Mirror Neurons

First of all, one of my favorite videos of all time.

Now, once you have understood the concept, some examples to show just how powerful this phenomenon is. A few days ago, I sat down to watch “Chak de India” with my family. And anyone who knows me, knows that I do not relate to either any single country like India, or to competitive games like field hockey. Yet, at the end, I had tears in my eyes. I could literally feel their anxiety, their ambition, their urge to prove themselves. I could relate to the people involved, even if they were involved in a meaningless game. That’s how powerful the mirror neurons are.

Advertisers use this to a great deal. From the “Kuch meetha ho jaye” which makes you think that everything is perfect in the world, even though its a shit-hole out there, or the “Darr ke aage jeet hai” that makes you want to jump of a cliff yourself, the advertisement industry thrives on these associations. Of course, the reality remains that you can’t get to date a girl by asking her for a piece of chocolate, but these ads manage to get us involved, and eventually make us buy shitty products thinking that we need them in order to survive, when we don’t.

Another example is the recent Anna Hazare campaign. Now, I’m not against the guy. I respect him, because he’s a passionate man who is doing what he thinks is best for his people. But anyone, who has taken a closer look at the Jan Lokpal Bill will halt to think twice before joining the campaign, as was done by many activists like Arundhati Roy (though her critique was very different from mine). The movement gained such a large momentum not because of the bill, but because the media associated with it appealed to the emotions of the public. The people quickly related to frustration they all face everyday due to corruption, and set out in protest, many not knowing what the bill entailed, but thinking that it will make everything rosy. That’s how powerful mirror neurons are.

So what does that prove, you ask. How easily manipulable we all are? Well, um, yes. And that’s the point.

So how do you get away from being manipulated? By gaining knowledge, because once I had watched the movie, I went back to my original stance about separate nations and competitive games. We need to learn how to make associations with things that are relevant. Like the billions of people starving around the world. We must learn to empathize with the underpaid workers who hate their boring jobs but must do them because of lack of education or opportunity. We must empathize with our environment: the plants and animals and the biosphere, which are undergoing terrible degradation everyday. We must empathize with the scientists, who are working days and nights to devise methods to improve the human condition, but are not able to implement them due to lack of funds, because no corporation wants to invest in solutions, because solutions are enemies of profit. And finally, we must empathize with our children, because the earth is a finite planet, and what we are doing to it, is going to hurt them in the long run.

It is when we realize this, that we see that our current system is broken. It is counter-productive and will ultimately lead to our own extinction. And no amount of new laws can fix it. We need a complete overhaul. A redesign of our culture based on empathy and cooperation, instead of competition and greed.