I've noticed...

[dophmeister]

... in my few hours with these "children" that humans, as a whole, are conformists by nature... they will do anything if there is a guaranteed large group of people already doing it...

that's not to say that there are a small group of us creatures that stand out and don't blindly follow...

Comments

[space_cadet]

The way I see it, higher brain functions (and the "human" parts of us) come with age. As babies and children we are basically just like every other animal - we react to positive and negative stimuli, we slowly develop a concept of self (On wikipedia, I think, there was an interesting section in one of the articles on humans about how we're one of the few animals to pass The Mirror Test), we naturally group and just generally go about our business on pure instinct.

After a certain point we develop the bits of us that make us rather different. It's at this point that we can conciously go against our animalistic nature. Some people actually use their brain and do this. Other people, not so much.

It's actually a big theme in Shakespeare's King Lear. You should read it if you like that sort of thing.

[last_eorlinga]

Doph, I made a new journal.
-Sasha