Building Castells is a cultural tradition (first documented near the city of Tarragona in the 18th century) that forms part of annual festivities in Catalonian towns and cities. The goal during this team competition is to successfully erect - and gently dismantle - the tallest and most complex human tower possible, without letting anyone fall. Towers are formed by members (hundreds of them) standing on the shoulders of one another in a succession of levels, which are generally comprised of heavier built men supporting younger, lighter-weight boys or girls as levels are added. A small child is often the one who climbs to the very top.
For many decades now, the tradition has continued to be passed down from generation to generation, creating a unique bond among practitioners, as well as their families and communities. In 2010, Castells were declared an ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity’ by UNESCO.
More importantly, though, each team brings together people from a variety of age brackets, ethnic backgrounds, professional fields and socioeconomic tiers, all of whom are united by a common goal and willing to take a tumble for (and with) each other. The way I see it, Castells are the perfect embodiment of social cohesion, a somewhat ‘intangible’ yet very palpable force that not only involves flexibility, balance and coordination, but ennobles the human spirit.
Inherent to the principle of social cohesion is individual uniqueness. This may sound contradictory, but for people to cohere as a group, they must respect and make the most of each other’s differences, including their strengths and weaknesses. In other words, cohesion is, by design, a very empathic mechanism most of us can access.
Social conformity, on the other hand, does the exact opposite. It delegitimizes individual difference and agency, and chokes the human spirit. This is not to say that going along with the crowd isn’t sometimes useful or beneficial. Of course it is. However, the problem is that the natural drive to belong can be manipulated and abused in countless ways, to the point where it becomes pathological and counterproductive.
The experiments conducted by Salomon Asch are among the most famous in the world of psychology and have inspired a wealth of additional research on conformity and group behavior. It is now well understood that subjects can easily be swayed to go against their best judgement in order to fit in with the group (normative social influence), and they can adjust their behavior to match the perceived expectations of others, based on the assumption that someone else must be smarter or better informed or more powerful (informational social influence).
Among the most worrying trends that I observe in western society today - spurred by the U.S. - is the accelerating disappearance of two vital skills for group cohesion. The first one is the capacity to be in the presence of - and in dialogue with - someone with whom one disagrees on a particular topic. And the second one is the courage to speak up and stand up for oneself in the face of nonsense. The weaponization of social media and other modern communication tools (e.g. online petitions) appears to be sinking us deeper every single day. And I wonder how long it will take until the damage becomes irreversible.
From the pandemic’s infamous “we’re all in this together” slogan to Facebook’s “connecting the world” mission statement, and the repeatedly mangled doctrine of “interdependence”, I have noticed over the past few years a growing movement towards trying to rob people of their authentic selves. Grand narratives are unabashedly deployed to supplant reality, and group identity is increasingly exploited to define the individual.
There is a gigantic difference between voluntary commitment and coercive manipulation. Social cohesion thrives on the former, while social conformity is the most obvious byproduct of the latter. We are at a time in history (again) in which those of us in favor of independent thought, diversity of viewpoints and freedom of speech must step forward and stand tall.
The stakes are simply too high.