Despots throughout history have often used a form of social
proteanism to maintain power. They have unpredictable rages
that terrify subordinates. Caligula, Hitler, and Joan Crawford
were all alleged to have increased their power over underlings
through this "mad dog strategy," which keeps subordinates in line
by imposing stressful levels of uncertainty on them.
Imagine a despot who had a fixed threshold for getting angry.
Subordinates could quickly learn that threshold and do anything
just below the anger threshold with impunity. If King Arthur only
got upset by knights actually having sex with Queen Guinevere,
the knights could still court her, kiss her, and plot with her. But if
Arthur's anger-threshold was a random variable that changed
every day, subordinates could never be sure what they could get
away with. Maybe he was happy for them to carry her flag at the
joust yesterday, but maybe he will chop off their heads for even
looking at her today.
Against the mad dog strategy, any insult, however slight, risks
retaliation. But mad dog despots don't incur the time and energy
costs of having a fixed low anger threshold—the uncertainty
does most of the work of intimidating subordinates. Despotism
is the power of arbitrary life and death over subordinates. If a
despot can't kill people at random, he isn't a real despot. And if
he doesn't kill people at random, he probably can't retain his
despotic status. Social proteanism lies at the root of despotic
power.
The mad dog strategy is just the most dramatic example of how
unpredictability can bring social benefits. The advantages of an
unpredictable punishment threshold also apply to sexual jealousy,
group warfare, and moralistic aggression to punish antisocial
behavior. Fickleness, moodiness, inconstancy, and whimsy may be
other manifestations of social proteanism. However, we need
more research on human and ape capacities for adaptively
unpredictable social behavior. Given the importance of mixed
strategies in game theory, and the fact that many social interactions
can be interpreted as games, it would be surprising if
randomized behaviors did not play a large role in human social
interaction.
If great apes differ from monkeys in having better social prediction
abilities, it seems likely that they would also have
evolved better social proteanism abilities to avoid being
predictable. How does this relate to human creativity? The
mad dog strategy sounds sexually repulsive, not the sort of
behavior that sexual choice might favor. Yet I shall argue that
the same capacities for strategic randomization that underlie
the mad dog strategy were transformed, through sexual
selection, into our human capacities for creativity, wit, and
humor. There are at least three ways that social proteanism
may have smoothed the way for human creativity to evolve.
One has to do with the brain mechanisms underlying
creativity, the second with sexually selected indicators of
proteanism ability, and the third with playfulness as an
indicator of youthfulness.
proteanism to maintain power. They have unpredictable rages
that terrify subordinates. Caligula, Hitler, and Joan Crawford
were all alleged to have increased their power over underlings
through this "mad dog strategy," which keeps subordinates in line
by imposing stressful levels of uncertainty on them.
Imagine a despot who had a fixed threshold for getting angry.
Subordinates could quickly learn that threshold and do anything
just below the anger threshold with impunity. If King Arthur only
got upset by knights actually having sex with Queen Guinevere,
the knights could still court her, kiss her, and plot with her. But if
Arthur's anger-threshold was a random variable that changed
every day, subordinates could never be sure what they could get
away with. Maybe he was happy for them to carry her flag at the
joust yesterday, but maybe he will chop off their heads for even
looking at her today.
Against the mad dog strategy, any insult, however slight, risks
retaliation. But mad dog despots don't incur the time and energy
costs of having a fixed low anger threshold—the uncertainty
does most of the work of intimidating subordinates. Despotism
is the power of arbitrary life and death over subordinates. If a
despot can't kill people at random, he isn't a real despot. And if
he doesn't kill people at random, he probably can't retain his
despotic status. Social proteanism lies at the root of despotic
power.
The mad dog strategy is just the most dramatic example of how
unpredictability can bring social benefits. The advantages of an
unpredictable punishment threshold also apply to sexual jealousy,
group warfare, and moralistic aggression to punish antisocial
behavior. Fickleness, moodiness, inconstancy, and whimsy may be
other manifestations of social proteanism. However, we need
more research on human and ape capacities for adaptively
unpredictable social behavior. Given the importance of mixed
strategies in game theory, and the fact that many social interactions
can be interpreted as games, it would be surprising if
randomized behaviors did not play a large role in human social
interaction.
If great apes differ from monkeys in having better social prediction
abilities, it seems likely that they would also have
evolved better social proteanism abilities to avoid being
predictable. How does this relate to human creativity? The
mad dog strategy sounds sexually repulsive, not the sort of
behavior that sexual choice might favor. Yet I shall argue that
the same capacities for strategic randomization that underlie
the mad dog strategy were transformed, through sexual
selection, into our human capacities for creativity, wit, and
humor. There are at least three ways that social proteanism
may have smoothed the way for human creativity to evolve.
One has to do with the brain mechanisms underlying
creativity, the second with sexually selected indicators of
proteanism ability, and the third with playfulness as an
indicator of youthfulness.
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