Page 53 - CULTURE IN THE COMMUNICATION AGE

EDUARDO NEIVA

directly determines the action of each individual organism? If it were so, it
would be tempting to give an undue predominance to collective aggregations,
therefore suggesting that individuals subsume their selfish interest to the group.
But, considering the phenomenon of group formation, Williams (1964 and
1996) argues that the collective mold of a school of fish evolves from the serial
sum of individual behaviors. What seems to be co-ordination is really an
illusion of order, quite similar to the impression we get when we see the
photograph of a tight crowd trying to escape from a room a flame. From afar,
the group seems to behave orderly. But, in the middle of the group, the experi-
ence is chaotic: the individual running in the direction of an exit door triggers
a response in other individuals that would otherwise run in another direction,
or would remain motionless. A new response redirects the movement of the
crowd. Group configuration is involuntarily drawn from individual responses.
Fear of predation determines the formation of groups. Inside a group, an
individual organism reduces the possibility of being singled out by predators.
Zoologists have consistently noticed that groups are more commonly formed
by animals that gather in open spaces, whether in plains where herds graze or
else in the vastness of waters. Fish inhabiting coral reefs will not form a group:
they can hide inside the various crevices around them. 8
The reason for group formation is simple: the organism in the middle of the
group increases its chances of survival. The margins of the group must be
avoided. The danger zone between predator and prey must be as large as pos-
sible. The organism in the margins and nearer to the predator has more chances
of being devoured.
Independently of Williams, and dealing with what he calls the geometry of
the selfish herd, Hamilton (1996: 229–52) comes to similar and comple-
mentary conclusions. For Williams and Hamilton, predatory interaction marks
the evolution of social behavior. Hamilton imagines the behavior of a group
of frogs living in a lake where a snake dwells. The snake always attacks at a
certain moment of the day. Before the snake emerges from the water, the frogs
will move to the edge of the lake, terrified of other predators living in dry land.
The frogs run away from the natural habitat of the reptile but they have
nowhere to go; they forecast that the snake will eat the one that is closer to it;
the snake will feed itself with the least expenditure of energy. The danger zone
becomes so small that piling-up is the only solution. The frog in the bottom of
the heap tries to escape and jumps to the top, distancing itself from the snake
gliding across the surface of the lake. In open or closed spaces, group formation
is inevitable. The frogs would avoid grouping only if they could hide individu-
ally. In a school of fish, or for panic-stricken frogs, the way out is to be involved
analogically with a protective whole.
The individual defends itself by calling attention to the group. It is quite true
that in group formation some individuals will inevitably be food for the preda-
tor, but it also true that in the company of others the possibility of death is
reduced. The more individuals are placed in front of the predator, so much the

42