The Beginning "The Challenge to Thrive"
As we approach the end of the first decade of the new millennium, the biggest surprise for declining Science Fiction Fan Organizations is that there is a ferment for more not less Science Fiction in the world! Fandom has adjusted painfully to the fact that we are living in a post- Star Trek age. fandom has even begun to understand and accept that we are living in a postmodern age. The biggest shock, however, is that at this early point in the new millennium, we are living in a postmundane age. To paraphrase Harvey Cox in the preface of his book Fire from Heaven: “Today it is the mundanes, not the geeks who are headed for extinction.
There is, indeed, a ferment of SciFi yearning that chapters and clubs on both sides of the old polarities have failed to understand and engage. The 21st Century is a postmundane age. Countless declining chapters and clubs (whether “conservative” and “traditional” or “liberal” and “unusual”) are failing to grasp that single essential fact. They still function as if they were defending a doctrinally pure heritage against the rising tide of ‘realism’; as if they were preserving the last example of healthy fandom in the midst of a violent, anonymous, and selfish society; as if they were proclaiming the last call for true morality and correct ideology into the raging storm of materialism, capitalism, and self-interest.
It is not merely that fandom placed itself in a confrontational mode with society, it also accepted the reality that it was losing the confrontation. In the paradigm that had become accepted, fandom decline verified our geek identity. “If we are declining, we must be on the right track!”
Yet there is a new paradigm emerging. It recognizes the ferment of a Sci-Fi yearning among the public and has engaged that yearning in vigorous conversation. Growing number of thriving chapters and independent clubs have managed to break loose from old assumptions, liberated themselves from chronic, self-destructive patters, to discover a whole new life.
I strongly want to use the word “growth” in connection with these groups, but the word has come to have negative connotations in the ethos of post modern political correctness. People seem to understand “growth” as an industrial metaphor. It refers to numbers and statistics. it describes the quantity of units stored in the warehouse, or the number of widgets produced in the factory. Such an understanding of “growth” does not fit fandom. Instead the word “growth” is used in a pediatric metaphor. It refers to the healthy development of a child into an adult. It describes the expansion of activity and interest of a living organism. “Growth” occurs when a living organism truly THRIVES!!!
The thriving groups (Chapters or Independent Clubs) do not have to be big. They may be petite or small. They may be any number of sizes, and this characteristic is often influenced by the demographic realities of the populations they exist within, and serve.
Large or small, or in-between, this new breed of fan club that is emerging at this time is engaged with the public in a new way. They do not see themselves as angry prophets in confrontation with society. They see themselves as sentinels sharing a vision that sustains and nurtures new fans. Even in regions where populations are declining or sparse, they are in vigorous conversation with the fastest growing segment of the population, namely those fans who are yearning and are institutionally unhappy with how fandom has been organized the last thirty-five years.
A THRIVING FANDOM no matter what size, is doing four things.
1. They are increasing the participation of the public in fandom. Membership statistics are irrelevant to them. They are busy designing a multitude of ways in which the sci-fi yearning and institutionally unhappy public can “connect” with some aspect of fandom that helps them address that inner yearning.
2. They are deepening the true geekness of adults, both with fandom and beyond in the community. Doctrinal or Dogmatic agreement is unimportant. They are busy reaching out to adults (and yes, youth and children) to explore fandom with integrity, profundity, and self discipline.
3. They are multiplying the opportunities for participation. Institutional mission agendas are abandoned. They are busy enabling people to explore all of fandom, have fun, have true fellowship, and reach out beyond mere words to fully explore and enjoy what brought them to Fandom in the first place, with no judgment of one form or genre over another. This outreach enables their unbounded enthusiasm.
4. They are maximizing the impact of fandom on the world. Mere philanthropy is not enough, and often not even the point. These groups are busy sharing their fandom in ways that decades ago was mocked, but now is shared in the office, the bus, next door and even across continents and oceans.
Most of the concepts and a large percentage of the wording was lifted directly from Thomsas G. bandy's book "Kicking Habits", as I read this book given to me by my church Pastor with his hope that we can kickstart our congregation out of the old mindset of committees and consensus, I see a HUGE parallel with Starfleet in specific and Fandom in general, that this can apply to. In fact, as a paid staffer with the BSA, I can see the same problems, and mindsets affecting many of the volunteer organizations throughout the country, contrasted with more charasmatic organization that reach out and around traditional bodies already in place. Can Starfleet rejuvenite and thrive? Or is it too bogged down in its own committee-dom, and it with continue to wither on the vine and gentrify? I do not yet know, and yet I fear that the current leadership would rather have a withering Starfleet, then a Starfleet that changes to move forward with Society that they the leadership cannot understand or control.
