Lack of poly-activism a marketing problem? (part IV)
[Note: I’m actually just filing these for future reference. I haven’t read any of these posts but the first one, and until I’ve read all of them, won’t be making any comments on what I agree or disagree with, to what degree, etc. -Thomas]
ABSENCE OF POLYACTIVISM AS UNSUCCESSFUL MARKETING
PART 4 of 5; CONTINUED FROM PART 3
IV
Most innovations that do make it to the Realm of the Cool and
survive there do not evolve or progress beyond this realm. But many
of them do. Generally speaking, when the public mind thinks back to
the “beginning” of an innovation, what it thinks of is its
transition from the Realm of the Cool into the Realm of the Next Big
Thing, rather than the years, decades or centuries of its
pre-history that the innovation spent as a Cool, Edge or Fringe
phenomena.
The kind of media attention the innovation receives as it passes
from the Realm of the Cool to the “Realm of the Next Big Thing”
again changes significantly. Essentially all of what is thought of
as “commercials” or formal advertising related to the introducing of
an innovation is targeted at minds within the Realm of the Next Big
Thing. Unless a significant number of coldly rational people with
considerable resources at their disposal have been convinced that an
innovation in its present form has potential for such mass appeal,
the time, energy, money and other resources to advertise it will
probably not be mobilized or allocated. Things like “celebrity
endorsements” and recommendations by recognizable experts tend to
greatly impress people with a Next Big Thing mentality, but they
would probably not have much influence on people with an Edge or a
Cool mentality. The “Cool” people want to have adopted things BEFORE
celebrities have done so, and want to be the people the “experts”
consult when forming their “expert” opinions. IF something is receiving such
celebrity endorsements already, the people in the Realm of the Cool may view
it with a “been there, done that, already bought the tee
shirt” attitude. If Britney Spears or Tiger Woods endorses a product, that
would probably have no effect at all on Cutting Edge people, and would
probably make Bleeding Edge people LESS likely to buy it or use it, - not
more so.
Just as the Cool people tend to take most of their cues about
what to do, buy or adopt from the Edge people, people with a Next
Big Thing orientation take a high percentage of their cues about
what to do next from what the people in the Realm of the Cool are
doing, buying and what attitudes they seem to be adopting. However,
there once more is an even higher threshold of reassurance about the
safety, ethics and practicality of an innovation that must be
overcome. The Next Big Thing people have considerably greater levels
of fear, doubts and skepticism about the wisdom of adopting any new
innovation than do “Cool” people, and these fears and doubts must be
allayed somehow, or else the people of this realm will not adopt the
innovation. Doing so requires them to have seen what feels to them
like evidence that LOTS of “Cool” people have already tried and
adopted the innovation first, and that it seems to be working
tolerably well for them.
Even so, to “conquer” the Realm of the Next Big Thing, the
innovation will probably have to undergo considerably more
transformation, taming and “refinement” Expanding the definition of
“vegetarianism” to allow it include people who also eat eggs, fish,
chicken, or even certain very lean cuts of beef on occasion seems to
have allowed it to spread into the Realm of the Next Big Thing.
Redefining “religious chastity” to include people who merely
restrict their sexual activity to one single spouse, and who at
least give the appearance of feeling large amounts of guilt, shame
and embarrassment about sexuality in general permitted the notion to
gain popularity within the Realm of the Next Big Thing in a way that
stricter but more authentic interpretations of that notion never
could have. A similar process of moderation goes on with all other
innovations that eventually spread from the Realm of the Cool into
the Realm of the Next Big Thing.
Tolerance for Gays and Lesbians is a cause that entered the
Realm of the Next Big Thing in the early 1990s, and by the end of
the 1990s was already making its first successful assaults on the
boundaries of the Realm of Conventionality. But Gay rights did NOT
enter the Realm of the Next Big Thing because 40 - 50% of the
population became actively practicing homosexuals, but simply
because roughly that percentage of the straight population came to
feel that being gay is an acceptable lifestyle for people that wish
to live that way. However, it is instructive to observe HOW this was
accomplished. It was accomplished by systematically DOWNPLAYING the
earlier stereotype of gays as wildly PROMISCUOUS, drag-queen,
leather-wearing, gay bar-frequenting, fornicating-in-the street
“flaming faggots,” and instead strongly emphasizing the notion that
most homosexuals were home-owning, hardworking, patriotic,
church-going, God-loving, tax-paying MONOGAMOUS couples. In other
words, by systematically portraying gay couples as being just like
the rest of America, - except for the minor detail that both halves
of the couple happened to be of the same gender. 40% - 50% of the US
Population aren’t likely to become polyamorous any time soon, but
such a sizeable number of them MIGHT become convinced that polyamory
IS a socially acceptable lifestyle for those who do wish to practice
it. Such a goal may actually be achievable within the next few
years.
