Fitting In

Anthropologists tell us the instinct for group identity is rooted in some tribal need for the mutual survival and preservation of a common culture. Maybe. But such seems somewhat anachronistic outside, perhaps, biker gangs preserving their outlaw existence.

We’d once discussed an expanded view of “tribalism” from The Tipping Point with its take that human brains are simply not adapted to working with large populations and thus the need for some combination of hierarchical schemes, stereotypes and other simplified models to understand so many people.

Thus born, synthetic affinity groups. How else to explain the ridiculous, sometimes rabid, loyalty demonstrated when it comes to a professional sports team where the players are simply readily replaceable corporate piece-parts and the only constant is the uniform (“How ‘bout them Broncos”).

Apply this sort of arbitrary standard to any sort of cultural construct, whether it be looks, religion, possessions, ideology or family structure. Or, ahem, politics. The point here is that we no longer have one America but, by one count, at least four: “real” America; elite America; constitutional America; and (un)Just America MM 7/9/21 Four Americas. Four tribes.

It is within this context the focus of our discussion will be on the almost pathological longing on the part of many individuals to be “normal” (Wanting To Be Normal). What does that even mean?

Such a discussion invites the reintroduction of movie night with the screening of Woody Allen’s delightful 1983 mockumentary Zelig, portraying a character so possessed by an instinct for conformity that he proves capable of maneuvering himself into the most unlikely of settings even to the extent of undergoing physical metamorphoses to suit each location (e.g. he experiences physical ballooning while in the presence of fat people). Mr. Allen himself saw the story as a chance to make a serious point about the risks that social pressures pose to individuality – about “the specific danger of abandoning one’s own true self, in an effort to be liked, not to make trouble, to fit in.”

The downside of disguising ourselves to others is that in the end we become disguised to ourselves.