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Crowd as the Social Environment

Publication Date:199203
Book title: MEDIA, CULTURE, AND EDUCATION IN JAPAN [A COLLECTION OF PAPERS]
Publisher : National Institute of Multimedia Education


1. Space and Organism

Every human being is part of the environment of others. For instance, when a person speaks to another person, it may be said that the latter is a part of environment surrounding the former, and visa versa. Indeed, other human beings are one of the most important components of the environment as perceived by the individual, though we are apt to eliminate creatures belonging to the same species from our ordinary concept of "environments". The vital importance of "others" as part of our environment has been stressed and illustrated by the research findings scholars who have observed the behavior of animals.

To begin with, let us examine the works of "proxemics", or the study of distance between organisms developed by Robert Hall. He points out, for instance, that the birds keep a certain physical distance when they rest on an electric cable and that this distance is surprisingly regular. The implication is that each bird has an invisible territorial boundary around itself. It is a kind of spacial overcoat which an individual bird wears. This kind of overcoat is appears to the part of the inherent make-up of each individual organism. Robert Sommer, an American sociologist calls such spacial overcoat as "portable space" meaning that each organism carries his own space wherever he goes.

Human beings are no exception. Each individual person has an invisible "personal space" around himself, and either consciously or unconsciously, he tries to maintain that space. The desired physical distance between individual persons differ very much depending on culture. For instance, in Japan approximately 90 centimeters would be the appropriate and comfortable physical distance, though in many Latin countries the distance usually is shorter than that. But the point is that, in spite of such cultural differences, people implicitly recognize and respect individual personal space.

One sociological observer found that, in parks and other public places, people use benches from the end. That is, when a person sits on an unoccupied bench, he does not sit in the center. Indeed, he takes his seat from the end, and very often, as soon as he sits, he puts something belonging to himself, such as overcoat, hat, briefcase, and etc., beside him. The presence of such personal belongings makes it difficult for another person to sit beside the first person. In other words, for an individual, to put something next to himself, is an action declaring that he occupied that space, or that the space belongs to him. The second user of same bench, consequently sits on the other end, again putting something toward the center of the bench. There is of course another potential sitting space for a third user, in the center, but very few people dare to sit in the center, because they see invisible spacial pressure from both sides. Most people would prefer to be standing than to sit in the center.

Dr. Hediger, a famous zoologist of Switzerland, after years of investigation, found that even among beasts in zoos and circuses each has its own personal space, and that to find the boundaries of such space is the fundamental technique in taming and training the animals. Thus, for example, if a parson steps inside the space of a lion, all of a sudden, the lion turns out to be extremely aggressive to the human.

In a word, every animal has an instinctive tendency to maintain its individual "portable space". Any invader of that space will be attacked or avoided. Invasion of personal space makes the situation critical and tense. As a matter of fact, when individual organisms fail to keep their "portable space", because of the psychological stress, the group of the species are reported to show considerably high mortality rate. Needless to say, the basic factor determining the population of a group living organisms is the amount of food supply. But even in a situation where food is abundant, compression of space can be fatal for the lives of animals. Some years ago, large number of deer died in an island in the midst of Atlantic Ocean. Food was plenty, and seemingly, the deer were in good physical condition. There was no symptom of disease. However, doctors found that the deer had trouble with the suprarental, and that was the cause of the death. Apparently, they died as the result of stress due to high density of population and the consequent compression of space.

Experiments with mice reported by Calhoun in his brilliant essay "population density and social pathology" provide another example to demonstrate the effects of space upon living organisms. According to Calhoun's observations, where a group of mice lived together in a limited space with abundant food, for obvious reasons, their population density increased. But, as thus density increased, the observer found several pathological symptoms among the animals. First, their, fertility rate decreased while the mortality rate of new-born babies dramatically increased. Second, where babies were born healthy, the mothers would be quite apathetic and indifferent in baby care. Finally, interaction between the animals became low and infrequent. In fact, the mice tended not to move. Calhoun called such apathetic behavior "cocooning". In short, with the increase of population density, the "society" of mice became "pathological".