Many of the innovations that manage to break into the Realm of
the Next Big Thing probably remain in this realm, or eventually
regress back towards the Realm of the Cool or the Edge. But a
surprising number of them seem to manage to go even further and
enter the Realm of Conventionality. This Realm of Conventionality
is the realm of the most stubbornly conformist people. Conventional
people, although they take MANY cues about what to do from Next Big
Thing People, they still take MOST of their cues from their trusted peers
and the people they consider to be GENUINE authority figures who
share the same values they do. However, that does not mean they
NEVER change their minds, - it merely means they generally don’t
change their minds until AFTER they perceive that almost everyone
else has, - at least everybody they consider important or
authoritative on the subject. Except in the cases of very minor and
trivial innovations, mere celebrity endorsements don’t count for
much in the realm of Conventionality, - UNLESS the “celebrity”
happens to be someone conventional people consider to be VERY
authoritative and legitimate. Almost a quarter of the American
public that had previously claimed to believe abortion was murder
changed their opinion within weeks of the Supreme Court declaring
the practice legal. Many folks that condemned homosexuality as sick,
perverted and evil quickly reversed their opinion when the American
Psychological Association declared that homosexuality was NOT a form
of mental illness. Many people who fiercely opposed the legalization
of marijuana for decades are having a very difficult time
maintaining that opinion now that many doctors, chiefs of police,
judges and Senators are publicly saying they feel marijuana should
be legalized. With even a few Catholic priests and Baptist ministers
saying they think homosexuality may not be as sinful as they once
thought, it is difficult for even many ultra-conservative people to
still believe that it is. Thus, under CERTAIN circumstances, the
collective mind of Conventional people can actually change very
rapidly. That is a key factor worth understanding about how the
minds of those within the Realm of Conventionality work.
It is probably important here to remember that the issue is NOT that Edge
people are non-monogamous and people in the Realm of Conventionality are
monogamous. There is much non-monogamy in the Realm of Conventionality.
However, there are CONVENTIONAL ways of doing non-monogamy, CONVENTIONAL
ways of talking about non-monogamy and CONVENTIONAL ways of thinking about
non-monogamy. The essence of polyamory is NOT the introduction of
non-monogamy, but rather is a certain style, set of attitudes, behaviors and
philosophical ideas about non-monogamy. It is conventional behavior patterns
and ideas about how to do non-monogamy that polyamory is perceived as
challenging, threatening and attacking, not monogamy itself. If polyamory is
ever going to “sell” in the conventional realm, it will be because people
there become convinced that polyamory is a “better” way of dealing with
non-monogamy than conventional methods of dealing with non-monogamy. Clearly
they do not believe that now.
When examining this model, or indeed any model, theory or category system,
one must not take its abstractions too literally, oversimplify nor
over-generalize the distinctions it makes. For instance, as open to sexual
experimentation and as publicly flamboyant in their means of sexual
expression as they present themselves as being, beneath the surface, a
majority of Edge people apparently have ideals/values about monogamy and
non-monogamy that are not really all that different from those of rural Iowa
farmers. Even 99% of so-called radical, subversive rock and roll music is
dedicated to the praising, idolizing and glamorizing of the monogamous
lifestyle, - not criticizing nor attacking it. (Bleeding Edge musicians have
yet to create a #1 hit praising any kind of non-monogamy). The main
difference on this issue, if there is one, is that Bleeding Edge Rock fans
think that THEIR way of practicing monogamy and romantic love is somehow
more authentic and real than that of Conventional people. Conversely,
despite the ultra-conservative facades and hyper-conventional ideas about
economics, clothing styles, and politics, many are the bankers, priests and
congressmen that have sex lives that even the majority of Edge dwellers
would condemn as immoral. It would be a gross over-simplification to think
that non-monogamy is widely accepted on the Edge and universally avoided by
Conventional people. Roughly 95% of the population lives outside “the Edge,”
and if all we ever do is to present polyamory to Edge people, that other 95%
of the population will be uneffected by our efforts.
As previously marginalized behaviors and practices enter and eventually
consolidate their hold in the Realm of Conventionality, some highly
paradoxical and very entertaining things can happen. For instance, as
mentioned before, as an innovation spreads towards universal acceptance, by
definition, it loses much of its rawness, wildness and radical nature, and
along with this, much of what feels like its authenticity and appeal to many
Edge-oriented minds. For instance, something close to 90% of the
English-speaking world label themselves as Christians. In that sense,
Christianity would seem to have been a unqualified and spectacular success.
