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The First Parish in Bedford Unitarian Universalist 75 The Great Road, Bedford, Massachusetts 01730 On the Common 781-275-7994 |
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The Tipping Point:
How Change Happens
A Sermon by
Rev. John E. Gibbons
Delivered Sunday, May 21, 2000
At The First Parish in Bedford
There’s an old story about a fellow who preaches in the town square
― or perhaps it was on the town common ― and at first he draws big crowds. But eventually the people get bored and the crowds dwindle. But still he preaches. Eventually, nobody pays him any attention…he’s still droning on…until one day a kid comes along and says, "Hey, mister nobody’s listening. Why do you keep talking?" And the guy says, "Well, at first I preached to change the world; but I didn’t change the world. I failed at that. Now I preach to keep the world from changing me. At that, maybe I can succeed."That’s a lot of what churches do: we preach (and in a community like this one, I preach to you and, yes indeed, you preach to me)…we preach to one another to keep that spark alive, to keep the world from extinguishing that spark of hopefulness and creativity and individuality
― that spark of truth, beauty and goodness ― that still burns in our minds and hearts, your mind and heart.In that way, this church
― like most churches ― are essentially conservative institutions. We try to hold onto some things ― keep changeless ― some values we believe are important.But that’s not all we do. One of the things that may be somewhat distinctive about this church is that we haven’t given up on the idea of changing the world, and for that matter, I suspect that deep down we haven’t given up on the idea of changing ourselves. Maybe our world can in some ways be made better; and maybe, just maybe, we can be more like the people we want to be. For all our reputation as somewhat self-righteous, I think Unitarian Universalists come to church because we think that maybe the world could be made a bit better and maybe, just maybe, we could be a bit better ourselves.
I think it behooves us to try to be as savvy as we can be about how and why people change. I confess to being more than a bit skeptical about the way we typically promote, say, social change. Last week at Ferry Beach I read a parody by Garrison Keillor who said that if you want to date a Unitarian woman, "You will need to learn to folk dance and sit through lectures on American foreign policy by speakers from third world countries." It is, he added, "a small price to pay for happiness." But all too often it seems to me, we make grand social, moral, and political pronouncements on peace, disarmament, gender equity and the World Trade Organization and it’s hard to tell if we really think we’re going to change the world or if we’re really just trying to keep the world from changing us.
This is why I am intrigued by a new book titled The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. It’s subtitled "How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference" and I don’t know that it’s going to dramatically change the world or your life, but maybe some of its counter-intuitive insights might make a little difference
― and, who knows, that little difference might be big.Gladwell observes, first of all, that ideas and social movements behave like epidemics. They are infectious, and the infection spreads not gradually, but dramatically
― with an identifiable moment of critical mass, a boiling point, a threshold moment, a tipping point when equilibrium is significantly altered. As evidence, Gladwell cites bizarrely different examples: the key role of Paul Revere in the American Revolution, the unexpected popularity of Hush Puppy shoes, falling big-city crime rates, increasing rates of teenage smoking, varying suicide rates, and the high ratings of such TV programs as Sesame Street and Blue’s Clues.If equilibrium is to be altered, if change is to occur, Gladwell says, it will be due to one of three factors: The Law of the Few; the Stickiness Factor, or the Power of Context.
The Law of the Few says that some people are more influential than other people. (It’s actually the opposite of what is depicted on the cover of today’s order of service. The Law of the Few says that one or a few people can tip the scale.)
Paul Revere, for example, was more influential than William Dawes, the other guy who rode that night, warning that the British were coming. A number of towns that Dawes rode through on the night of April 18th paid him no attention; some historians even reached the incorrect conclusion that places like Waltham were loyalist but this was not the case: this fellow named Dawes came through Waltham, talked what seemed like crazy talk to nobody in particular, and so the good people of Waltham went back to sleep.
Who you know often is more important than what you know. Revere was one of the most connected people in colonial America, and Gladwell identifies people he calls Connectors (in addition to those he calls Mavens and Salespeople) as essential to reaching a tipping point.
When Boston imported its first streetlights in 1774, Paul Revere was asked to serve on the committee that made the arrangement. When the Boston market required regulation, Paul Revere was appointed its clerk. After the Revolution, in a time of epidemics, he was chosen the health officer of Boston, and coroner of Suffolk County. When a major fire ravaged the old wooden town, he helped to found the Massachusetts Mutual Fire Insurance Company…As poverty became a growing problem in the new republic, he called the meeting that organized the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association, and was elected its first president. When the community of Boston was shattered by the most sensational murder trial of his generation, Paul Revere was chosen foreman of the jury.
