Jeffrey C. Long

What an odd combination of words to put together. Yet these three events hold one thing in common. They are instances in which people form spontaneous community. Some of you may not know how community is formed in some of these, so a brief explanation is in order.

The wonderful site Word Spy, dedicated to defining “recently coined words and phrases, and to old words that are being used in new ways” defines “Flash Mob” as

“n. A large group of people who gather in a usually predetermined location, perform some brief action, and then quickly disperse.”

How it works is that people fwd emails to friends and then friends of friends until a critical mass is formed and the group gathers somewhere and performs a seemingly random act. You can read more at The Word Spy Flash Mob site for examples.

A different kind of crowd was formed this year at Wal-mart, resulting in record breaking sales of $1.52 billion nation wide. At USA Today Online you can read that “Across the country, bargain-hunters lined up before dawn and braved chilly temperatures Friday as retailers inaugurated the holiday shopping season with early bird specials on toys and big-ticket items such as TVs and computers.” We had family that got up at 4:00AM to stand in line for an inexpensive Nintendo game-cube. Different from the Flash Mobs, though, the Wal-mart line community can get a little ugly as people push to get to the merchandise they want.

Finally, that tradition I am more personally familiarized with: standing in line for the premiere of a Science Fiction movie. I’ve stood for Star Trek 4 in the 80′s, Star Wars Episode I, Star Wars Episode II, Matrix 2 and Matrix 3 and finally, I’ll be in line with my daughters for the premiere of Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. One attribute most notable of attending the premiere of a sci-fi movie is that daughters, wives and girlfriends notwithstanding, the crowd is primarily men, and especially of the geeky sort. If you wish to see what that guy who read comic books in High School looks like at 35, you can see him plus 10 friends at the premiere to Return of the King.

So, what is the thread that holds all this together? It is that in spite of ourselves, we humans gather together and sometimes in rather wacky ways. One of the most influential books in my worldview is Resurgence of the Real by Charlene Spretnak. In it her primary thesis is that the real will always reassert itself regardless of the forces that attempt to submerge it. So, no matter how much our culture may prevent us from gathering by packing our schedule with busy-ness, the real reasserts itself, and we gather in crazy ways. Like a beach ball held tenaciously underwater, eventually it pops back up. And I believe that flash mobs, lines at walmart, and lines at a movie are each examples of this. We want to be with other people with similar interests and so, we do.

Second, getting together allows us to be somebody that we aren’t in normal situations. Anyone who has been with me at a movie premiere would know that I can get so loud and funny that you’d be suspicious that I’m inebriated. Flash mobs are filled with shy people living out a fantasy of acting. And the crowd at Wal-Mart will rush to get an item in a way that would shock the people they work with. Annonymity affords us an opportunity to let our hair down. Again, the real is reasserting itself. We can’t hide our true selves forever. So, when we are “out there” something happens, and a little part sneeks out that people rarely see. And it feels _good_!

What is to be gained from this knowledge. First, I think it is an opportunity to take a thermometer of who we are. The next time you find yourself in an annonymous situation, pay attention to who you are. You’ll find both beauty and ugliness, most likely. And then you have to ask, what are you, what is your faith, what is God, going to do with that knowledge.

Second, I believe we should create more random, seemingly annonymous experiences for us to discover ourselves. As a Christian, my hope would be that the church would be this forum. But I know too well that I get scared of the beautiful and ugly sides of who I am, afraid that people won’t accept either. So instead, I give them the grey. But this experience of mobs I think should lead us to realize there is good to be found in letting our hair down. We discover who we are, and then have the choice to grow from there.

Next in the Culture Chronicles, I’ll discuss my current (unfulfilled thanks to my wife, thank God) desire to get into Yu-Gi-Oh cards and what reasertion of the real that is for human behaviour.

As always, I covet your comments. Blessings to all this holiday season.

Jeffrey