Blueprint

A trip to the beach after Easter has become an annual rite of Spring for my wife and I.  It's always a great time to relax, recharge, and rejuvenate after the long, cold Winter.  It's also a great time to catch up on some reading!  This year, I finished a book called Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society by the American sociologist and physician Nicholas Christakis.  I've mentioned Dr. Christakis and his research a couple of times in the recent past (see "How 'Bout Them Cowboys?", "Happy is contagious", and "Peer Pressure"), and his previous book Connected that he co-wrote with his colleague James Fowler is on my 2024 Leadership Reverie Reading List.  

According to his website, his research focuses on two main topics (1) the social, mathematical, and biological rules governing how social networks form (“connection”), and (2) the social and biological implications of how they operate to influence thoughts, feelings, and behaviors (“contagion”).  His book Blueprint builds upon his earlier book Connected, focusing primarily on his first research topic - the rules that govern how networks within a society form.  

Christakis adds to the already significant body of research encompassing what has come to be known as the "evolution of cooperation" (a term coined by the scientist Robert Axelrod and which I have also posted about in the past - see, in particular, "Tit for Tat").  This entire field seeks to answer the question, "In a world governed by natural selection and "survival of the fittest", being selfish pays - why then do we cooperate with each other?"

Christakis states, "It's not our brains or brawn that allows us to rule the planet.  It's the human ability to construct societies."  He further suggests that there is a "social suite" that is encoded within our genes and therefore naturally present in all our societies that represents a "blueprint"  for how humans can and do form stable societies.  His "social suite" includes the capacity to have and recognize individual identity, love for partners and offspring, friendship, social networks, and cooperation, preference for one's own group, and social learning and teaching.  He then describes a number of successful societies throughout history and explains how the "social suite" played a major role in determining their success and longevity.  These range from shipwrecked crews (for example, he compares and contrasts two ships that wrecked on the same island - the Grafton and Invercauld - which had incredibly different outcomes, as told by the author Joan Druett in her masterful book Island of the Lost, and he also talks about the fate of the mutineers of the HMS Bounty on Pitcairn Island) to artificial societies that formed as part of a sociological experiment (for example, the Robbers Cave experiment). 

Christakis writes, "Our good deeds are not just the products of Enlightenment values.  They have a deeper and prehistoric origin."  In other words, as mentioned above, the "social suite" is genetically encoded.  In a way, we are predestined to form stable societies, even though at times we do not.  The book is incredibly optimistic and inspiring at the same time.  The book was difficult to read at times (particularly in the middle), but overall I found it to be very interesting and worth a look!