social groups.
I have observed that many educated people believe modern, urban Americans adopt new habits and new technologies more rapidly than people in most other technologically advanced societies (social groups). It immediately occurred to me that urban American social groups (the entire country could be considered one large loosely-knit social group) have probably always been ravenous for new technology, especially so for devices that had/have the potential to dramatically increase wealth or, at the very least, help to create the illusion that a person had expansive financial resources. Why are Americans so desperate (seemingly much more so than most Europeans and many traditional Asian social groups) to have or build an image that suggests they have tremendous, even ridiculous amounts of money? Certainly the reasons are numerous, but one rises to the top of my thoughts repeatedly: we are a lost and confused social group without a deep, meaningful culture. We consistently deny ancestral connections despite the fact that we are struggling to build an identity. In this way, we are much like a rebellious teenager—cocky, arrogant, and always determined to prove that we are right.
This seems to make a great deal of sense when we examine our origins. America is a relatively young nation (compared to the average age of European civilizations) and was established just three centuries ago by descendents of European aristocrats and businessmen who were determined to make names for themselves in the New World. Many of them did just that, building vast estates while encouraging their peers to do the same. This profit-minded approach has persisted for nearly three hundred years, pushing each generation to try to outdo the last in a never-ending race to stockpile the most material assets. This insane rush to amass wealth has not only left many social and cultural casualties in its wake, but has also contributed to the creation of a mindless culture based on short-lived fads and trends.
Urban Americans are "trend junkies", always sniffing around for the next "new thing", hoping to seize on it before the masses so that they can "get in on the ground floor" and make large profits while increasing their social status. We are a nation of showboats, with endless lines of wannabes behind them.
So, do Americans lack a kind of social inertia? Yes. Absolutely. Why? Because even though we are a huge throbbing mass, we are hollow, empty in our center. This is true despite the reality that America is a cultural melting pot.
Revisiting the social analogues of the concepts of mass and inertia, we could add to these the notion of a cultural density. The average cultural density of urban American cultures is very low, just like that of a hollow, physical object. The surface of these groups (the image they project) is merely a veneer that hides a large ideological void, a near total lack of the principles and values which are needed to form the foundation of a sustainable culture or lifestyle.
How can this be true if America is supposedly a land of so many diverse cultures and belief systems? The answer is startlingly simple: human beings have a deep, primitive need to fit in. The desire to gain acceptance is so overwhelmingly powerful that very few people can stand against it. People adopt behaviors simply to seem like just another member of the group to which they wish to join or be part of, regardless of whether or not the behavior has any connection to anything practical, spiritual, or emotional. The need to fit in—or just not stand out—can crush all other wishes, wants, and drives in most people. Thus we are cultural lightweights, damned by a single directive which was programmed into us millions of years ago.
There are essentially two major factors, then, that could explain why urban American social and cultural groups seem to have so little social and cultural inertia: the current population's greedy, self-centered mantras, passed down from the founding members who were primarily power-hungry businessmen, and humans' overpowering desire to fit in. It has to be a coupling of two factors (at least) because the need to belong or fit in is not value-oriented, i.e., the drive to be part of a social group says or reveals nothing about the group's values or lack thereof. I believe that looking for ways to discover and keep meaningful, purposeful values in our urban cultures is the logical next step toward the goal of improving human societies.
Original Publication Date: 6-26-2005 10:20 PM CST
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