Is protest counterproductive?

If I had my life again and was asked to choose a superpower, I’d like to come back as one of those people who can enjoy crowds. As superpowers go, I acknowledge this isn’t all that rare, given the bizarre popularity of events such as Glastonbury, or the widespread compulsion to buy Oasis tickets. But what qualifies it as a superpower for me is that I cannot imagine myself enjoying being in a crowd any more than I can envisage having the power of telekinesis or levitation. I don’t really understand why people pay huge amounts of money to watch live sporting events when you can watch them on television for free.

Is this a genetic thing? Obviously there is no single gene for intelligence, say, or for height, but there are some human proclivities which seem very binary, which may be determined by a small group of genes: whether you dislike the smell of garlic on people’s breath, for instance, or whether or not asparagus makes your pee smell.