This theme has emerged most prominent in my thinking in the area of social trending. Of course it is obvious but why things change is the point behind the blog and socionomics in general. It is worth discovering. This simple point, how we value things changes, has been the impetus of my work and is at the heart of the developing social mood. It is not one point to be covered in an article for those craving soundbites. Over time I will post on many differening subjects from this perspective. If you want to see it for yourself, you simply have to adjust you own thinking and expectations. Social mood, the root of most social trends, has always been present among us collectively and there are invariably many more ways to see expressions of it than we will discuss in these pages. Perhaps we can visualize many more expressions together.
Consider the following questions:
How much do houses cost these days? food? clothing? an average car? How much do they cost in dollars and how much do they cost in other measures of value? How do those values shift over long periods of time?
On a decade by decade basis what laws are changing....and how?
How does our Federal and State governments prioritize their budgets?
What are the top five conversations most likely at a social gathering?
What do the headlines and front pages tell us about these changing values?
Changes in the aggregate social mood is at the root of all trending in society. It is as dynamic and three dimensional as any one living person yet it embodies all members of a society. Social mood is the result of ongoing human interaction and is naturally ocurring. Robert Prechter refers to it as an endognenous force and one that produces shared impulses that are distributed amongst all people in a society. I suggest you consider the trends discussed here in light of Malcolm Gladwell's tipping points in that the larger trending process must go through individual mechanical steps as it manifests across all relevant groups of association in a society. This, over course is a fluid process as it happens. I beleive it is worth looking more closely provided this larger construct of social mood is the backdrop, otheriwse it may be too easily broken down into behavioral segments that obscure imporant meaning for marketers.
It is how we see ourselves as individuals but have a common link to the whole through a shared and unconscious set of behaviors that quietly and pervasively influence the final result of our collective activities.
The standard view that we are bombarded with everyday of our life tells us simply that we are individual reactive agents responding to events in the world around us constantly. The socionomic perspective instructs us to consider how this thinking is misguided and in return for an honest effort over time to see how expressions of social mood correlate with social trending of all kinds, then we can begin to see (perhaps slowly), with incredible clarity, how trends reflect what is perhaps the most basic of human instincts. In the language of marketers, trending of all kinds can be seen in new light and many more discovered by understanding how to see differing trends. In this process trending will become seen as patterned social behavior, and this may be viewed in the same way we view flocking birds and schooling fish, and herding gazells. The trends we find using an understanding of social mood need not have great significance to them as all forms of social behavior have a significance, even if they are about a new cool kind of shoes to wear.
How though does this suggest the point of this post?: How We Value Things Changes.
Social mood is a very simple idea. People, collectively (living in a society), swing back and forth in a naturally derrived rhythmn from positive social mood to negative social mood in varying degrees over different spans of time. Positive social mood is charaterized by optimistic thinking and all the derrivative social behaviors that might develop as a result, and negative social mood is charaterized by pessimism towards the future and all the derivative behaviors that develop as a result of seeing the world through the pessimistic lens of collective thought. The degree to which society becomes collectively optimismtic or pessimistic at any one time is a function of where are in successively larger patterns of social mood. Yes, I just wrote that social mood is a polar force in society but in recognizing the patterned nature of certain social activities, we also know that social mood is reflected in trending of all kinds as it unfolds in a patterned fashion. (it is right here in the deeper layer of understanding the relationship between polarized behavioral influences and what is known as "degree of trend" as it relates to the additive patterns expressed by the developing social mood is where all the analytical value in this work exists) What this says is that the movement between these two extemes is patterned in some recorded social behaviors. The patterning I refer to here was first seen and shared by way of the Elliot Wave Priniciple and it applies to behavior in financial markets but then these observations have been made and developed for the economic benefit of people who trade financial markets. In borrowing this tool and the thoughts of those who use this tool effectively, we know that people participate in certain kinds of trending behavior that is patterned. It can be seen clearly over longer periods of times as unconscious social behavior with rather deep implications. The key to unlocking the patterns in social trending of all kinds, is to understand the link to how we collectively value things of all kinds in society . This includes things, ideas, behaviors, character traits, you name it. In our individual lives, I submit everything is put up against the litmus test of current social values on an ongojng basis whether it be conscious or unconscious. In the same way that the minute hand of a watch goes round 525600 times for each time the year turns over once, social mood is an ever evolving pattern of collective behavior. We have, in effect, been leaving a bread crumb trail in many ways (some discrenable and many not) since the beginning of time.
This patterned optimism and pessimism is evident in the way we collectively value or price things of changing value in society. What kind of things? Let's first make an important point. How we value something can be emotionally, it can be represented in currency, it can also be expressed in other things. In the same way we learn to work with fractions in grade school, we ought to re-learn the very nature of a fraction is in how one "thing" or one number related to another. So in this general sense, How we value things changes is a reference to values of all kinds. Here are just a few examples to get your mind juiced up:
How many cars is that house worth? How many eggs does that glass of juice cost? How many glasses of juice for the gold ring? How many TV's to buy the 1500 gallons of oil to heat your house this winter? How many bales of cotton to buy a custom cut granite counter top? How many honest gestures is a criminal deceipt worth? Who cares? You do. Everyone does only they do not pay attention to this way of thinking because the money we use is always going down in value and never staying stready, by government/people design. This work debunks all conspiracy theory from the larger perspective by suggetsing the impetus for representing things in a differing light is socially motivated on some level. As such we do not expect things to stay the same and we beleive that this in in the name of progress.....or so we accept for now. Financial folks makes great argument when they rail on about it but in general we are much more content in our society about letting some things work beyond our knowledge and imagination. If you never realized you care about this then there is a world of reading you may begin doing immediately. If you want to keep going with why we value things changes then think about these comparisons:
Why are some controversial laws enacted, then eforced, and then repealed two decades later?
What do recycled elements of clothing styles say about the emerging social mood?
How will the information age affect or impact this naturally occurring phenomena of social mood?
In re-examining major wars of the past, what social patterns are evident leading up to them?
How will consumer behavior change during a secular consolidation?
How do the concepts of the "saeculum" and "degree of trend" work together to offer us insight at secular inflection points...indeed, how do we see secular inflection points?
Comments