29 May

One of the greatest human problems, understanding how to balance individual and group. I think music solved it a long time ago, but people don't often go there to answer this one. Melody (individual) and harmony (group). The most common model - homophony - melody and supporting harmonies, is like how most see politics and even business. Leadership (melody) and others supporting the leadership (harmony). But music found a much better model than that too. Polyphony. No longer a separate melody and harmony, but melodies harmonising with each other, in counterpoint. Everything is a melody, harmonising with other melodies. No separate individual and separate group, just individuals harmonising with other individuals, in different ways. It's actually how social media is changing the world, and we use our old homophonic models to try to understand how. We need polyphonic models to understand how it's doing it.