I am from New Zealand and, for the longest time, I wondered why does New Zealand have this weird thing where anybody trying to stand out, do well, and have their own back,  gets cut down to size, usually by the people closest to them, the people who should be supporting them?

This is not unique to New Zealand.

My theory is that what we're seeing is a type of herd behaviour. If you zoom out and you look at the human race as just being a herd of animals, a herd of mammals, you will notice that the outliers—people who stand out from the rest—are like those points on the graph that don't line up with the median line.

They're a risk to the herd.

They're the ones who create a risk of a coup—these are the ones who could take over leadership.

They're the ones who challenge what is and represent a risk to the status quo—they might set a new trend and change things.

They represent a risk—just in that they're different.

All the cognitive biases that lead to stereotyping and racism are at play here as well: people have the same reaction to somebody who's different. We just think “Threat!”, straight away.

To dive deeper into this topic, check out the original video here:

https://youtu.be/v8xDJ2Cj7YA

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