[Leica] Re: Codes of privacy

[telyt at earthlink.net (Douglas Herr)]

Lawrence Zeitlin <lrzeitlin@optonline.net> wrote:

>There is a concept called "cognitive homeostasis" in Environmental 
>Psychology which suggests that people try to optimize their information 
>input and output to stay within a comfort zone. In the high density 
>environments of urban societies people develop behaviors which restrict 
>and control information flow to avoid information overload. The 
>seemingly unsociable behavior of New York, London, and Tokyo exists to 
>permit people to be in close proximity without the necessity of 
>acknowledging the existence of the "other." In an office, on the 
>sidewalk, and in school, a simple nod may be all the greeting that is 
>necessary when passing by casual friends. No acknowledgment is 
>necessary for strangers. In a low density environment, the cognitive 
>homeostasis theory predicts that one will amplify even casual 
>interactions to raise the information flow. I.e., when some asks "How 
>are you feeling?", you tell them at great length. Anyone who has 
>watched two Iowa farmers stop their pickups in the middle of a lonely 
>country road, roll down their windows, and carry on a conversation 
>knows this to be a fact.

A number of years ago my father noted while hiking in the back country ofthe 
Sierra Nevada that the farther we are from civilization the more civilized 
we become.


Doug Herr
Birdman of Sacramento
http://www.wildlightphoto.com