Join the club

Man is a social being. In the book of Tina Rosenberg "Join the club" is examined the idea that human behavior is defined by the relationships with the other. In this book is deeply explored the impact that the others have in our behavior. In fact, a finding of this book is that peer pressure can lead to acts of great courage or great harm. The authors believes that in fact peer pressure is a secret to transform the world. Using the term of "social cure" she examines how many social problems can be solved. In fact, in the book we may find many interesting illustrations, examples, from different cultures such as the democratic revolution in Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine, the H.I.V- racked commmunities of South Africa, and some religious examples. This way she gives place to the idea how much society affect our feelings, our way of behaving and how we perceive world. And, the novelty in this book is that peer pressure is used to make the positive change, such in the case of stop smoking.

Living in the age of technology, urbanization, people have lots of tools but less of time, to dedicate to each other. The technological inventions , that are supposed to link persons more in fact isolate them even more. The virtual communication is much more spread than the real one, but this contradits the social nature of a human being. And, in this book is emphasised the fact that we still need the peer approval. And, our ideas what constitutes good and bad remain defined by the behviour of those around us. Our peer relations are dominated by the search os status, identitfy and acceptance of others. And, according to Rosenberg, this can be a mean to "reimagine social world".

I believe that in this age of technology development, this book expresses the need of human feelings and interaction. I guess that the changes in every society are made by collaboration and contribution, so people need each other to improve. A core value of many peer programs is volunteerism, and this is hardly found in these days of consumerism and materialsm.

Anyway, the nature of human being is social and every human being needs the others to construct life and to manage its improvment. The opposite has nosense. This book suggests that this force is so strong that can manage to change the world, but normally this needs a strong leadership.