We’ve known for some time that bees can tell the hive where to find food. They do it through a dance that uses figure eights, semicircles, and circles, rhythm and duration, and vertical or horizontal orientation, all adding up to direction and approximate distance to a stand of flowers. The dance is language that the other bees “understand” and that sets them in motion to fly to the food source—just like social media.
So, now, here we are, supposedly beyond just instinctive following, yet flying off to a place another has indicated. And, even if we don’t actually make a physical trip, we find ourselves following the dance to a mental position. The danger? Not much ordinarily, but occasionally, the human hive builds itself up into a frenzy of activity or attitude. Think this way or do this. The world is in imminent danger. The flowers are almost dead and the nectar will soon be gone. Life, as the members of a particular hive know it, will end—or so the dance seems to indicate.
The frenzied dances on social media lead members of a hive into imitative motions, sometimes for good as in relief for those struck by natural disasters, home fires, or terrible diseases, and sometimes for bad as in destructive riots, mass shoplifting sprees, and brawls. That so many can be urged to similar action over a short time almost seems to be an argument that humans can be made to act on instinctive impulses just like bees.
Every time that frenzied rioters, looters, violent protestors, or disruptive mobs rush to a single spot after a “dance” on social media, I think of bees. But I also think of bees when I see any of us—sometimes including me—imitate the mental dance, go to whatever intellectual distance the dancer indicates, or go in the described direction pointed to by the dancer.
Bees don’t have a choice. A scout bee finds a flower, brings back nectar and the scent of the flower, does the dance, and sets the other bees in motion. Humans, I hope, do have a choice; yet, over the centuries we have seen such hive activity of humans more often in destructive than in constructive thought and action. Is it not possible for each of us to learn the rudiments of choreography, to devise our own dances, or to revise the dances of those whom we might now imitate?
Bees so instructed by a dancing scout bee fly along a straight path to flowers. Humans so instructed by social media (or any media) have the ability to zigzag, find alternatives, or simply stay home to engage in their own creative choreography. We are all dancers. Some of us let others design our dances. Some of us become independent choreographers.
So, now, here we are, supposedly beyond just instinctive following, yet flying off to a place another has indicated. And, even if we don’t actually make a physical trip, we find ourselves following the dance to a mental position. The danger? Not much ordinarily, but occasionally, the human hive builds itself up into a frenzy of activity or attitude. Think this way or do this. The world is in imminent danger. The flowers are almost dead and the nectar will soon be gone. Life, as the members of a particular hive know it, will end—or so the dance seems to indicate.
The frenzied dances on social media lead members of a hive into imitative motions, sometimes for good as in relief for those struck by natural disasters, home fires, or terrible diseases, and sometimes for bad as in destructive riots, mass shoplifting sprees, and brawls. That so many can be urged to similar action over a short time almost seems to be an argument that humans can be made to act on instinctive impulses just like bees.
Every time that frenzied rioters, looters, violent protestors, or disruptive mobs rush to a single spot after a “dance” on social media, I think of bees. But I also think of bees when I see any of us—sometimes including me—imitate the mental dance, go to whatever intellectual distance the dancer indicates, or go in the described direction pointed to by the dancer.
Bees don’t have a choice. A scout bee finds a flower, brings back nectar and the scent of the flower, does the dance, and sets the other bees in motion. Humans, I hope, do have a choice; yet, over the centuries we have seen such hive activity of humans more often in destructive than in constructive thought and action. Is it not possible for each of us to learn the rudiments of choreography, to devise our own dances, or to revise the dances of those whom we might now imitate?
Bees so instructed by a dancing scout bee fly along a straight path to flowers. Humans so instructed by social media (or any media) have the ability to zigzag, find alternatives, or simply stay home to engage in their own creative choreography. We are all dancers. Some of us let others design our dances. Some of us become independent choreographers.
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