In closed limited space, human beings also show "cocooning" symptoms. Altman and Haythorn studied what happens when a small group of live together in an experimental closed space. American salors volunteered for this experiment and were divided into pairs. Each pair was asked to live in a room of approximately 9 square meters. The basic accommodations of the room consisted of two bunks, a table, two chairs, and washing and toilet facilities. For recreational purposes, they were provided with a deck of cards and a game chess. Each pair was also assigned two hours of light work in the room in the morning, three hours in the afternoon, and an hour in the evening. Their food was delivered to them. The sailors inside the room were permitted to do whatever they liked, but they were not given any opportunity to go out of the room. No communication with the outside, such as mail or telephone, was allowed.

After ten days, many interesting developments were observed in this experimental isolated group. In the first place, it was found that individual space was clearly established. For example, each individual implicitly declared the ownership of certain furniture, i.e., a particular bed, chair and sitting place were "owned" by each individual. Once such ownership of space was established, the roommate never invaded that ownership. In short, two people in the room divided the space and set up individual behavioral territory. This kind of territorial division of room space was not so apparent in the control groups.

In the second place, the activities of persons in the closed room were found to decline. For the first few days in the experimental room, the pairs had tried to live a "communal life" and had spent much time playing cards, chess, and in conversation. But after a week or so, they paid little attention to such sociability and partnership. Instead, the pairs spent more time in solitary, that is, during their free time, they just laid on the bed, either to sleep or to read a book. In control groups, the activity rate continued to be high.

The sailors' behavior in the closed space showed the symptoms of "cocooning" or mutual apathy. Indeed it seems that there are only slight differences between the experimental mice and experimental human beings.

Generally speaking, the more that personal space is compressed, the more individual organisms tend to be protective of their space, and further, after securing the minimum personal space, the individual becomes apathetic with others. Especially, when "public space" is scarce, an individual tends to shut off most of his contacts with others. Concern over housing is a universal trend among people in big cities all over the world today, but among other factors, it seems that the desire to secure a minimum personal space and to be safe from spacial invasion is the basic reason for this "my home-ism". In the densely populated city life, people need their own individual space. Indeed, when the cities were less dense, people did not have so much interest in their own homes, in spite of the fact that their housing facilities were much poorer. They had more elbow room in the city. Looking at it this way, it may be said that the housing in contemporary society has an ethological1 aspect, other than social welfare and quality of life. Or, the quality of life may be determined by ethological design for living.


2. Man in the Crowd

Indeed, it is safe to say that human "cocooning" on mass scale is taking place in our urban life. In contrast to the people in rural communities where people greet each other on the street, we do not pay any attention to the person in busy and dense urban setting. Of course it is true that in villages people still have traditional communal tied, but it seems that where population density is low, people are interested in other people. In densely populated cities, on the other hand, we do not, and cannot be interested in other people. Since each individual cannot secure even the minimum space for himself, and since mutual invasion of personal space is a common practice among city dwellers, the only result on the part of the individual will be a severe and dreadful stress, if he is interested in other people as "persons". The best and the only way to get out of such stress is to perceive a person not as a parson but as a "thing". It is a intolerable experience for a man to recognize a parson at the distance of 30 centimeters for a long time. But he can tolerate the existence of an object, such as stone, at the same distance. Things are all right, but not human beings. So we try to "materialize" living human beings around us.

A journalist reported, after studying the behavior of passengers in a crowded commuter train, that without exception, the passengers engage in their "private" behavior, e.g., reading a pocket book, dozing, or gazing outside to the train window. When a passenger cannot even look outside, his eye line drops down, or he at least try not to cross his eye line of vision line with others. To the individual, others should be "things". It is not necessary for one to have human interest towards tones. Rural people, when they come to big cities, are said to be "intoxicated" by people because they apt to become involved with other people psychologically. Urban dwellers are skillful in perceiving the innumerable numbers of human beings surrounding themselves as just a huge accumulation of meaningless "things", such as junk yard.

