Why are people hoarding toilet paper? | Hans Hacker | TEDxUAMonticello

In the midst of the COVID-19/coronavirus pandemic, many grocery shelves are empty because of mass hoarding and panic buying. In this enlightening talk, political scientist Dr. Hacker explains that the problem is not incivility, but our social perspective. In this crisis, "winner take all" means taking all the toilet paper and supplies and leaving none for your neighbor. Framing the problem as types of games, he advocates abandoning the zero-sum mentality and adopting a collective attitude.

Dr. Hans J. Hacker is associate professor in the Department of Political Science at Arkansas State University where he teaches constitutional law and civil rights jurisprudence. His research has been the basis for two columns in the New York Times and a segment on CNN Newsroom with Poppy Harlow. His publications include Seasonal Effective Disorder: Clerk Training and the Success of Supreme Court certiorari Petitions (with William D. Blake and Shon R. Hopwood, Law & Society Review,2015), The Brooding Spirit of the Law (with William D. Blake, Justice Systems Journal, 2010), The Culture of Conservative Christian Litigation (Roman and Littlefield, 2005), and various articles and publications in the areas of constitutional law, law and society and public administration. Dr. Hacker’s current research focuses on innovative teaching techniques in undergraduate public law curricula, and the contrasting values of American Pragmatism and modern rights doctrines.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

Why are people hoarding
toilet paper and hand sanitizer?

Why?

Why?

It's like we've decided
we're going to play a game

called "win the pandemic"

and beat our neighbors
at what's become a very disturbing game.

Why?

Why are we doing this?

Actually, that question
deserves an answer;

it's not merely rhetorical.

And today I want to address what it is

that motivates people
to take shelves that look like this -

perfectly fine shelves -

and turn them into shelves
that look like this.

Some people might say
we don't like each other -

that's the reason why
we're hoarding goods.

We don't like each other so much,
we are so uncivil,

and we are so antagonistic
toward our neighbors

that we are willing to trample them

on the way to clearing off
shelves of toilet paper!

In fact, a lot of people
attribute the problems,

many problems in society,

including our response to the coronavirus,

to incivility, particularly in politics.

Name-calling, conspiracy theories,
demonizing the opposition -

you name it,

we've got it.

In an election year
which is already pretty nasty,

and it's going to get worse,

today, I want to suggest

that the problem in our society
and politics is not incivility.

Today, I'd like to make two points.

First, the problem is disconnection.

We are disconnected from each other,

our neighbors,

our communities,

and government.

And secondly, we can understand
this problem a little bit better

by analogizing it to the rules of a game.

Now, why is disconnection
the answer to the problem

rather than incivility?

It's because while uncivil people
can be mean and rude,

disconnected people behave selfishly.

Think about it like this:

It's Thanksgiving.

After your family
has driven each other nuts,

several arguments have broken out,

and your significant other
is no longer speaking to you,

it's time for dessert.

What prevents you

from taking the large
piece of pie on the right

and leaving that small sliver
for your family and your friends?

It's the connection.

You're a member of a group.

What kind of a sociopath
takes all of the pie for himself,

leaving only the scraps
for his family and his friends?

The different ways in which we respond
to pumpkin pie and toilet paper

illustrate a much-documented problem
in American society and politics.

It goes something like this:

The problems that we experience

are the result
of an increase in incivility,

nastiness,

causticness,

and aggression.

But here's the problem
with that explanation.

American society has always been uncivil.

In fact, when this guy,

Alexis de Tocqueville,

visited the United States in 1831,

he found a people practicing
what he called a "vibrant democracy."

Now, this is our idealized vision
of what that vibrant democracy looks like.

But that's not what de Tocqueville found.

He found a people practicing a politics

that was nasty, vitriolic, and malicious.

It was so nasty

that even George Washington
was not insulated from abuse.

By the way, you may remember
from the play "Hamilton"

that these are the words

that got Charles Lee
shot by John Lawrence in a duel.

Politics then looked very much
like politics now.

Saying our politics is uncivil
doesn't really explain what's different.

So what is different?

What has changed?

In the 1800s,

when Americans got done
abusing and maligning each other,

they went to church together,

they played baseball together,

they ate dinner together

without much thought
to political differences,

and their children married each other.

People connected their interests
with the interests of the whole,

and those interests surmounted
any political differences.

De Tocqueville called this "civic virtue."

So what's different today?

Unlike in 1831, Americans today
feel disconnected from each other,

from their communities,

and from their government.

We have,

to put it in de Tocqueville's terms,

much less civic virtue.

The documented process looks like this:

As affluence grows and people acquire
much more money and resources,

they become individualistic
and self-involved.

And self-involved people
become disassociated.

They become so disassociated

because they cannot stand to be around
people who think differently than they do.

Generally, people have two responses
to this kind of society.

The first response is to sort yourself

into tribes of like-minded other,

to associate only with people
who think like you do.

The problem with that is we end up
having a conversation with ourselves.

We end up having
very limited relationships

that don't challenge,

they don't expand the mind,

they don't create
the potential for new ideas.

The other response -

well, and also, it may result
in fury directed at out-group,

at people who don't think like you do.

The other response is a little different.

Many people didn't sort
themselves into tribes.

They went home,
and they turned on Netflix

Study after study correlates
increased wealth and affluence

in Western democracies

with a range of pathologies
like social disconnectedness,

loneliness,

declining civic participation,

and a lack of trust in government.

