Monday, September 24, 2012

The Meaning Of Being In The Herd

By Patrice McCoy


The meaning of being in the herd can be quite diffuse. It could refer to a radio program broadcast in the USA and presented by a man called Colin Cowherd. In this case the pun on the words 'herd' and the homophone 'heard' adds extra meaning through wit. However, many scientists toil ceaselessly to understand the behavior of creatures that are born in crowds or tight knit social groups that define who they are.

The portable radio was quite recently regarded as an exciting new invention. People acquired them as prestige items as they now do the latest smart phone gadgetry. They meant freedom from the large cloth covered box around which they had hunched in order to listen to the crackling voices of Second World War news broadcasts and speeches. With a smart new gadget a person could be out in the garden with music and chatter emanating from a portable radio resting between the potatoes.

In the 1980s the word 'podcast' had yet to be thought up but early in the twenty-first century it is understood by many people to mean a sort of radio broadcast that is sent out of through Internet channels. This could be one way in which radio presenters can protect themselves from the fate of many portable radio sets and typewriters now gathering dust in garden sheds or museums.

Though iPads and similar gadgets do enable people to take Internet and TV services with them wherever they go, there are times when the hands and eyes are otherwise occupied and it is convenient to have oral messages in the background. For example, sports followers hiking in remote African locations often like to follow the progress of cricket matches between Australia and England at Lords. The capacity to do this is now real.

Though communication in the Information Age is complex and effective there is evidence to suggest that Stone Age people also had deep insights into animal communication systems. This was used in hunting activities and in killing animals whereas the efforts of contemporary scientists and psychologists are directed to preserving the few wild animals that have managed to survive.

One remarkable discovery is that elephants seem to have had complex communication systems throughout the centuries, since long before human beings discovered how to create similar artificial methods. Whales have even more long distance systems and are thought to be able send and receive messages from around the world in a way that is not entirely dissimilar to the Internet.

Human beings may now have communication systems that are more effective than those of most birds and animals. However it is worth considering that the absence of such instinctive capabilities could have resulted in humanity rising to have dominion over all other life forms. Lacking instinctive social communication capabilities we might have had to invent what we did not inherit.

The instinct to live in groups seems common to species that do survive better than solitary creatures like endangered tigers and polar bears. Some human beings are instinctively loners, especially if they have known solitude during their formative years. Though such solitary people usually are happy with their own company and enjoy being habitually alone there remains a deep instinct in most of them to be, at least for a limited time, in the herd.




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