Rational Ritual summary

Have you ever wondered how individuals decide to submit to a social or political authority like a government? This is also a coordination problem: each person is more likely to support the authority if others do too.

We have seen that common knowledge is key to surmounting coordination problems, which is why authorities use rituals in order to create common knowledge supporting their power.

Would you buy a fax machine if you were the only person in the world who had one? Or sign up for a credit card that no one else has?

Probably not, because both products are basically useless without a sufficient mass of people using them. In the case of the fax machine, you’d have no one to exchange faxes with, and in the case of the credit card, no vendors would accept your Visa if you were the only person wielding it.

Next, let’s turn our attention to strong links and weak links that exist between individuals in a group.

In simple terms, strong links are shared by close friends, whereas acquaintances share weak links. When you look at how a person’s strong links and weak links form networks, the difference between the two becomes apparent.

Another interesting concept related to common knowledge generation is the panopticon prison design. It was created and vehemently lobbied for by eighteenth-century philosopher Jeremy Bentham.

In a panopticon, the prisoners’ cells are arranged in a circle around a central guard “lodge.” Though the panopticon’s success as a prison design has been limited, it is still useful as an analogy for power.

Have you ever felt that there are two sides to your mind: an irrational one that often makes poor decisions, and a rational one that scolds you for these decisions like a father would a son?

You’re not alone. Ever since Aristotle, claims have been made that our thoughts divide neatly into rational and irrational.