Hey. There's actually a reason to behave like a civil person?

I realize that in the United States there's a fantasy of the Lone Ranger, the isolated person outside the law who is somehow better or more pure of a human being than the corrupt people who have to conform to social norms.

But can we get over the idea that social structure actually has value? This is really old news. You know? Really, really, really, really old news. In fact, I'm going to wildly speculate that almost every woman who has ever gone into labor, or anyone who has ever taken care of an elderly relative or an ill person is pretty convinced that being isolated would be a stupid, possibly even self-destructive way to run one's life.

Collaboration? Cooperation? Of course! 

To do it well, to minimize the inherent risks, to get over the idea that 9000 superficial relationships "wins" over a few deep ones and understand in a sophisticated way the nature of boundaries and transparency, when bridge capital is helpful vs when it's distracting, the FALSE senses of risk mitigation inherent in hiring from within your network, the issues surrounding building and rebuilding (and rebuilding) interpersonal trust... that's where the edge is.

Comments

[disasterlogistics]

Looks like I may need to scratch my frontal lobe for a bit to completely process all this. Bottom line... just wanted to stop by and say hi as I see you are tracking my twitter.

By the way... communication and collaboration are at the top of my list of important topics to be well steeped in. While it is important to embrace the mundane and superficial relationships, they are never a replacement for the deeper, more meaningful ones.

Perhaps the key is to find meaning even in the mundane. Then again, you are who your friends are, so perhaps we are wise to stay away from too many bozos.

Oh well... one final thought: Some of the happiest people I know have lived their entire lives in little grass huts in the middle of nowhere with disease and violence always a constant threat and often not knowing where their next meal comes from, along with a constant uncertainty of whether or not they will survive until next week. There's something important to be learned there and perhaps applied to our society here.

[Jessica Margolin]

What I was saying in maybe an obtuse way was that the importance of social networks is an ancient thing, so we might want to stop being shocked that human beings are social creatures.

The second point I was making was that, just because we now can automate the process, import all our gmail buds and the roster of our senior year in high school, this doesn't mean we actually have a stronger or better social structure than we did in the old days, when we couldn't do such a thing. It depends on how we use that tool.