To add an interesting psychological sidenote, it is said that people appreciates the portrait picture of a person who closed his eyes at a closer distance than the open-eyed portrait. Eye line is a kind of search-light in human interaction, and very few people dare to come near to the source of the light. When a person closes his eyes, the light is extinguished and consequently it gives relative relief in interaction. To close the eyes and hall asleep, or to pretend to be asleep, and to drop one's eye line down, is the wisdom of human beings in an extremely crowded situation, but this wisdom is a very intricate expression of cocooning.

It is obvious that the overcrowded commuter train provides a pathological environment to its passengers. There is no space which an individual passenger can "occupy", and he is tortured physically. The research of labor scientists has demonstrated that an hour's ride on Japanese commuter train is a real physical strain. A commuter is exhausted, and according to reports, it has been found that it takes about an hour and half to recover from the fatigue and strain which was experienced in the train. (in other words, a worker can begin to work well only an hour and half or so after his arrival to his factory). And also the "crowding" which we experience in the commuter train is, ethologically speaking, a matter of life and death.

Biderman and others wrote an interesting study under the title of "Historical incidents of extreme overcrowding" and some of the incidents introduced in this report are simply striking. For example, there are descriptions of overcrowding in passenger ships which carried immigrants from Europe to the United States in 18th to 19th century. these boats took approximately 6 to 8 weeks to cross the Atlantic. The American government gave instructions to the ship companies that each immigrant passenger should have desk space of 14 square feet, and that the number of passengers should be determined on the basis of tonnage of the boat (a passenger per each five tons). But in most of cases, the carriers disregarded the regulation. As one may imagine, 14 square feet is not ample space for an individual person, and in actuality, the personal space on immigrants' boat was much more compressed than that. To spend several weeks in such crowded space should have been a incredible experience.

The size of cabins of those boats was 30 square meters, and the height of the ceiling was 2 meters. It is surprising to know that more than 30 passengers were asked to share a simple room. Many immigrants wrote their lives on board sa a terrifying experience and said that they almost suffocated.

Sanitation was also extremely poor, and the average, it is recorded that 10% of the total passengers died during the voyage, because of stress and illness. It was after the middle of 19th century that the death rate of passengers declined to less than 1%, as the result of higher speed achieved by steam engine and through better ventilation.

Horrible accidents due to high population density took place very on the ship. A good example was the "Londonderry" incident of 1848. The immigrant ship "Londonderry" left Ireland to the U.S. by way of Liverpool, and in the midst of the Atlantic, she was hit by heavy storm. The passengers were taken to a small cabin, and instructed to stay inside. Believe it or not, 150 passengers were put inside a cabin of 12 square meters, and the height of the ceiling was 1.8 meters. The door to the deck was left open, but as the storm grew heavier, the crew closed the door and nailed it from outside as the sea had become extremely rough. The 150 people crowded together in this high density space found themselves in complete darkness. They screamed out of physical pain and suffocation, but their voices were not heard by the crew. One passenger finally succeeded in escaping from the cabin, and reported to the crew members. The door was taken out, but as soon as a crew member stepped inside, his candle lamp was extinguished by the carbon dioxide filled in the room. After complete ventilation the crew entered and found that 72 persons were already dead, and their body formed 4 layers on the floor. In short, little less than 50% of the passengers died in the room to suffocation.

The slave ships of 18th century were much worse in population density. According to the regulations, each ship was allowed to carry 5 slaves for each 3 tons of its weight. The physical density of the slave ship was, by simple calculation, eight times higher than that of immigrant boat. To illustrate, it was recorded that in a typical slave ship, approximately 600 slaves were confined in a room, the size of which was a mere 150 square meters. In this high-density space, a person could not even stir around. As a result, the mortality rate of slave ships was 25% in early 19th century. One out of four slaves died in route to America.


