I have a raging food hangover and it's Adam and Eve's fault.
There's a lot to be said for moderation. Not only can you avoid both food and alcohol hangovers, you can also become a more virtuous person, Aristotle says. And, if nothing else, you can avoid puking oysters on your clients' shoes.
I'm not sure if there's a real medical term for the phenomenon I call food hangovers, but I get them periodically. I eat too much and come down with a crippling headache the rest of the day. I suspect it's related to the causes of alcohol hangovers: dehydration, mineral imbalance, overworking the body to process your excess intake, or whatever. (Get off my back. I have a headache so I spent about 90 seconds researching this). It's a text book case of excess being its own punishment.
While I'm in good company extolling the benefits of moderation, I never hear any discussion on the tragedy of moderation.
The very concept of moderation is a sign that something is seriously wrong in the world. Thomas Aquinas says "Thus, temperance inclines the sensuous appetite to acts of moderation conformably to right reason just as intemperance impels the same appetite to acts of excess contrary to the dictates of our rational nature." My amateur translation: "Moderation is when your desires are in line with what you rationally know is reasonable and good. We call the virtue of following moderation 'temperance'".
So what that means is that our appetites (the things we have a hankerin' for) are out of line with reason (what we oughta do). We've all experienced that. Sending an angry email even though it will ruin a relationship. Punching your boss even though you know you'll get fired. Going on a week long cocaine binge. Having a brat, a burger, a steak, a chicken breast, chips, macaroni salad, a Sprecher Cherry soda and strawberry shortcake for lunch. (Bonus challenge: Guess which one I've done. Hint: It's the overly specific one.)
We're constantly at war within ourselves. What we want is totally different from what's good for us and for our fellow man. It's the root of basically everything wrong in the world at both large and small scales. An investment banker asks himself "Should I bet on an unsustainable housing bubble? Of course, because I'll get zillions of dollars now in exchange for an inevitable crash in the distant future. Future-me will have to deal with, not present-me." A guy trying to get himself in shape for a winter Ultimate Frisbee season eats a giant 3000 calorie lunch that gives him a headache.
Yet for some reason, everyone I know (myself included until about 15 minutes ago), just accepts this as the way life works.
Well I don't. Not anymore. It's the way life is, but it's not the way life should be! It's a bug, not a feature. It's like a throbbing toothache in every situation and every choice we make, reminding us that reality as we know it is fundamentally dysfunctional.
This dysfunction, this throbbing pain, this buggy OS is what Christians call the Fall or Original Sin.
Fortunately, that means we're not meant to live like this! We were designed for better and the pain is sign that our original purpose is being thwarted. There's a hole in the enamel and the nerves are exposed.
Unfortunately, we're stuck in these bodies that want what's not good for us. That's where moderation comes in. It's the nerdy strip of duct tape holding our glasses together. I need it, but I don't like that I need it.
Fortunately, one day our glasses will get fixed and duct tape won't be needed. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away. Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.”
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Critical Social Mass
The Theory of Critical Social Mass states that "social groups are composed of three types of people and those types must achieve a proper balance in order for dynamic interaction to occur".[1]
As studies have conclusively shown[2], the three types of people in any social setting are:
Leaders are the people who make the magic happen. They're the people who come up with a plan to {go bowling/make a 75 mile White Castle run at 2:00am/wear fake mustaches to a New Year's Eve party/you get the idea}. Leaders have big ideas and the self-confidence to put them out there. They have a degree of charisma that makes their plan not only seem like a great idea, but the most natural thing in the world. Sure, let's eat at each of Milwaukee's top 5 pizza places in one day. Why wouldn't we?