However, the price of that near universal acceptance has been a near total
loss of authenticity. Christianity was one thing while it was still a
messianic Jewish movement whose purpose was to purge the Jewish nation of
foreign “contamination.” It became something entirely else as a tool in the
hands of non-Jewish governments intent on enforcing submission and
suppressing dissent. And it became something quite different as a general
social contract among the populations of modern capitalist nations for
enforcing conformity and encouraging politically correct sexual behavior. In
other words, the diversity of opinions encompassed under the label of
Christianity is so great that the word “Christian” has become virtually
meaningless, - now being more or less synonymous with terms like
“religiously correct,” “reasonable person” or “good decent member of
society.” Each person calling himself a Christian simply attributes their
own personal beliefs, values and qualities they admire most to Christ, -
whether they are a capitalist, a socialist, a fascist, a communist, a
pacifist, a warmonger, a prude, a libertine, a heterosexual, a homosexual, a
monogamist or a polygamist. This they do, with near total disregard for what
Christ and his original followers actually seemed to have preached. The
overwhelming majority of people calling themselves Christians hold at least
a few central beliefs that are in direct contradiction to what the New
Testament says Christ taught, yet that does not stop them from labeling
themselves as Christian, or stop other Christians from allowing them to do
so. The extremely pro-capitalist “Christianity” preached by William F.
Buckley has essentially nothing to do with the fierce anti-materialism of
original Christianity. The “Christianity” of George Bush is explicitly
centered on the principle of “do unto others BEFORE they do unto you,” which
could not possibly be more opposite from Christ’s teaching about “turning
the other cheek.” Yet all such people call themselves Christians, and no one
ever seems to challenge them on the matter.
The once incredibly strict idea of “sex = sin; chastity = holiness” among
people calling themselves Christians has now been watered down so much that
it is but a pale shadow of its original self. In the minds of many
“mainstream” Christians, sexual activity is not sinful as long as it is with
only one partner at a time, AND you are EITHER married to that one partner,
PLANNING to get married to that one partner, or at least “IN LOVE” with that
one partner at the time the sexual activity occurs. What a difference a
couple thousand years makes.
We bring all this up because something similar to this happens to
essentially all innovations that conquer the Realm of Conventionality, gain
a measure of universality, and strive to become all things to all people. In
all such cases, whatever “ideological purity” was associated with the
innovation when practiced only by a tiny segment of society becomes diluted
to the point of non-existence as its popularity expands. It will be
interesting to see how the already diverse polyamory community responds when
it expands to include 50 or 100 times as much political, economic,
philosophical and spiritual diversity as it does now, and includes a
majority of people who would be deemed “politically incorrect” by the
polyamory community of today. The polyamory of today seems comfortable
enough with a political correctness that says it is acceptable to advertise
poly gatherings primarily for vegetarian polyamorists, or that are
explicitly restricted to lesbian and bisexual female polyamorists. But what,
for instance, will the existing polyamory community do when confronted with
large numbers of polyamorists who unabashedly express a desire to only
attend poly events that are limited to Christian or Jewish polyamorists? Or
that limit membership to white (or non-white) polyamorists only? Or that
explicitly exclude those under or over a certain age, pan-sexuals,
transvestites, “overweight” people, “underweight” people, nudists,
vegetarians, or “freaks?” Or that include only Republicans, homeowners,
heterosexuals, married people or only people above a certain income level?
What makes THESE kinds of political correctness and exclusivity any less
“naturally connected to the essence of polyamory” than the kind of political
correctness now displayed by the existing polyamory community? (Perhaps the
desire of some within the polyamory community to restrict polyamory to the
narrow segment of the population that is practicing it now is not entirely
without merit?)
Other paradoxical and counterintuitive things happen as well when
something moves towards Conventionality. Bookstores that once did a thriving
business by specializing exclusively in Gay/Lesbian titles are starting to
go out of business as mainstream bookstores lose their embarrassment about
stocking those same titles. As the once Bleeding Edge causes of gay rights,
racial equality and feminism have now gained acceptance in this Realm of
Conventionality, although they still have their critics and enemies, those
critics have started to feel marginalized when they express that hatred. And
having minds dominated by concern about social approval, prestige, and
normality, such people tend to find themselves feeling VERY perplexed,
awkward, disoriented and uncomfortable in the role of marginalized outcaste,
deviant or freak. Much to their surprise, conservative politicians found
themselves LOSING elections in New England for engaging in the gay bashing
that they have long taken for granted would help them WIN votes. Trent Lott
was apparently caught off guard by the fact that the revelation of his
racist sentiments to a conservative Republican audience caused him to LOSE
rather than gain popularity. Someday, in the distant future, when polyamory
has conquered the Realm of Conventionality, some conservative politician or
clergyman will find himself out of a job for making disparaging remarks
about polyamory. However, today, unfortunately, is NOT that day.
END OF PART 4; To BE CONTINUED IN PART 5
