On The Need To Belong: Part I

Assumptions:
Most humans feel an innate need to group themselves.
One of the goals of society is progress.
Certain statements can be closer to the truth than others.
Truth is important.

One of the most unfortunate, yet inherent human desires is the need to belong. Throughout all of human history, people have sought to become part of a group, have sought to fit in with others. The "blame," of course, rests on no one's shoulders in particular, for it is no more than instinct and evolution at their finest. However, even though all animals succumb often to the will of their instincts, we as humans have the ability to recognize this fundamental part of our nature (whether we as humans can uniquely recognize this is a subject for later debate), and we have the ability to act on it. We as a species on earth are in fact self-aware. We as a species are no longer bound by instinct in our behavior. We can consciously take almost any of our "animal-like" instinct and reverse it. Yet, undeniably there exist certain instincts upon which we almost always fall back. One of these instincts is the need to belong. I am of course a human being, and therefore no exception at all. I constantly feel the pull towards groups of people, as most others probably do as well. In fact, I have not yet even mentioned why something so natural ought not be such the important part of our existence as it is today, and truthfully, it is hard to at first imagine why anyone might have such qualms with this issue. Although this is a key factor in the present argument, I shall discuss it later.

First, we must ask ourselves why. No rational progress can ever be made without first understanding the fundamental "why" behind the behavior. Why do we sit with friends at lunch? Why do we join sports teams from such an early age? Why do so many people have their nation's flag waving in their front yard? The answer is in no way obvious. Dawkins would say that we evolved this way, that our species slowly changed in a way such that those genes for congregating in groups managed to survive through the course of history, while those for solitude withered away. More specifically, those individuals that lived in groups gained protection from said groups, and therefore survived, whereas those that roamed alone were more easily done away with by environmental influences.

In a more societal context, the protection idea boils down to the fact that people enjoy being supported ideologically by their peers much more than they enjoy being regarded as nonsensical outsiders. We humans thrive on others agreeing with our viewpoints and our notions. That is the reason why we gather around with our likenesses at political rallies and why we memorize chants to scream at our favorite (or least favorite) sports teams. As soon as we have others on our "side," it becomes much easier to face our "enemies" or to laugh sans guilt or shame at rival sports teams. Quite rarely does anyone want to be the sole supporter of an idea or team or country when the opposition carries 10,000 supporters. When we are protected by others, the chance of being the first to be knocked down in battle dramatically decreases. This is evolutionary. However, as the technological era has progressed (especially due to the advent of modern medicine), we humans have managed to stave off evolutionary advancement.

The unfortunate aspect of all of this lies in the very essence of our need to have our ideas agreed upon by others. Nearly every paper written, speech given, or editorial published is created for a solitary purpose. Each one of these forms of expression carries with it the goal of convincing the reader or listener to agree with the author or speaker regarding whatever subject matter is being presented. We (myself included) receive such an incredible high from being "right" and such an incredible low from being "wrong," or at least from perceiving that we are right or wrong. This in itself may be the hardest aspect of human nature to overcome if we are to transcend our instinctual, evolutionary qualities. The goal of any conversation ought not to be to pick one side and burn down the other, but rather to measure each side objectively and perhaps arrive at a slightly more valid truth.

We learn in school (at least these days) to be as objective as possible. However, we also learn how to pose a convincing argument, by taking objective truths and exploiting them as tools to propogate certain opinions. Herein lies an extraordinary, yet almost perpetually overlooked contradiction! On the one hand, we are expected to use real and reliable facts, but on the other hand we are simultaneously expected to use them to convey personal opinions instead. All too often do we search and study only the "pros" of one "side" and only the "cons" of the other. Whether or not each fact in an argument is true means almost nothing if they are used in such a subjective way. The purpose of argument ought to be to expose truth, whether or not the writer agrees with his own statements (for if his findings are indeed proven true, he shall come to accept it). The debate over whether or not there can exist absolute truth is irrelevant at this point and will be dealt with later. Any conversation, though, which does not bring its creators closer to truth, has no impact on either society, intelligence, or the universe as a whole.