More to come
There is, indeed, a ferment of SciFi yearning that chapters and clubs on both sides of the old polarities have failed to understand and engage. The 21st Century is a postmundane age. Countless declining chapters and clubs (whether “conservative” and “traditional” or “liberal” and “unusual”) are failing to grasp that single essential fact. They still function as if they were defending a doctrinally pure heritage against the rising tide of ‘realism’; as if they were preserving the last example of healthy fandom in the midst of a violent, anonymous, and selfish society; as if they were proclaiming the last call for true morality and correct ideology into the raging storm of materialism, capitalism, and self-interest.
It is not merely that fandom placed itself in a confrontational mode with society, it also accepted the reality that it was losing the confrontation. In the paradigm that had become accepted, fandom decline verified our geek identity. “If we are declining, we must be on the right track!”
Yet there is a new paradigm emerging. It recognizes the ferment of a Sci-Fi yearning among the public and has engaged that yearning in vigorous conversation. Growing number of thriving chapters and independent clubs have managed to break loose from old assumptions, liberated themselves from chronic, self-destructive patters, to discover a whole new life.
I strongly want to use the word “growth” in connection with these groups, but the word has come to have negative connotations in the ethos of post modern political correctness. People seem to understand “growth” as an industrial metaphor. It refers to numbers and statistics. it describes the quantity of units stored in the warehouse, or the number of widgets produced in the factory. Such an understanding of “growth” does not fit fandom. Instead the word “growth” is used in a pediatric metaphor. It refers to the healthy development of a child into an adult. It describes the expansion of activity and interest of a living organism. “Growth” occurs when a living organism truly THRIVES!!!
The thriving groups (Chapters or Independent Clubs) do not have to be big. They may be petite or small. They may be any number of sizes, and this characteristic is often influenced by the demographic realities of the populations they exist within, and serve.
Large or small, or in-between, this new breed of fan club that is emerging at this time is engaged with the public in a new way. They do not see themselves as angry prophets in confrontation with society. They see themselves as sentinels sharing a vision that sustains and nurtures new fans. Even in regions where populations are declining or sparse, they are in vigorous conversation with the fastest growing segment of the population, namely those fans who are yearning and are institutionally unhappy with how fandom has been organized the last thirty-five years.
A THRIVING FANDOM no matter what size, is doing four things.
1. They are increasing the participation of the public in fandom. Membership statistics are irrelevant to them. They are busy designing a multitude of ways in which the sci-fi yearning and institutionally unhappy public can “connect” with some aspect of fandom that helps them address that inner yearning.
2. They are deepening the true geekness of adults, both with fandom and beyond in the community. Doctrinal or Dogmatic agreement is unimportant. They are busy reaching out to adults (and yes, youth and children) to explore fandom with integrity, profundity, and self discipline.
3. They are multiplying the opportunities for participation. Institutional mission agendas are abandoned. They are busy enabling people to explore all of fandom, have fun, have true fellowship, and reach out beyond mere words to fully explore and enjoy what brought them to Fandom in the first place, with no judgment of one form or genre over another. This outreach enables their unbounded enthusiasm.
4. They are maximizing the impact of fandom on the world. Mere philanthropy is not enough, and often not even the point. These groups are busy sharing their fandom in ways that decades ago was mocked, but now is shared in the office, the bus, next door and even across continents and oceans.
Most of the concepts and a large percentage of the wording was lifted directly from Thomsas G. bandy's book "Kicking Habits", as I read this book given to me by my church Pastor with his hope that we can kickstart our congregation out of the old mindset of committees and consensus, I see a HUGE parallel with Starfleet in specific and Fandom in general, that this can apply to. In fact, as a paid staffer with the BSA, I can see the same problems, and mindsets affecting many of the volunteer organizations throughout the country, contrasted with more charasmatic organization that reach out and around traditional bodies already in place. Can Starfleet rejuvenite and thrive? Or is it too bogged down in its own committee-dom, and it with continue to wither on the vine and gentrify? I do not yet know, and yet I fear that the current leadership would rather have a withering Starfleet, then a Starfleet that changes to move forward with Society that they the leadership cannot understand or control.
More to come