also, this

This talk of tipping points and the Milgram experiment make me think of supercooled solutions in chemistry. These are liquids that are cooled well below their melting points. When a seed crystal is introduced, they suddenly solidify. Bear with me and I’ll try to explain the relation in my mind between thermodynamics and social dynamics.

The interesting and frightening thing about the Milgram experiment is that there WAS NO tipping point. I’m sure that all of these people honestly believed that it is wrong to hurt others. The conditions just didn’t exist for them to make that decision to stop pressing the button.

While this is somewhat disappointing, I don’t believe it’s completely damning. The seed for change may not have to be a single strong individual who is able to face down authority. Perhaps it is a community of people who are able to communicate with one another and make decisions together. How would the Milgram experiment change, I wonder, if you had such a group of people making the decision whether or not to press the button? I am not saying that the numbers would be perfect, but I have a feeling that the odds would increase that they would stop.

I think that for many people the tipping point between healing and depression is the same thing … human connection. Part of why Obama’s campaign worked so well is that he brought so many people together. Our little group is a microcosm of the greater community. In an earlier message I mentioned chaos theory in connection to how every decision, no matter how small, leads to a whole host of other unexpected (large scale) results. But I also seem to remember something from chaos theory that dealt with this issue of scale and how small things are reflected in larger things. A tiny grain of sand is in some way related to the mountain on which it sits. But I think my knowledge of these things is seriously out of date and was only cursory to begin with, so I might be way off.

Nevertheless, the thought is true: Every attempt at human connection and communication can lead to great social change. All collaborative art projects are therefore inherently political.