Social Experiment

I've come to a realization that much of the criticisms I have with society concern the many social, mental, and sometimes pointless games we play with each other. Here's an example of one of those:

While finishing up a philosophy lecture where we watched a video of Noam Chomsky talking about Manufacturing Consent, I heard the common class-ending sounds of rustling papers and stowing pens and pencils. You know the situation: the low rumbling of "packing up" which grows and grows until the professor seems to finish, whereupon the decibel level doubles.

Well, little old me decided to try a trick on the class. I fiddled with my metal zipper handles, picked up my backpack and put it back down. Immediately after, the low rumblings amplified to louder zips, snaps, and thuds. Coincidentally or not, the professor came down a few seconds later to dismiss the class. This was only about a minute or so ahead of schedule.

Now, the phenomenon isn't anything new, but the instant confirmation made me chuckle inside. We're always waiting for social cues to proceed. We never want to be the first to do something, but being second is just fine. In some sense it's smart, in another, painfully predictable. This is why sometimes I like to shake it up. Ironically, though, "doing what we're all thinking" and thinking it's novel has started to become annoyingly detectable, as well.

I didn't want to get too deep into this (though I don't know how much more I really have to say about it); I really just wanted to share this amusing event. It's certainly from our ancestral and evolutionary history, though.