On Avoiding Trends pt1

375

Imitation

Philosophy

A trend or pattern is something which starts with a few people having genuine interest for a particular thing in a particular area, but the use starts increasing exponentially, for many different reasons, after which it becomes difficult to tell why everyone is following it. ---- <b><u>Manifestation of a "Trend"</u></b> It can take place in many different contexts. It is most quickly associated with fashion, but you can take any recreational or occupational field and see that there are trends or popular things which bubble up, if you listen close enough to a particular community. There are many different ways for things to become "trends" or become popular. They maybe cutting edge in, say, technical fields like computer science, where "cryptography", "data science" and "artificial intelligence" have been dominating the space for the past decade. This seems to be the most straightforward way for a "trend" to take place. This can dictate to some extent what people will take up as a profession. In the cultural milieu, there are trends related to dressing, way of speaking/slang, movies, TV shows and the more incendiary field, <i>politics</i>. Dressing and certain speech patterns can be spread through celebrities/<i>influencers</i>, movies and cultural TV shows of the generation. It is slightly difficult to pinpoint why some of the idioms, phrases and comedic cadences in the communication domain or peculiar dressing styles in the fashion domain get picked up. Some of the more abstract cultural things, related to philosophy, religion and politics are things which may be discussed forever; how to lead a moral and productive life as an individual and as a part of an integrated society. These specific discussions can have positive and fruitful outcomes when done one-to-one, but it mostly spirals into copious amounts of moral bludgeoning and superficial virtue. All these things brings to life an overarching social entity of a society, which has influence over most of the members, where they don't have to outwardly say it, but things just get picked up, and before you know it, it is already a "trend". If exponential wasn't quick enough, social networks can accelerate the already quick dissemination of the "trend". "Trend" is a placeholder for the general feeling of the social entity, on a particular space of human agency. It seems to give structure for the new "entrants", who are looking for things to pick up and find a community to interact with. It can be used as a way to find more people and create a group around themselves. It is a possible way to think about questions like "what you should be doing", "what you should be knowing" or "how you should be speaking". Following the social entity starts to forge your identity and after awhile, we seem to think that our free will was at work while picking these things up. The identity gets inevitably linked with what individuals do, which seems to hinder any chance of change, the more time individuals spend with it. The more "confused" members who may not be swayed by some of the social entity's choices, can have difficulty navigating the social landscape, where they feel the constant mismatch of not doing things for which they have a natural affinity for. It can be slightly frightening for them to see people not even question the environment they are in. Even if you feel like doing the things which are against the social entity, the force of it starts to impinge on your psyche and makes you question and doubt most things which you are doing. This entity allows the "trend" to flourish and maintain its popularity among the group. The social entity also gets help from the members of society, who essentially become enforcers of the initial "trend", for better or worse. Some are the cheerful members who genuinely want you to know about a particular thing and some are those who are indifferent to you following it. Then come the passive aggressive members who emanate the negative reinforcement signals to those who are not following the trends and the remaining are essentially active authoritarian enforcers. These are the people who are threatened by people who "don't fall in line" and disparage the individual to coerce them. The social entity receives their "generous" help in keeping the "trend" afloat in the social sphere. --- The article continues <a href="/">here</a>...

- Shubham Anuraj, 12:35 AM, 03 Oct, 2021