If you’re talking about literal parades—I lead them annually at a smallish renaissance fair. Turns out that people with the combination of willingness to run around in front of a group looking silly, and enough time anxiety to actually show up to the morning ones, are in short supply.
That parade goes where I put it. There are several possible paths through the faire and I choose which one the group takes, and make the appropriate exaggerated gestures to steer the front of the crowd in that direction, and then the rest follow.
I also play a conspicuous looking instrument in the parade at a small annual local event that we convene a “band” for, as well. Since the instrument is large and obvious, I’m typically shoved to the front of the group as we line up. I’m pretty sure that if I went off script and took the parade out of the gathering’s area, they’d probably follow me, because nobody else is quite sure where we’re supposed to be going. If I conspired with the other musicians to take the group out of the event, we could almost certainly make that happen. I’m curious how far down the road we could get the dancers following the parade before they realize something is amiss, but also really don’t want to be the individual to instigate that sort of experiment.
Back in high school, I did marching band, I think if our leader had been misinformed about where we should go, we would have followed them anyway. That’s mostly because marching band has an almost paramilitary obedience theme going on, and can get a bit culty about directors or leaders in my experience. Marching as a group also confers a certain immunity to individual responsibility as long as you’re following your orders. There’s this confidence that if the leader takes the group off course, that leader will be the only individual who’s personally in trouble for the error. The group might get yelled at collectively for having followed, but no one person in the group is any more responsible for the error than any other, except for the leader.
From these experiences, I’d speculate that the reason we don’t see literal parades being counterfactually led off course like that on a regular basis is because the dynamic of leading it disincentivizes abusing that power. Being chosen and trusted by a group to lead them in a public setting where any errors you make will be instantly obvious to all onlookers confers a powerful desire to not mess up.
If you’re talking about literal parades—I lead them annually at a smallish renaissance fair. Turns out that people with the combination of willingness to run around in front of a group looking silly, and enough time anxiety to actually show up to the morning ones, are in short supply.
That parade goes where I put it. There are several possible paths through the faire and I choose which one the group takes, and make the appropriate exaggerated gestures to steer the front of the crowd in that direction, and then the rest follow.
I also play a conspicuous looking instrument in the parade at a small annual local event that we convene a “band” for, as well. Since the instrument is large and obvious, I’m typically shoved to the front of the group as we line up. I’m pretty sure that if I went off script and took the parade out of the gathering’s area, they’d probably follow me, because nobody else is quite sure where we’re supposed to be going. If I conspired with the other musicians to take the group out of the event, we could almost certainly make that happen. I’m curious how far down the road we could get the dancers following the parade before they realize something is amiss, but also really don’t want to be the individual to instigate that sort of experiment.
Back in high school, I did marching band, I think if our leader had been misinformed about where we should go, we would have followed them anyway. That’s mostly because marching band has an almost paramilitary obedience theme going on, and can get a bit culty about directors or leaders in my experience. Marching as a group also confers a certain immunity to individual responsibility as long as you’re following your orders. There’s this confidence that if the leader takes the group off course, that leader will be the only individual who’s personally in trouble for the error. The group might get yelled at collectively for having followed, but no one person in the group is any more responsible for the error than any other, except for the leader.
From these experiences, I’d speculate that the reason we don’t see literal parades being counterfactually led off course like that on a regular basis is because the dynamic of leading it disincentivizes abusing that power. Being chosen and trusted by a group to lead them in a public setting where any errors you make will be instantly obvious to all onlookers confers a powerful desire to not mess up.
perhaps “front of a wave” or something then