Joiners are a less crazy bunch than the Leaders. They don't frequently find themselves with a wild plan. Where they may lack in imagination, they make up for in enthusiasm. Leaders wouldn't get anything going without a solid core of Joiners backing them up. When one person stands in front of a group and suggests stealing a roll of toilet paper from a gas station bathroom and taking pictures of it around town, you drop a couple of quarters in his cup and keep walking. But when a handful of Joiners stand up with him and suggest gas stations with lax security and local monuments that are just asking for a good photographin'—this marks the beginning of Social Critical Mass.
Of course, you can't achieve truly critical mass until the Followers get in. Followers are the ones who go along because it seems like everyone else is. Followers are not dumb sheep who just blindly go along. There are any number of reasons to be a follower. Perhaps the person honestly has no preference in the matter being discussed. Maybe they aren't completely comfortable with this social group and don't want to stick out. Maybe they just don't like making waves. Maybe they trust that the leaders and joiners are making a good decision.
Preliminary research seems to indicate that a roughly pyramid-shaped distribution occurs[Figure A].
It has been suggested that most people play each of these roles in different situations[3]. In fact, the biggest area of contemporary research in the field of Critical Social Mass revolves around why this dynamic forms. Is a specific balance of social types required for a group to form critical mass (and thus only groups with the correct balance emerge to be studied)? Perhaps when there is an imbalance the group falls apart. Perhaps the excess members of any particular type remove themselves voluntarily from the larger group. Or do members of each type shift to another type to maintain the balance? One theory goes so far as to speculate that the groups aren't divided sharply at all; that "types" are simply an illusion created by the statistical distribution of personalities within a social group.
Agree? Disagree? Comments are open!
[1] Aaron, 2011.
[2] Aaron, 2011.
[3] Aaron, 2011
As studies have conclusively shown[2], the three types of people in any social setting are:
- Leaders
- Joiners
- Followers
Leaders are the people who make the magic happen. They're the people who come up with a plan to {go bowling/make a 75 mile White Castle run at 2:00am/wear fake mustaches to a New Year's Eve party/you get the idea}. Leaders have big ideas and the self-confidence to put them out there. They have a degree of charisma that makes their plan not only seem like a great idea, but the most natural thing in the world. Sure, let's eat at each of Milwaukee's top 5 pizza places in one day. Why wouldn't we?
Joiners are a less crazy bunch than the Leaders. They don't frequently find themselves with a wild plan. Where they may lack in imagination, they make up for in enthusiasm. Leaders wouldn't get anything going without a solid core of Joiners backing them up. When one person stands in front of a group and suggests stealing a roll of toilet paper from a gas station bathroom and taking pictures of it around town, you drop a couple of quarters in his cup and keep walking. But when a handful of Joiners stand up with him and suggest gas stations with lax security and local monuments that are just asking for a good photographin'—this marks the beginning of Social Critical Mass.
Of course, you can't achieve truly critical mass until the Followers get in. Followers are the ones who go along because it seems like everyone else is. Followers are not dumb sheep who just blindly go along. There are any number of reasons to be a follower. Perhaps the person honestly has no preference in the matter being discussed. Maybe they aren't completely comfortable with this social group and don't want to stick out. Maybe they just don't like making waves. Maybe they trust that the leaders and joiners are making a good decision.
Preliminary research seems to indicate that a roughly pyramid-shaped distribution occurs[Figure A].
Fig. A
It has been suggested that most people play each of these roles in different situations[3]. In fact, the biggest area of contemporary research in the field of Critical Social Mass revolves around why this dynamic forms. Is a specific balance of social types required for a group to form critical mass (and thus only groups with the correct balance emerge to be studied)? Perhaps when there is an imbalance the group falls apart. Perhaps the excess members of any particular type remove themselves voluntarily from the larger group. Or do members of each type shift to another type to maintain the balance? One theory goes so far as to speculate that the groups aren't divided sharply at all; that "types" are simply an illusion created by the statistical distribution of personalities within a social group.
Agree? Disagree? Comments are open!
[1] Aaron, 2011.
[2] Aaron, 2011.
[3] Aaron, 2011
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