February 9, 2006
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curently eating: left over chinese…rice cakes w/ peanut butter and jelly, blackberries
currently amusing myself: What do crabs and al Qaeda have in commone? They both hate bush
ok…settle down now, time for class…
MAJOR: Communication, Education, Sociology, Yadda yadda iology….
COURSE: How little ideas become big ideas
GUEST LECTURE: question the experts
I feel a sense of relief that I will be working on a new writing project alongside this blog. Over the weekend I should have some time to craft my thoughts and have them e-mailed to those of you who have e-mailed me…this essay will likely be sent out to 8 or so bloggers, and in total I’m expecting to send it out to around 50 people. So I’m quite excited about this.
I forget the exact quote I recently read, but it was in someone’s obituary. I’ve begun reading the obituary section in the newspaper for a few reasons. Most importantly, it keeps me grounded, reminded me of my own mortality. Second, it helps me focus on living my life as I want others to remember me. Third, it’s interesting to read about how various people contributed to life, whether it be the family they’ve left behind, or something else.
The quote I read basically said that all the great ideas that we need, have been spoken alraedy. The problem is, nobody has listened to them. Therefore, our challenge is to figure out how to say things better than they’ve been said in the past.
I am constantly reading things that I am blown away by. There have been some amazing books written on the failure of our society to educate people in the way that most people would like people to be educated. But, those voices are not in the mainstream, which tells me that they haven’t done a good enough job reaching their audience.
In fact, that very issue, ‘how a small idea becomes mainstream,’ is one that I’ve spent a few years thinking about now. And…it’s very much a reality based discussion. It comes down to who you know, what power you have, how influential you are. It’s not something to talk about abstractly. Why does reality TV dominate prime time TV? Why aren’t there prmie time shows with people talking about all these good ideas that people have written about that could help create a better society? The answer to that question is essential to figuring out how to get different ideas into the mainstream conversations people have in life.
Next class…why you should alwasy be skeptical of “experts”
Comments (3)
The answer to the reality TV riddle is pretty simple. The masses set the agenda, and the masses want to be entertained, not informed. And you can’t FORCE people to care about issues, even if those issues would better their lives. If I had the choice between watching two economists drone on about their views of where our economy is headed or watching some skanky Springer throwback consume rancid hog livers while Joe Rogan cheers her on…well, that’s a no-brainer (on many levels).
To answer ‘how a small idea becomes mainstream,’ I’d have to respond with ‘grasroots politics’. Baby steps. Sell your idea(s) to one person. Nurture the idea. Lay the groundwork. Give it so much attention that it can’t possibly fail. Then, once you have some statistical evidence of success, sell the idea to two or three more people. Continue to nurture the idea and adapt as needs for change arise. Grow it like a garden.
The fact is, no important changes are ever successfully enacted overnight. Also, outside conditions often influence sweeping changes. If a system is working (even if only working badly) and the people it affects are living comfortably, they will not endorse change (the evil you know vs. the evil you don’t).
Your control ends at your fingertips.
I never gave you my email address, but it is on my xanga (which now that I think about it, would be a PAIN IN THE ASS compared to just giving it to you so you could add it to your distribution list). The problem is, I don’t check that e-mail account nearly as often as I check xanga. It is too clogged with junk mail.
Music rules. Check it out.
“The answer to the reality TV riddle is pretty simple. The masses set the agenda, and the masses want to be entertained, not informed. And you can’t FORCE people to care about issues, even if those issues would better their lives.”
Do the masses set the agenda? I think what you said here is what the majority of people would say…but, is it necessarily true?
People do want to be entertained. In the evening, millions of people turn on their tv, but the choices are not free market choices, nor are they as varied as shopping for cereal. You have a limited number of channels. For many people, the choice is between CBS, NBC, Fox, ABC, etc. Minus cable, you have basically 4 main channels to choose from.
Many people will watch whatever is on one of those 4 channels. People want to be entertained, and since they have been raised to see TV as the easiet form of entertainment, they will turn it on. Even if they hate TV, hate the programs, and spend half of the time cursing the TV for all its bad programming and frequent commercials, people will still watch.
So…I would say the reason we have junk on TV has less to do with people wanting junk, and more to do with those in charge of TV producing junk. As evident by the Daily Show, people are, in fact, very interest in being entertained AND beign informed. People want economists babbling on about our financial situation while also eating rancid hot livers. Or better put, people want their news like they want their sports…ESPN style news & entertainment.
So…people don’t get the media they want because a small number of people control the channels of the media. It’s why large numbers of people are turning to blogs and other places to get their news. There’s a local radio station, the kind that’s always asking for money but has amazing content. My view has always been not that money does not play a role in shaping our lives, but…that there is always the potential for people to just wake-up from it…and in this case, if word spread about this and other itneresting radio stations, suddenly the market would have to respond. If the major news outlets started losing viewers to real news outlets, the powers would change. Just like fuel-efficient cars, they will come out not because the company’s realize they’re better for society, but when it’s also in their interest to change.
I appreciate your comments on change. The best analogy I heard was from the Pres. of Outward Bound’s school reform program, who talked about “planting seeds.” I think you’re right on with your analogy, go after something small, and nurture it like a garden.
I’ve also been thinking how, for inspiration, I need to learn more about activists of the past. For example, MLK and most leaders were part of movements. What people today forget, and what I think is the main reason people are skeptical of activists, is they forget that all the benfits in society we have today, were the results of people getting out of their comfort zones and speaking out critically about society. There’s always going to be people who are fine w/ free-riding, and waiting for someone else to stick their head out of a moving car first, before they join in. It becomes a collective action problem…more on this later.
-dan
Speaking of reading about activists, I’d reccomend Arc of Justice. It somehow ended up in my house last summer (no one knows who checked it out, and it sure wasn’t me ’cause I was eyeball-deep in my senior thesis at the time), and I made it about 1/2 way through before I decided it was too heavy for summer reading. Excellent book though. Talks a lot about the civil rights movement, particularly in Detroit.
~Bethany