{"id":3644,"date":"2020-01-18T17:12:55","date_gmt":"2020-01-18T22:12:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/?p=3644"},"modified":"2020-01-28T07:01:11","modified_gmt":"2020-01-28T12:01:11","slug":"not-just-subconscious-but-dna-deep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/main\/not-just-subconscious-but-dna-deep.php","title":{"rendered":"Not just subconscious, but DNA deep"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When we talk about organizations, or other forms of collective action by groups of people, we often speak as if we have dominantly conscious control. We talk about designing the business, developing the policies, arranging the office, and building relationships. In short, we talk like architects or construction workers — agents with autonomy, attention, and control over the ways and means of our working lives.<\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But evidence from a range of disciplines suggests that we’re not really in conscious control of much — individually or collectively. Sure, we make what feel like decisions and we attribute them to our actions. But that may be more fiction than fact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the individual level, there are good indications that our conscious brain works much or most of the time justifying or contextualizing what our unconscious and sensory systems have already determined (see Daniel Kahneman<\/a> or Benjamin Libet<\/a>, as examples). Here, the conscious mind is the attorney, not the client.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the collective level, there’s also good evidence that our social instincts are the product of thousands of generations of natural selection, and not (only) the product or process of a complex conscious mind. Further, there’s evidence that a wide range of non-human animals have similar instincts, because they improve evolutionary fit for many environments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his 2019 book, Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society<\/a><\/em>,
sociologist\/physician Nicholas A. Christakis suggests a “social suite” of eight evolutionary instincts that combine and intertwine to shape and structure all aspects of our social lives: <\/p>\n\n\n\n