A baby copying the smile of their dad, a toddler smearing his mothers lipstick all over his face, a teenager insisting on wearing high heels because their best friend does, and an adult watering the lawn because their neighbor said its wise to prepare for the dry summer. These examples of imitation in humans seem to be very simple, however, they form the basis of the complex structure of human civilization. To understand where our social structure comes from, we have to go back to the turning point in human evolution.

In his book about the divided brain, Iain McGilchrist explains how the human ability for mimicry has set the floor for the evolution of culture. In his explanation he quotes Walter Benjamin who said the following:

‘’Nature creates similarities. One need only think of mimicry. The highest capacity for producing similarities, however, is man’s. His gift of seeing resemblances is nothing other than a rudiment of the powerful compulsion in former times to become and behave like something else. Perhaps there is none of his higher functions in which his mimetic faculty does not play a decisive role.’’

What Benjamin is saying is that of everything in nature that creates similarities, humans have the greatest capacity to do so. It is, in fact, what distinguishes us from other (non-human) animals. McGilchrist explains that besides having the so-called mirror neurons to empathize with what we see, our imagination enables us to think of what we saw without the direct stimuli. Since we can never fully understand how another being must feel, we can only copy what we think it must be like to be the other. This intersubjective betweenness, as McGilchrist calls it, is what gives rise to individuality, as we always give the imitated our own interpretation. This is also where our individual identities derive from, as we are and we become, what we imagine to be.

The skill of imitation in human beings has become an important selective advantage in evolution. Those who are good at imitating have the ability to create strong bonds with the group they live in. Making their social groups more stable and enduring, advances the cooperation between the group members, and cohesive groups survive better. (McGilchrist, 2018) The fact that we, not only as individuals but as a species, depend on mimesis for our survival makes the skill of imitation important in selection. Through culture we pass down these imitated behaviours, which has made culture to be the basis of our existence.

To elaborate on culture we will now dive into the role of norms in human society.

In the words of Michael Tomasello, ‘’cultural transition is a process in which our various achievements are passed on from generation to generation; if something already has been discovered, it doesn’t have to be rediscovered by the following generations’’. This process, the accumulation of knowledge, is what enables human society to improve the existing knowledge and thus to advance. Norms, or normative orders, are essential to culture as they constitute patterns of action that coordinate groups. Put differently, norms are a form of shared imagination. Take for example jurisdiction, which is an example of an imaginative order that only holds because the majority of society recognizes it. Jurisdiction also shows that some norms are written, while others are only existent in patterns of action. When non-written norms are adopted by an individual they can be internalized, this norm then becomes a value. An example of such an internalized norm is the fact that in Europe we drive on the right side of the road. When driving on the left side of the road in Europe -even if there is no oncoming traffic to be seen- most people will feel that it is incorrect to do so without even having to think about it.

In his chapter for the book 'Social Norms' (Opp & Hechter, 2018), Robert Ellickson describes, ‘’how a "market for norms" might enable the individual members of a social group to adjust their informal rules to suit changing conditions.'' An example of such a ''market for norms'' could be the Dutch political system. There are in total thirteen parties which Dutch citizens can choose to vote for every four years. Usually citizens vote for the party (member) they identify the most with, or in other words, they share most norms with. What the parties do during their campaigns is what Brennan, Eriksson, Goodin & Southwood (2013) say to be principle for norms to emerge namely that, ''norms are characterized by general acceptance of particular normative principles within the group in question, so to get a new rule adopted you need to gather enough people to accept it.'' Dutch politics and democratic systems in general, are only one example of norms doing their job. It happens on many scales and as soon as you start looking you will see that it is everywhere around you.

The fact that the market for norms is so big, makes that on the individual level one has to make decisions on what norms to choose. Something like voting a particular political party seems to be an individual choice, but is it? Brennan, Eriksson, Goodin & Southwood (2013) say that it is not merely a matter of personal interest. As we often do not think about the norms we live by, we are not aware that they are actually internalized values we adopted from others. We usually base our choices on what other people say, in order to maintain our position in the social group or community we identify with. An experiment on conformity by Asch & Guetzkow* showed that 30% of the time people rather choose to conform with incorrect judgements than to state a non-conform correct judgement. This way, incorrect narratives within communities can hold, just because the community members (unconsciously) conform with it in order to keep their safe position in the group.

On this website dedicated to the emergence of myths, we will see that these natural properties in humans, are on the basis of everything we do. The epistemic bubbles, echo-chambers and narratives that will be discussed throughout this website are all products of our social structures. Try to keep this in mind the next time you are confused and maybe even angry about people holding up certain narratives. However inhuman or ridiculous they might be, they are held up by people like you and me. Trying to understand where they are coming from can bring you much more than refuting their ideas because you do not agree with them.

*https://www.simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html

References

Brennan, G., Eriksson, L., Goodin, R. E., & Southwood, N. (2013). Explaining norms. Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199654680.001.0001

McGilchrist, I. (2019) Imitation and the evolution of culture. The master and his emissary: The divided brain and the making of the Western World. (pp. 240-256) United States: Yale University Press.

Opp, K.-D., & Hechter, M. (2001). Social Norms. Russell Sage Foundation. Chapter 2 by Robert C. Ellickson. Retrieved form https://rug.on.worldcat.org/oclc/906809299