452. The Gregarious Instinct

The Gregarious Instinct
 

The respect for another person's knowledge and appreciation of another person's achievements, is psychologically very different from veneration and reverence for an entire person.    

The person with superior knowledge can be chosen as a teacher, and learning from him is intellectually beneficial.   It is a rational choice to acquire knowledge selectively.    It does not cause blindness for the teacher's limitations. 

 
But venerating disciples and followers put their guru and master upon a pedestal and blindly take in every of his words as ultimate wisdom.  They submit to him in totality and consider any criticism as a sacrilege.    Whatever wisdom he has is mistaken as a justification to put a halo upon him and deny henceforth any of his manifestations of weakness, shortcomings, errors or limitations.  

I have been very puzzled, why people are so prone to follow gurus and get sucked into sects and cults, because I did not comprehend, what benefits they get from such a blind submission and acceptance of inferiority.  This is so much in contrast of the hierarchy instinct driving people to compete for superiority.  

But finally I got aware, that I have completely omitted to consider the impact of the gregarious instinct upon human behavior.    I am personally void of the gregarious instinct, so I did not recognize it in others.   I am not attracted to people in general, only to people, with whom I have something in common.   I am only attracted to people, who make me feel the joy of consent.

I had mentioned before some people's elusive feelings of interconnectedness and that people have an identity as particles.   I did not see the full implications of this.    Interconnectedness and being a particle are more than only conscious feelings.   They are representing the powerful subconscious gregarious instinct.  
 

Like any other instinct the gregarious instinct causes urges and dishomeostasis.  The urges are to belong to herds, the dishomeostasis is lacking the protection by the herd.   Being deprived of interaction with group members, indiscriminate as individual personalities, causes discomfort.   The loss of feeling protected causes fear.   
In humans, the herd can be any ingroup, any social group, where the gregarious person feels protected in and to which he is attracted to belong to.   

If there were only the hierarchy instinct, people would compete and attempt to gain a high rank and if they are not able to do so, they would give up and move away.    But due to the gregarious instinct people feel so much need to belong to the herd, that they experience even the submission to the lowest position as more beneficial than to be expelled.   There cannot be a hierarchy, unless there are all ranks, high and low.  
Therefore I have to define the hierarchy instinct as not being the instinct to only fight and compete for a high position, but as an instinct to attempt taking the appropriate place in the hierarchy in accordance with the innate genetic fitness.   By the hierarchy instinct, the individual accepts the most suitable position for serving the survival of the herd.   The gregarious instinct urges the individual to do this.    Therefore there cannot be a hierarchy instinct without the gregarious instinct.  

This is an excellent source:  
http://progressor.webs.com/_05.htm