Stand Alone Complex

From Ghost in the Shell Wiki

A Stand Alone Complex was the term given to a new behavior that erupted in society with the rise of connectivity between people and the net through Cyberbrains.

[edit] Overview

While originally intended to "underscore the dilemmas and concerns that people would face if they relied too heavily on the new communications infrastructure," Stand Alone Complex eventually came to represent a phenomenon where unrelated, yet very similar actions of individuals create a seemingly concerted effort.

A Stand Alone Complex can be compared to the copycat behavior that often occurs after incidents such as serial murders or terrorist attacks. An incident catches the public's attention and certain types of people "get on the bandwagon", so to speak. It is particularly apparent when the incident appears to be the result of well-known political or religious beliefs, but it can also occur in response to intense media attention. For example, a mere fire, no matter the number of deaths, is just a garden variety tragedy. However, if the right kind of people begin to believe it was arson, caused by deliberate action, the threat increases drastically that more arsons will be committed.

What separates the Stand Alone Complex from normal copycat behavior is that the originator of the copied action is not even a real person, but merely a rumored figure that commits said action. Even without instruction or leadership a certain type of person will spring into action to imitate the rumored action and move toward the same goal even if only subconsciously. The result is an epidemic of copied behavior-with no originator. One could say that the Stand Alone Complex is mass hysteria-with purpose.

This is not unlike the concepts of memes (refer to the conversation between the major and the Puppet Master in the manga) and second-order simulacra. It also has ties to social theory, as illustrated in the work of Frederic Jameson and Masachi Osawa.

In the series itself, it usually refers to events surrounding the Laughing Man case, and to some extents, the teamwork observed in Public Security Section 9. It is presented as an emergent phenomenon catalyzed by parallelization of the human psyche through the cyberbrain networks. There is no original Laughing Man, no leader. Everyone is acting on his own, yet a coherent whole emerges.

In what is perhaps one of the first examples of this phenomenon to emerge in real life, Project Chanology, an Internet-based protest against Scientology, was formed by a loose association of individuals calling themselves Anonymous who frequent certain image-based bulletin boards. Bill McEllwain writes:

We are thus dealing with a true Stand Alone Complex, probably the first substantive one the net has ever seen. There was no original person who launched and organized this battle, but at the same time, it’s not accurate to call everyone who is participating in it mere copycats, because they are the entirety of it. This battle will continue raging for some time, and it’s about damn time. Scientology is truly dangerous like many other cults and religions, yet their litigious nature has effectively hamstringed the news media from covering these issues (except in Germany). So it makes sense that a fluid, faceless group should take root on the Internet to oppose them. After all, the threats of lawsuits only make sense if they can actually find you to sue you. Now you understand the meaning of “Anonymous”.

—Ben McIlwain,"A real life Stand Alone Complex emerges against Scientology"

[edit] Relation to Social theory

The relation of SAC to social theory is explored in more depth in the second season. A character, Kazundo Gouda, postulates that, by exploiting the mechanism of information transmission in society, one could achieve a very efficient and subtle thought control. Indeed, since people tend to modify slightly the information (and forget where it came from) in the processes of consumption (or appropriation), it becomes difficult to sort genuine ideas from modified, implanted, ones. He proves to be very successful in the end.

[edit] Relation to Teamwork

The loose structure of Public Security Section 9 is another example of the SAC. Members have no clearly-defined ranks, roles or "job-descriptions", no strict policies to follow on how they do things. The only thing they share is the information they have and their overall mission; the way they each go about accomplishing it is left to their individual discretion. Teamwork is never demanded/enforced for its own sake, but simply occurs naturally as a result of multiple highly-competent individuals all pursuing the same goal. Even if this doesn't always lead to optimal results, the resulting team is very flexible and adaptive; a member may emerge as the leader, e.g. the Major, but can be replaced by another should the need arise. However, this kind of "natural" teamwork is much more demanding of individual team members than is a traditional top-down hierarchical approach, where all one needs to do is unquestioningly follow whatever orders come from above.

Another example of highly-efficient SAC-based teamwork in the series would be the very first Individual Eleven in episode 1 of Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. 2nd GIG.

Text taken from the Wikipedia article.