Social Traps and Trampolines

At first blush, the objects of our desires are fairly constant. There are things in the world, and we either desire them or we do not. We like burritos, adventures, sleep. We don't like congestion, broken lawn mowers, bureaucracies. Maybe our desires aren't binary, but we do have preferences about things, and they mostly don't change that much or that often. Another way of putting it is that our desires are ours. They're based on internal facts about us and are independent of other people or other external factors (my love for burritos does not depend on you). As deeply social creatures though, we have many social desires that aren't independent and don't have fixed objects. These wants that are only satisfied through objects, and those objects vary by context and circumstance. The objects of these desires are variable.

These social desires come in a number of different flavors, some noble, some less so. We want to be accepted. We want to be praised and held in high esteem. We want to be better than others and seen as superior. Unfortunately, there is no set of actions you could take, irrespective of context, that would satisfy these desires. There is always some basis for their satisfaction - what you have, what you can do and or have done, what you look like - and that basis was arrived at through a contingent social, historical process. You have to be or do what confers these goods (have the right job, wear the right clothing, etc.) but what those beings and doings are can totally change.

Lots of good can come of this. If the way to gain status within your poetry club is to write excellent poetry, then your social desires just amplify noble and edifying impulses. Personally, it's why I love places like the Recurse Center and ITP. One is recognized in these places by being especially kind, helpful, creative, and knowledgeable. I might go as far as saying what makes many institutions successful is that they make self and other-improving behaviors an important part of participation in the social world of the institution. They function as a sort of trampoline, creating a surrounding surface that allows people to go higher than they could have otherwise.

Unfortunately, they can also be traps. We can get stuck in situations where the thing that allows us to meet our deep social needs is bad for us individually, collectively, or both. Smoking is a prime example. Tobacco companies spent vast sums trying to make smoking a vehicle of social recognition. If you think "cool people smoke", and you think other people think "cool people smoke", then smoking is what do so others think you're one of the "cool people." So you smoke, even though it's awful for you and society. A nerdier way of putting is that the companies were trying to buy a Schelling Point; they were trying to buy the solution to this kind of social coordination game. Having children might be another example, though in this case something individually harmful (though socially useful). To be "normal" or engage in the communal life of those around child-rearing age, one must have children, even if they're stress-inducing, expensive, dirty, and a net-minus for your overall happiness.

I guess the takeaway from this is that if you're involved in any of these processes, as a leader of an organization or as a marketer or just as a regular person, you should think to yourself: "to what extent am I creating either a trap or a trampoline?" I you're creating the former, try to find ways to do things differently, and if you're doing the latter, keep doing what you're doing. We're all better off as a result.