Michael Suk-Young Chwe
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691158280
- eISBN:
- 9781400846436
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691158280.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Social Theory
Why do Internet, financial service, and beer commercials dominate Super Bowl advertising? How do political ceremonies establish authority? Why does repetition characterize anthems and ritual speech? ...
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Why do Internet, financial service, and beer commercials dominate Super Bowl advertising? How do political ceremonies establish authority? Why does repetition characterize anthems and ritual speech? Why were circular forms favored for public festivals during the French Revolution? This book answers these questions using a single concept: common knowledge. Game theory shows that in order to coordinate its actions, a group of people must form “common knowledge.” Each person wants to participate only if others also participate. Members must have knowledge of each other, knowledge of that knowledge, knowledge of the knowledge of that knowledge, and so on. The book applies this insight to analyze a range of rituals across history and cultures. It shows that public ceremonies are powerful not simply because they transmit meaning from a central source to each audience member but because they let audience members know what other members know. For instance, people watching the Super Bowl know that many others are seeing precisely what they see and that those people know in turn that many others are also watching. This creates common knowledge, and advertisers selling products that depend on consensus are willing to pay large sums to gain access to it. Remarkably, a great variety of rituals and ceremonies, such as formal inaugurations, work in much the same way. By using a rational-choice argument to explain diverse cultural practices, the book argues for a close reciprocal relationship between the perspectives of rationality and culture. It illustrates how game theory can be applied to an unexpectedly broad spectrum of problems, while showing in an admirably clear way what game theory might hold for scholars in the social sciences and humanities who are not yet acquainted with it. A new afterword delves into new applications of common knowledge, both in the real world and in experiments, and considers how generating common knowledge has become easier in the digital age.Less
Why do Internet, financial service, and beer commercials dominate Super Bowl advertising? How do political ceremonies establish authority? Why does repetition characterize anthems and ritual speech? Why were circular forms favored for public festivals during the French Revolution? This book answers these questions using a single concept: common knowledge. Game theory shows that in order to coordinate its actions, a group of people must form “common knowledge.” Each person wants to participate only if others also participate. Members must have knowledge of each other, knowledge of that knowledge, knowledge of the knowledge of that knowledge, and so on. The book applies this insight to analyze a range of rituals across history and cultures. It shows that public ceremonies are powerful not simply because they transmit meaning from a central source to each audience member but because they let audience members know what other members know. For instance, people watching the Super Bowl know that many others are seeing precisely what they see and that those people know in turn that many others are also watching. This creates common knowledge, and advertisers selling products that depend on consensus are willing to pay large sums to gain access to it. Remarkably, a great variety of rituals and ceremonies, such as formal inaugurations, work in much the same way. By using a rational-choice argument to explain diverse cultural practices, the book argues for a close reciprocal relationship between the perspectives of rationality and culture. It illustrates how game theory can be applied to an unexpectedly broad spectrum of problems, while showing in an admirably clear way what game theory might hold for scholars in the social sciences and humanities who are not yet acquainted with it. A new afterword delves into new applications of common knowledge, both in the real world and in experiments, and considers how generating common knowledge has become easier in the digital age.
Camilla Power
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- August 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199665327
- eISBN:
- 9780191779725
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199665327.003.0004
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Sociolinguistics / Anthropological Linguistics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics
Signal evolution theory addresses honesty, manipulation, mind-reading, and shared versus conflicting interests. Animal signals are investments demonstrating intrinsic quality. Against this ...
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Signal evolution theory addresses honesty, manipulation, mind-reading, and shared versus conflicting interests. Animal signals are investments demonstrating intrinsic quality. Against this theoretical background, language is an anomaly. In language, the ratio of efficacy costs to strategic costs is reversed, the latter reducing effectively to zero. To explain this we need to consider the evolutionary strategies and social conditions that led evolving humans to immerse themselves in mutual mind-reading of each other’s virtual worlds. As our recent ancestors increased in Machiavellian intelligence, they became better at tactical deception, hence manipulation of ‘fictions’. At the same time, they spent more of their lives at play. The cooperative eye, deep social mind and cooperative breeding hypotheses concur that this happened against a background of increasing egalitarianism — most crucially reproductive egalitarianism. Since they bore the costs of selection for large Machiavellian brains, our female ancestors came under pressure to mobilize symbolic strategies.Less
Signal evolution theory addresses honesty, manipulation, mind-reading, and shared versus conflicting interests. Animal signals are investments demonstrating intrinsic quality. Against this theoretical background, language is an anomaly. In language, the ratio of efficacy costs to strategic costs is reversed, the latter reducing effectively to zero. To explain this we need to consider the evolutionary strategies and social conditions that led evolving humans to immerse themselves in mutual mind-reading of each other’s virtual worlds. As our recent ancestors increased in Machiavellian intelligence, they became better at tactical deception, hence manipulation of ‘fictions’. At the same time, they spent more of their lives at play. The cooperative eye, deep social mind and cooperative breeding hypotheses concur that this happened against a background of increasing egalitarianism — most crucially reproductive egalitarianism. Since they bore the costs of selection for large Machiavellian brains, our female ancestors came under pressure to mobilize symbolic strategies.
