How to Start a Nation (Part 2): Some Story
Note: Many of the ideas in this article are directly inspired or drawn from the excellent book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Yuval Noah Harari. Be sure to read Harari’s book for an even more in-depth exploration of imagined hierarchies and fiction.
This is Part 2 of a larger connected series. If you have not read Part 1, please do so.
In Part 2, we will find a general sketch of social fiction — and illustrate in Part 3 multiple examples of how rhetoric and power play into all of this (including in the musical Hamilton).
An Abstract, Connective Idea
We ended Part 1 with a question. After determining that teams connected purely through friendship are unstable, we asked, what allows humans to collaborate in numbers ranging in the millions and billions? The answer isn’t immediately obvious. In this article, we will illustrate what seems to be the human solution to this difficulty.
To discern what connects so many people together to collaborate, we must first consider whether or not it is physical. It’s clear that it isn’t physical. For instance, nothing physically forces you to pay your taxes, except you still do so every year. Perhaps you will have physical consequences if you choose not to. But the question then becomes, where do these physical consequences come from? The government, surely — but then we return to the same question.
Since the root of mass collaboration isn’t physical, it must be non-tangible — that is, an abstract idea. And since collaboration is made up of individuals, each individual must follow or believe in this abstract idea.
Let’s determine what the precise nature of an abstract connective idea would look like.
The goal of teamwork is to produce some kind of tangible result. In a large group, there must be some sort of unified instruction as to what should be done. If half the group thinks we are building a plane, but the other half believes it’s a rocket ship, neither is going to happen successfully.
So we know that the abstract idea behind mass collaboration has physical results and unified instruction. Unfortunately, this doesn’t actually answer the basic problem of mass cooperation: not everyone might agree to follow this connecting idea.
I believe that there are two primary ways adherence is created: rhetoric and availability.
First comes rhetoric. For everyone to adhere to a single idea for a long time, we need to persuade them to follow the idea. I believe that rhetoric, at least in the sense that I will describe, is what fuels mass adherence to any abstract idea. Rhetoric can be defined as anything expressed that appeals emotionally to an audience, either in presentation or content. Examples of rhetoric in this sense are storytelling, music, speeches, and art. Rhetoric leads to adherence/belief in any sort of abstract idea.
For example, when leading troops into battle, the commander of a platoon will almost certainly give a speech. Perhaps the commander will tell an inspiring story — and this will encourage the soldiers into battle.
Another great example is Martin Luther King Jr. Listen to one of his speeches and observe the way he presents himself, paces his words, and varies his tone. MLK is considered one of the best speech makers of modern history, because of his influence and ability to persuade people to a movement. His amazing rhetoric and uplifting speeches were all products of his time spent as a Protestant pastor.
In addition to rhetoric, massive teams also remain unified due to availability. As an individual, you are a bit more likely to believe in an abstract idea if everyone around you also does. This is a form of societal pressure.
Beliefs and reality are framed by your environment. With the same abstract idea and its corresponding rhetoric (stories, myths, etc.) available at every turn, this abstract idea becomes a belief and reality for you. You are a believer.
We might choose to label this abstract connective idea a social fiction — a fictional idea that is not tangible but is nevertheless shared among many people. Historian Yuval Noah Harari, who writes about social fictions and their importance in human history, labels social fictions a bit differently, as “imagined hierarchies.” He notes, importantly, that social fictions bring about power.
Defined as the “ability to act or affect something strongly,” power is in our case the ability to define how a group of people think and act. In social fictions, a minority has power over the majority.
For instance, the government has power over people. Like magic, the President of the United States of America can read a set of letters into a radio, and launch thousands of hydrogen bombs, virtually destroying the world. A group of nine judges sitting in elegant robes can define “morality” or “justice.” And with power, comes the ability to define the social fiction itself.
In Part 3, we will give examples of how rhetoric and complexity play into social fiction (including in the musical Hamilton).
