Imitation: The Unseen Architect of Society

But while imitation can lead to rivalries, grief, and despair, a society without imitation wouldn't exist.

Slight Progress by François-Louis Lanfant De Metz (French, 1814-1892)

History has shown that rivalries occur when two people have the same desire and only one can fulfill them. Cleopatra and Arsinoe IV. Alexander the Great and Darius III. Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli. 

Fictional stories highlight this pattern. In Nolan's The Prestige, two magicians copy each other's tricks and compete to be the best. In Naruto, a close to 16,000-hour anime, shinobis Naruto and Sasuke spend almost the entire show trying to become stronger than each other. In The Great Gatsby, Gatsby and Buchanan compete for a woman.

Social Philosopher René Girard said rivalries could spark between people with similar desires and a similar capacity to achieve them. The conflict could even affect people who supported either side or who didn't know about the rivalry. Both statements are true in the stories above.

Girard isn't saying imitation or mimesis—i.e., imitation of someone you admire or hate—is good or bad. Instead, he's pointing at a cycle Homo Sapiens have repeated for centuries.

But while imitation causes this consequence-adhered cycle, society would be worse if we didn't imitate each other. It wouldn't exist.

To learn why that's the case, we'll first explore how we learn to act and how this process relates to the progress of society.

Part 1: How we learn to act

We can only act and thus imitate if we have the skill or practical knowledge to replicate a behavior, that is, the know-how. To learn how to do it, we must have done the action in the past or seen someone do it. The action should also lead to a positive or more favorable result than the action we are currently doing to fulfill the same goal.

For example, Homo erectus worked together to collect food. That was the number one option for getting resources. But sometimes, two individuals who wanted the same food, shelter, or mate realized fighting each other to obtain them was an alternative to collaboration.

Around the third millennium BCE, Mesopotamians saw negotiation as an option to gain resources in a non-violent way. While negotiations were not the primary means of getting resources, they became alternative know-how.

Today, in most cases, we prefer negotiating over fighting for resources. We've learned through grief, violence, and despair that it's a know-how one must use when two parties want the same thing.

Sacrifice of Cain and Abel by Francesco Allegrini. Both sought God’s approval of their offering.

In all realms of life I can think of, know-how precedes know-why, that is, the intention behind a specific action.

Recalling our childhood is the simplest way to understand how we learn the how before the why. As children, most parents teach us behaviors we should do to be liked. Things like not throwing the ball at someone who beat us at basketball or being OK with losing at UNO. If we listened, we learned to act like good players. 

But at this young age, it's unlikely we understood the concepts of good or bad players. We didn't think our friends wouldn't invite us to play anymore if we threw tantrums. Or how, if we didn't learn to accept failure, we would struggle to do so during inevitable adult situations where we "lose," such as layoffs, breakups, or unprofitable investments. 

Instead, we learned how to act by listening to what our parents say or imitating kids other people like. 

Part 2: Society exists because we don't know why we act

The knowledge of how to act transmitted over generations results from an abstract understanding of how to do it. Not from a solid understanding of why we should. We look at how others explore territories we haven't mastered or don't know of. Then we imitate how they do it and add the how to our arsenal if we like the outcomes.

A friend of mine pointed out how, in schools in the US, there are learning programs teaching kids why they should do certain hows. Still, most kids don't grasp these whys. For example, tell a kid ten reasons why going to school is crucial for his life, and they will still want to stay at home playing video games. They know the why the teacher is telling them that justifies the how, but they can't grasp its importance. They'll get by at school as long as they know how to do the activities society expects them to do at school.

Children playing soldiers by Auguste Bachelin.

It can take years of doing or imitating a how before you know why you are doing a how or should do it. 

Many mid-life career crises result from doing a how without a why during early adulthood. Teens enroll in majors or learn a skill that someone they admire has or supports. They think, "if X got this thing I desired through this skill, I'll also get it by learning the same how." Later, they realize the why didn't come within them. Anxiety, shame, and regret attack. And these feelings remain there until the person is ready to explore again. 

As we have seen, as children and adults, we act before knowing why we do so. This might be one of the preconditions to being able to act at all.

Culture is a collective of people following the best know-how available. For these hows to last, their whys must be so compelling that those following the hows don't look for alternatives. Or there can’t be any know-hows available to compete with existing ones. 

In Cali, Colombia, dancing became part of the culture when a nearby seaport brought LP records that made it to the rest of the country in the 30s. Their salsa "caleña" mixes movements from genres they have danced, such as Boogaloo, Pachanga, and Charanga. Ask anyone from Cali what the finest salsa dancing style is, and they will say it's theirs, even if they do not have a why. 

Based on my conversations with professional dancers from Cali, the why doesn't come until they travel the world. Their attitude changes once they see others hows to dance salsa, and they can say things like, "you know what, we dance faster than anybody else." "But we can't match Cuban's shoulder movement." 

Before these conversations, the best know-how available was Cali's salsa style. The reason it's still part of the culture is because it is superior enough not to need a replacement. Sure, Cubans might be better at moving their shoulders. But dancers from salsa academies in Cali win international salsa competitions yearly and recently danced with Jennifer Lopez at the Super Bowl. There are alternative hows, but none are "good enough."

What's most fascinating is not our ability to imitate behavior we don't understand. But that we do it accurately. We can be oblivious to what we do or why we do it and still do it.

Those with kids know this well.

When you look at kids roleplaying, you will see them representing patterns of behavior live. Tell them to act like their grandpa, and they will walk slower, cough, or ask many questions. These are patterns they saw their grandpa or other people's grandpas do at some point. But they don't know the cause. Whether the grandpas do it because they are an Alzheimer's patient is irrelevant to the kid. Tell them to act like an older adult, and they'll behave in a way that fits that description.

As I see it, being ignorant about the importance of having a why behind the hows we do is a precondition for society to exist. 

Person X is a model to follow for Person Y. Y mimics what X does, even though they don't know why X does it. X might not know it, either. But, by accurately imitating behaviors that benefit X, Y learns skills they didn't realize they could get. They later pass these on to others by teaching them or signaling to them that they know a behavior worth copying. 

Within this imitation process, ethical, moral, cultural, social, environmental, economic, and political values go from one generation to the next. We imitate these hows long enough to give them a why that justifies passing them on to the next generation. 

While you might earn an enemy by imitating someone, it is the only way to improve your life. Even if you don't know why you're doing it.