The Rubberband Theory of Human Nature

The world is radically changing, and changing fast, and I don’t just mean climate. Since December 2010 the geopolitical map in the middle east and Africa has, and is, going through a massive political and social realignment.

This brings me back to my rubber band theory of human nature. I believe that people not just in the Middle East and Africa but anywhere will put up with a lot of crap for a very long time. Each injustice or act of oppression just stretches (picture pulling on a rubber band) the human psyche and core belief system just a little further. The more injustice or oppression encountered, the more the rubber band stretches, further and further, the tension increases dramatically. This is a tremendous amount of collective stored energy.

This stretching and increased tension on the psyche and core belief systems of any particular culture or group of individuals may last for years or decades, until a trigger event, even a relatively small event causes the rubberband to explosively snap back, abruptly releasing its energy all at once. This collective stored energy is what causes dramatic change such as the change we are seeing today.

In the case of the Middle East turmoil or “Arab Spring” as it’s been called in the media, the event, or trigger can be traced to one individual. Wow! the power of one lone person can trigger the masses to act. Tens, and hundreds of thousands of people almost simultaneously decided they had had enough. Essentially they decided they would all rather die then live like that any longer.

The trigger event in the Middle East/North Africa region can be traced to one sole event, one insignificant individual that finally snapped, caused a domino effect that caused the rubber band to abruptly snap back and release the massive stored energy in hundreds of thousands and millions of people in the region.

In December 2010, a 26 year old man in Tunisia was selling fruit from a cart to support his family. Due to the high unemployment this was one of his only options. The police came around and knocked his cart over and harassed the fruit seller. In a desperate act of despair and protest against government oppression, the man set himself on fire.

This one lone act of self immolation was the trigger that caused the collective energy of millions to snap. This one lone act triggered a revolution that brought down the oppressive government in Tunisia. The more oppressive the government became, more and more people reacted (snapped back). This massive amount of stored energy brought down the government and created a new society.

This one successful event bring down an oppressive governments in one country after another, and started the domino effect that brought down the dictator in Egypt and caused massive ongoing unrest and protests in Syria, Bahrain, Jordan, Libya and others. Some governments fell others were forced to make massive concessions. These events are still playing out now.

The advent of instantaneous 24 hour news cycles, facebook, twitter, camera phone photos and video helped to provide the spark that released the stored energy in millions of individuals in the region.

Thus the rubber band theory of human nature. The energy released continues to send shock waves throughout the region.

What an interesting time we live in.

As always,

I am…

Tom Dye, The Safety Guy