3. Planning the Personal Space

According to studies of human ethology, it has been estimated that an average adult human male has the bulk of some 2.5 cubic feet, and the comfort of human body is very closely related to the space which the body can occupy around itself. The first class sleeper in major railroads provides 120 cubic feet, and an individual cell in a jail has 300 cubic feet. It cannot be said that either the sleeper or cell occupant is comfortable in its space, but these are the standards of "minimum" space which the human organism requires for survival. We need, in other words, 50 to 100 times of the size of our body as our minimum personal space.

It has been estimated that in the slum of London in the 19th century, one person had only 72 cubic feet. On a pilgrim ship to Mecca in the 19th century, one passenger was given 42 cubic feet. These figures awe quite below the required minimum personal space, but the slum inhabitants might be thankful if they knew that slaves on their way to America were given only 6 cubic feet per person and that the death room of "Londonderry" had only 9 cubic feet per person.

These historical incidents of human misery in relation with space and density are extremely impressive, but we cannot say that we, in the middle of 20 century, are in better position. The space per person in the New York subway, for instance, at the maximum capacity specified by law, is 20 cubic feet. Quite better than "Londonderry", but as we know from our experience, subways in the rush hours do not necessarily reflect the law. In Tokyo, very often, a passenger will ride in 5 cubic feet or less on the commuter trains. Very recently, a slight suffocation accident due to the short supply of oxygen took place in a Tokyo subway.

Needless to say, ventilation and sanitary care in commuter trains are much better than those of slave ships in 19th century. Moreover, in contrast to several weeks continuous voyage of the slave ships, a white collar commuter of contemporary urban offices shows that the total of hours spend in commuter train is much more than an average slave spent a hundred years ago. Let us assume that a commuter spends an hour on a jam-packed subway everyworking day for a period of 30 years. It means that he spends over 7000 hours on the train. On the other hand, a slave ship took about 1000 hours to cross the Atlantic. A commuter in Tokyo or New York will spend seven times more hours in extreme crowding over his life time than a slave of 19th century! Commuters are not aware of this fact because total hours they must spend are diffused into everyday. But in reality, we may be in a worse situation. As a matter of fact, if a black-out takes place in Tokyo, for instance, it is quite perceivable that an accident similar to the "Londonderry" incident would happen on mass scale through the whole subway system.

Furthermore, we see clearly, as mentioned before, that social cocooning is almost common practice among city dwellers all over the world. We do not care much about others. A sociologist would say that the transition from Gemeinschaft to Gesselschaft made the interpersonal relationship in big cities impersonal. But the Gesselschaft we are living in now is that of densely populated one. Each of us dose not have enough space. Indeed, according to recent statistics, in Tokyo, the largest city in the world, some 30% of the total households are living in apartments whose size is less than 10 square meters. How can a person enjoy his personal relaxation in this small space? And, without minimum personal space, how can a person be interested in others.

Here we encounter a grave irony and paradox in contemporary urban life. We see many people on the streets. They are just people in cities. They are, of course, human beings belonging to the same species. But we have already "materialized" others in order to avoid the stress of density, and to the materialized others, we cannot pay attention. They are "things". In the midst of huge accumulation of "things", we are frustrated because we want to live with other "people". Well, "people" are there, a plenty of them, but they are nit "people". We very often complaints that the individuals in a big cities is lonely and dose not have friends who can talk to in spite of the fact that there are so many people in the cities. On the one hand, there are plenty of people, on the other there are none. There is a huge aggregate of alienated persons, without any communal interaction.

The world population grows dense, and we are having more difficulties in getting our personal space. Needless to say, we must deal with the complicated social system for better social planning, but at the same time, it is my opinion that the planning of space in its strict sense is one of the most needed areas of careful investigation. When a person is accustomed to pathological social conditions, he can no longer see what is pathological for him. In an age of mass cocooning, to imagine a non-cocooning society is an extremely difficult task.



Notes
  1. Ethology is a discipline for the study of animal behavior in social setting.

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