As I type this, a French couple is sitting in a nearby corner of my cafe. I cannot understand much of what they're saying, but by the tone of their conversation, it's clear that they find each other's company affable. In another corner, several Tibetans are having a conversation. I'm the only quiet one, though my attention is committed to writing, which is its own sort of conversation with faraway friends. If you go to any cafe, you'll find a similar scene. In fact, you'll see something similar on the streets of most cities or the corner stores in rural towns. Pretty much anywhere you find people, you find conversation. We do it as naturally as we breath, and he crave it like water and food. Periods of conversational deprivation lead to discomfort. Loneliness is just another form of hunger.
Somehow, I doubt tigers go through this. I doubt iguanas feel lonesome. People could have evolved differently. We could have had been a more solitary species. Instead, however, our instincts predispose us to seek out the company of others. Laughter feels good, as do massages. Without even thinking about it, we gravitate towards people so that we can indulge these feelings. I listen to the French couple laughing, and I doubt they're thinking, “We're laughing as an instinctual reward for socializing.” Our awareness of this is unnecessary. The effects are the same. By laughing together, we strengthen social bonds, not unlike monkeys grooming each other for parasites. For a species that depends on society to survive, this is essential.
The human heart is composed of billions of cells, and in order to stick together, these cells produce a substance known as adherons. Without adherons, the heart would fall apart. Without laughter and conversation, society would fall apart. Heart cells do not produce adherons because they know it keeps the heart together, and similarly we do not talk with each other because we want society to remain whole. This is simply our nature, and it's so well-designed that we do need to think about it. We simply live it. By being ourselves, we instinctively create societies.
There are other factors involved, too. Naturally, we model ourselves after others, and in this way societies became increasingly consolidated. On the other end of things, when people reject us for being too different, we experience mental anguish. Studies have shown that in periods of social anguish, the cells of the body begin dying off at faster rates. There are physical consequences for going against the collective. People who do it too much are weakened and left vulnerable to disease. In other words, those who do not adequately conform are weeded out of the gene pool.
So we have both the carrot and the stick leading us down a path of social cohesion. In 'The Cells of Gods,' I described another way of looking at human society. Here, I'm saying that this is an unavoidable consequence of human nature. We aren't simply a social creature like a dog. We are a societal creature with divisions of labor and cultural hegemony. When we laugh with each other, we are indulging in what makes us human and what at the same time binds us society. In the West, with our emphasis on the individual, a recognition of this aspect of our nature can be discomforting. A common theme in novels and movies is how stupid and cruel society can be. There's a saying that goes something like, “People aren't stupid, but groups of people certainly are.” Stories like 'The Crucible' epitomize this attitude, as do countless 'Twilight Zone' episodes and Ray Bradbury novels. We fear the movements of the social organism, as it so often gets out of control of the individuals that compose it.
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