Many if not most of Bernie Madoff’s victims were lured in by a web of other victims rather than by Madoff himself. They were set up for the con by relatives and friends who had previously been set up, inadvertently, by others. Contagion.
In the same way that cities are vectors for epidemics, society is a vector for ideas. (For a raw depiction of rural culture, try the Spanish movie Solas.) In this way, society reproduces itself. It is bigger than us not because it is the sum of our individual actions but because it is the sum of our interactions.
How big is it? As big – and inscrutable – as God. Can any one of us see the chain of events that causes us to find that coin on a sidewalk?
When we knew even less about what was happening across town, let alone across the country, these obscure but powerful forces had a name: destiny, fate, chance, the Will of God.