What about the “fight or flight” principle as the basis for rapid change? You build on top of that the higher consideration of “If you can’t beat them, join them” and you have an explanation of why the patina of individuality and “freedom of choice” only loosely connects to the surface. It doesn’t take many scratches to rapidly change what once looked golden into a big ole’ rust bucket.

Mankind has a hair-trigger switch that lets us change from individuals to groupthinkers. I’ll spare us from rehashing the abominable performance of man at the Saints’ stadium following Katrina or places like Darfur and Somalia. Once the patina cracks, the surface shows itself in all its ugly reality. Face(book) it, most of us are followers and will meekly accept, with amazing expediency, that the status quo is has changed. Like the antilope, the alarm of a few makes the whole herd run, trampling any bastion of individuality.

Evolution has taught us that change is good, but we must have skipped class on patience; you don’t quick-polish patina with sandpaper, unless you like what's underneath.