(IN)fluenza

“Are the human minds interconnected or every single person is an independent producer of world interpretations? Can we know something outside of the conceptual network that we share with our kind or what we think is determined by the language and social medium? For the majority to give up of the unique status quo of an independent mind is inconceivable.

Let’s imagine instead that we are observed by an extraterrestrial civilization. For them, the human species, living vertically in huge urban agglomerations, would look like perfectly synchronized ants colonies. The beliefs, the faiths and the opinions that divide us would seem a tiny amount beside the ones that bind us (but we prefer instead to ignore them) The social changes are generated by the ideas born in a group and those changes are understood and accepted by the rest of the society.

The expression that ideas are “In the air” signifies a prescience of a collective soul. In these circumstances, the social body, resistant to change, develops symptoms similar to influenza: nausea, temperature, dizziness, cough…. The viral process thru which an idea acquires life in public conscience is able to give us a theme to think about how original and unique is our opinion and how much we share with our kind.”