An idea that has interested me massively of late is that of collective consciousness, call it what you will; hive mind, groupthink, all such ideas. I must admit that I first stumbled upon it in the form of the overmind that controls the Tyranid race of Warhammer 40,000 - a less than intellectual setting, I know (unless nerdy stuff is intellectual, I don't know?) - but nonetheless such a concept intrigued me. And just because the idea was attributed to a race of slavering predator-parasites hellbent on devouring all life for their own growth does not make it any less true, necessarily.

In the end, all art made by humans is about humans in some way. Of course it is. How could it not be? We are humans. The thing we love most to talk about, write about, draw about - just communicate with other humans about, in whatever form - is ourselves. After all, what else have we to talk about if not us?

That's why WH40K's stated mission in creating the Tyranids (to create a race entirely inhuman in that there are no individual organisms, all of them identical in that they are controlled by the collective consciousness) was doomed from the outset. Of course it was. (That's a favourite sentence of mine.) Anyone who is at all familiar with the Tyranid race (wait a minute - let me get my nerd-anorak) will know that there are certain individual organisms distinguished from the rest of them, if only for the purpose of leading the rest. We are such that we cannot possibly imagine what a completely inhuman society is, especially if it's devoid of things like individuality and hierarchy: two concepts that are CRUCIAL to the human mindset.

Now, whatever the anarchists say, it is an inevitable outcome of any group of people banding together that one or more of them will be dominant in respect to the others. This will mean that those people then have the power (if not necessarily the right) to lord it over the others. This is when revolutions happen. However, the odd thing about revolutions is that they have a double meaning - 1. an uprising against the establishment, or 2. going around and around in circles. I'm afraid I must side with the latter definition, for the simple reason that REVOLUTIONS EAT THEIR OWN CHILDREN. They do. The capital letters are entirely justified in this case to explicitly show the violence involved, and why do I have to explain myself to you anyway?

Seriously though: think of any (and I do mean any) revolution in history. Take a look at it. What happened? Here's a general overview of what I think happened:

1. There are three classes: the ruling class at the top, the working class proles slaving away at the bottom, and the middle class sitting comfortably between them - but with no real power, just enough wealth to be comfortably off and have the time to think and the liberty of learning things.

2. The ruling class are of course having a whale of a time lording it over everyone else. The proles are too busy worrying about where their next meal is coming from to actually do anything (sorry, but whatever romantic ideals you may have about the masses spontaneously revolting are just that). The middle class see what the upper class have and think, 'Hm, that stuff looks very shiny. I'd like it for myself.'

3. The middle class become increasingly more jealous of the upper classes, but can't do anything because they can't raise an army to stage a coup. Then one day, one of the middle class looks out of the window and sees the proles sweating in the fields. A lightbulb over his head goes DING!

4. You don't have to be a rocket scientist, or even have two neurons to connect, to guess what happens next. The middle class band together and roam the countryside spreading dissent amongst the proles, telling them to rise up against the fatcat oppressors, when of course the true translation of what they're saying is 'Go and get killed for us! Go on - it'll make us really wealthy and you'll all die in the attempt, but that doesn't matter because it'll be for freedom and justice and all that jazz!' (Note: 'jazz' used to be a euphemism for having sex. As did 'rock and roll'. Really. No lie. Check it out yourself.)

5. The proles, inspired by speeches about equality and liberty and fraternity and blah, yaddah schmackety finally get their act together and despose the ruling class by their own rule - that is, that of the mob - while the middle classes who incited the riot are sitting in their comfortable houses some miles behind the front lines.

6. The ruling classes all have their heads chopped off, or something similarly gruesome, and the middle class who 'led' the revolt say, wow, you sure did a great job all you proles, now why don't you go back to working in the fields and let us get on with dividing up all the money?

7. Some of the working classes manage to struggle their way up to becoming middle class by dint of (surprise, surprise) hard work, and once again the triple-class system that breeds such ripe revolution is readily set up for the whole sordid process to begin again.

So you see what happens. Everything goes around and around, but in the end the working class, for whom revolutions are meant to be such shiny and attractive prospects, end up going nowhere, and often being killed in huge numbers for their trouble. Revolutions aren't glorious; they aren't an example of the people rising up against the establishment in a manifestation of democracy in action. They're just another example of people allowing themselves to be led.

And this comes back to the point I started with. We need leaders. We humans have a deeply-rooted psychological need to stick someone up on a pedastal and do what they tell us, mostly because we're too lazy or stupid to work things out for ourselves. I'd like to say I'm not arrogant, but I'm very much afraid I am. A lot of people simply do not think - those horrid publications (I refuse point-blanc to dignify them with the name 'newspapers') like the Daily Mail and Express and The Sun and so on are testament to this, not to mention the mountains of glossy celebrity-obsessed mags that clutter the stalls. Seriously, have you seen how mind-numbingly stupid they are (count yourself lucky if you haven't)? I feel myself losing IQ points if I just stand close to them for too long.

So that's why there's always gonna be a thing like the hive mind, because no matter how often we like to pretend that we're all individuals with free thoughts of our own, that is in fact complete bull. The mere fact that one is part of a society means that you somehow buy in to the collective consciousness - even if you reject it utterly and completely, you are still part of it. I fully acknowledge that by writing this I am simply one unit in the hive contributing to the revolution against its overarching control - although of course it'll probably get me nowhere.

Now, if only I could find some proles to do the dirty work for me...