Disconnectedness and social isolation

correspond with decline
in empathy for others,

a rise in emotional dysregulation,

decline in attachment to government.

It includes anxiety, narcissism,

and a range of
psychopathologies and neuroses.

I want to offer
a different way of thinking

that might help us break out
of the social isolation

and the silos of similar opinion
into which we have warehoused our brains.

Let us think for a moment
of society as a game.

Think of your connections to society -

to your friends, your family,
your neighbors, and community,

and government -

as a game.

What are the rules of this game?

There are two things to know:

First of all, there are generally
two types of game.

Secondly, you may be thinking
you're playing one game,

but you're actually playing another.

You can be wrong
about what game you are playing.

So what are these two type of games?

Well, the first is called
a collective game.

A collective game is one
in which you play as a group:

you cannot win unless the group wins.

An example of this is Dungeons & Dragons
or World of Warcraft.

The other type of game is called
a zero-sum or one-winner game.

This is a game in which you win
and you can only win

if everyone else loses.

An example of this
type of game is Monopoly

[Monopoly]

There are also in-between games,
I will admit to that.

There are in-between games.

There are games where
somebody is going to win,

but nobody really cares who does;

it's the group experience, the connection
with others that matters the most.

And an example of an in-between game
would be Cards against Humanity.

So what game are you playing?

The civic-minded people in society
are playing Dungeons & Dragons.

They are connected with others.

They have connected their goals
with the goals of a group.

The disassociated tribe?
They're playing Monopoly.

They have to win,

and they cannot win
unless everyone else loses.

The socially isolated
have stopped playing altogether.

I'll freely admit that no game is perfect,

and every single game has its problem.

Just because you're playing a collective
game doesn't mean that you win.

There are some games,
collective games in particular,

where to win, you can't just simply focus
on the goal that the group must achieve,

you have to convince
members within the group

not to exploit common resources

and take advantage of other members
by acting badly or selfishly.

Here's an example of that.
Does anybody remember Leeroy Jenkins?

If you haven't heard of this,
go look at it on YouTube.

A group of people playing
World of Warcraft

are attempting to go through
a set of doors.

They know on the other side
of those doors there are monsters.

They are attempting to
coordinate their activities

when one of their members
decides to go rogue,

yells his name out and goes
through the doors and into the room.

The rest of the group
doesn't know what to do.

They follow him in and everyone dies.

Everyone loses.

Now, that was a setup,
as we know now, it was a setup,

but it's a very good illustration

of what happens when a member
of a group behaves badly.

Society is a collective game
by definition,

if you are a member of a society,
you are playing a collective game,

but for some reason, we often
mistake that game for a zero-sum game.

For example, that moment when you realize
you weren't playing a zero-sum game.

This individual recounted on Facebook

an instance in which he, an interviewer,
was standing on a subway,

and a man brushed by him
and then told him to go F himself.

A little later that man
showed up for his interview

with the man he had just
cussed out on the subway.

It got a little tense when he asked him
how his commute was.

This individual thought
he was playing a zero-sum game,

but he was actually
playing a collective game,

where he needed a job, and the interviewer
needed to hire someone,

and everyone lost because he mistook
which game he was playing.

Now, the problem
with zero-sum games is this:

It's hard to identify the bad actor.

It's hard to identify the bad actor.

For example, these three people
represent a society,

but it's one in which a powerful actor
who controls most of the resources

has convinced the other two members
that they need to play a zero-sum game

for control of the scarce resources
that remain to them.

The same situation exists here.

These two individuals
are traveling on an airline.

A woman documented this on Instagram.

She leaned her seat back

into the private space
of the individual sitting behind her,

and the man sitting behind her
proceeded to punch the back of her chair

throughout the rest of her flight.

Now, who is the bad actor here?
Who's the bad actor?

Is it the man punching the seat

or is it the woman
who has leaned her chair back

into the personal space of an individual
so that she can travel comfortably?

It's neither. It's the airline.

But unfortunately these two individuals

are so interested in pointing the finger
at each other and assigning blame

that they've missed who the bad actor is.

On the other hand, think about this:
The NBA season is cancelled.

March Madness is cancelled.
TED has been moved to July.

And I am speaking to a room
full of empty chairs.

These were decisions made by people
who had millions of dollars to lose,

and they decided that
they were playing a collective game.

If they had played the zero-sum
game and held the NBA season,

and held March Madness,

there would have been a severe
price to pay for the collective.

They would have made their millions,
but the collective would have lost.

So, they are the good actors.

They made those decisions as good actors
for the benefit of the collective.

So what is the upshot of all this?

Well, first of all society stands
a better chance of surviving

if all of the members of that society

believe that they are playing
a collective game.

They can focus on achieving
the goals of the group

while controlling the behavior
of the members

and identifying who is the bad actor.

On the other hand,

the society where individuals think
they're playing a zero-sum game

is less likely to survive

because the individuals are so interested
in competing with the other

that they miss who the bad actor is
who is exploiting them.

So, stop worrying about incivility

and start worrying about connection.

Start playing the collective game
and stop playing the zero-sum game.

If you play the collective game,
and we all play it together,

we can say with a great deal
of credibility to the bad actors:

You may be exploiting your position
for your personal gain,

but we are coming for you.

Thank you for your time.