Yup. We’re talking social reward again.

To recap : social reward is what I call all the ways in which we reward one another – or ourselves – that provides an emotional rather than physical reward.

That sounds complicated (sorry) but it really isn’t. It’s something we have all seen and experienced without having a word for it.

An easy example would be doing a favour for an attractive member of our preferred gender and being rewarded with a beautiful smile. Or with a sincere “thank you”.

Or it might be a few words of praise from a respected mentor. Or a big loving hug from a child whose wound you just kissed better. Or a quick kiss of thanks from your mate.

In fact, once you are aware of social reward, you will see that it’s all around us all the time, and is, in fact, the base currency of all social interactions and indeed, society as we know it.

The things we are physically and tangibly rewarded for are few. Everything else works on some form of social reward (or absence of social punishment).

Now I bring this up not to discuss it directly but instead to talk about people tend to react when I bring the subject up.

It tends to make people very uneasy and upset and the consensus seems to be that it makes people feel like someone is getting ripped off or victimized.

That’s flatly illogical, of course. Basic transactional capitalism says that if a reward is sufficient to motivate a behaviour, it must be enough for the person motivated and therefore nobody is being short-changed in any way.

Looked at scientifically, these rewards activate the reward center of the brain just like more traditional rewards.

Heck, Pavlov could have explained it.

And yet, this subject makes people upset in the manner described above. But why?

It must challenge some fundamental tenet of consumer capitalist society that runs so deep we’re not aware of it.

Somehow, the idea of considering something as ephemeral and intangible as a smile or a pat on the shoulder to be a reward sets off serious alarm bells in our heads.

To our very literal and quantitative capitalist minds, the only possible explanation for these alarm bells is that the rewarder must be getting something “for free”, and is therefore somehow taking advantage of the rewardee.

Perhaps it is an issue with zero sum thinking. The smile didn’t cost the person anything, therefore nothing of value could have been exchanged in the transaction.

Neither did the rewardee gain anything tangible. The pleasure and feeling of reward is real but quickly fades, so how can it be something good?

Then again, the same could be said of an orgasm, and people work pretty hard for those. It’s true of any pleasure, really.

There is definitely something about the subject that makes all kinds of craziness come crawling out of the depths of the consumer capitalist zeitgeist.

Now I want to have some kind of round table discussion of it so I can pick other people’s brains on the subject.

More after the break.

It really doesn’t

While we’re talking about one thing that makes the ghouls and goblins of consumer capitalism rise from their graves like Night On Bald Mountain from Fantasia…

..let’s talk about another one, namely whether money can buy happiness or not.

Like I said long ago, there is a fascinating dichotomy between how people react to the idea in abstract and how they react to idea when it is applied to them personally.

Most people would agree that money does not necessarily buy happiness. Sure, that guy who makes ten times what you do might be happier than you.

But ten times happier? Really?

And most people get, at least somewhat, that the important things in life are things like family, friends, the respect of your peers, and so forth – all things money cannot buy.

And science backs this up. The studies all show that above a certain income or asset level, diminishing returns set in and the amount by which a given quantity of extra income or assets with increase individual happiness drops off rapidly.

And this is self-reported happiness. People can lie to make themselves feel prosperous and successful all they want. And it still drops off.

Because there is only so happy anyone can be. Max that out and a billion dollar paycheck won’t change a damned thing.

So far, in the cocktail party in my head, everyone is agreeing with my broad points and feels better about their own relative lack of dough.

Obviously, it is now time to alienate people by asking them if they think more money would make them happy.

Suddenly a switch is flipped and people become doggedly adamant that while money might not make other people happy, it would make them utterly blissful.

It’s as though we are afraid that if we say money won’t buy US happiness, some angel of Providence will hear us and say “Well, I was ABOUT to give you a huge bag of money, but I guess you don’t need it, so…. forget it. ”

This is pure superstition, obviously, and reveals just how social a species we are. We relate to everything as if it’s a person – even the random hand of Fate.

And I am in no way claiming to be immune. I feel the same deep superstitious fear at the idea of saying that I don’t think more money would make me happier that everyboy else does. It is a deep and powerful feeling.

The same thing happens when you introduce the idea of saying you have “enough”. Even very well off people will balk at the idea of declaring they have “enough”.

Again, what are we afraid will happen? And does consumer capitalism keep us in such a state of spiritual starvation that the prospect, however irrational. of not getting “more” fills us with the same fear that cavemen felt during an eclipse?

Money is our one true religion and we are so afraid of offending it that we let its priest class of accountants, bankers, and heaven help us economists run the world.

Oh no, we can’t make the money angry! Here, decide the fate of trillions of dollars based solely on naked self-interest and half-baked economic theories that would get you laughed out of a Philosophy 101 class.

Not that I’m bitter or anything.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.