He had worked, gone drinking, and swapped stories with most everybody who was anybody.
Revere’s Rolodex was huge, while Dawes was just a more ordinary man. On the night of the ride, Revere knew on whose door to knock. But the point is not that Revere was a born leader and a great man; it’s that he knew a lot of people, he had acquaintances in varied social contexts. Sociologists call this "the strength of weak ties." If you want to build a social movement or promote an idea or a product, or, say, grow a church, it is vital to have not just a tight-knit core of committed people, the same names on every committee, but a wide variety of people who may only know one another a little but who in their own small way can contribute to the success of the whole. (I didn’t, by the way, set out to write a sermon in support of today’s Job Fair but that’s what it’s really all about. The strength of loose ties; we don’t want your blood; you don’t have to be a born committee member, a great pillar of the church. What we’re after is acquaintanceship, not necessarily intimacy; not heavy lifting, just doing some stuff together; many hands make light work.) And then I suppose what would really help is to have some really well-connected people who can knock on doors in the middle of the night. You’ll save yourself some late night phone calls if you sign up for a committee today!)
Gladwell also cites the familiar "6 degrees of separation" whereby any one person can contact any other person in six connecting moves. But what that phrase doesn’t convey is that a few people can make the connection in only a couple of moves and that a lot of people may never make the connection. Again, let’s say you’re trying to get the school committee to adopt a particular policy, or advocating gay marriage, or trying to reduce teen smoking or increase church membership or promoting any other change, it helps to figure out the people who are the best connectors.
The Stickiness Factor is the next key to any change. We’re said to be subjected to an average of 254 commercial messages daily. Almost none stick. Finish this sentence, Winston tastes good…. The other day Sue and I found ourselves talking about two new colors that Volkswagen has introduced for their redesigned Bug. New colors. When a car company has you talking about two new car colors, I think they have you pretty much where they want you. That’s stickiness.
The masters of stickiness are the people who design Sesame Street and another TV program on Nickelodeon (which I’ve never seen) called Blue’s Clues. Do you know this program? Every few-second segment is tested against an actual Distracter, and they’ve learned a lot about what holds kids’ attention. For one thing, commercials are not as compelling as we thought because commercials, for the most part, don’t tell stories and stories are what are truly compelling.
There’s some fascinating research, called "Narratives from the Crib," which noticed that small children often talk themselves to sleep. A 2-year old named Emily had a microphone tucked under her crib and some good researchers then transcribed her musings. At age 2, Emily was bugged. Basically, she made up stories to integrate her feelings and experiences. Listen to this (this is Emily talking herself to sleep):
Tomorrow when we wake up from bed, first me and Daddy and Mommy, you, eat breakfast like we usually do, and then we’re going to play and then soon as Daddy comes, Carl’s going to come over, and then we’re going to play a little while. And then Carl and Emily are both going down the car with somebody, And we’re going to ride to nursery school, and then we’re going to get there, we’re all going to get out of the car, go into nursery school, and Daddy’s going to give us kisses, then go, and then say, and then we will say goodbye, then he’s going to work and we’re going to play at nursery school. Won’t that be funny? Because sometimes I go to nursery school ‘cause it’s a nursery school day. Sometimes I stay with Tanta all week. And sometimes we play mom and dad. But usually, sometimes, I, um, oh go to nursery school. But today I’m going to nursery school in the morning. In the morning, Daddy in the, when and usual, we’re going to eat breakfast like we usually do, and then we’re going to…and then we’re going to…play. And then we’re, then the doorbell’s going to ring, and here comes Carl in here, and then Carl, and then we are all going to play, and then…"
Ah, ministry! The art of the sermon! But do you see what’s going on here? Somehow human beings are hard-wired for stories
― which explains everything from the longevity of the Bible to, well, when couples first get together or get divorced or when someone dies or something else big happens, it takes a while before you’re ready to go out in public because deep-down we need to talk to ourselves for a while and make sense of what has happened and get our story together.And if we’re going to change the world or our own lives, it greatly helps if we have at least a little story or something that helps make our case sticky.
The final factor, which Malcolm Gladwell says contributes to the Tipping Point, is what he calls the Power of Context. It just wouldn’t have been the same had it been Paul Revere’s Afternoon Ride because at midnight people weren’t off in the fields working, they were home, asleep, and, when Revere pounded on the doors of the most influential people in town, they were startled.
Another example of the Power of Context is a famous true story about urban crime: that of the murder of Kitty Genovese in Queens in 1964. Thirty-eight people were witnesses to her stabbing and nobody called the police. Usually, her story is remembered as a classic tale of crime-hardened and indifferent by-standers. The anonymity of neighbors. Hey, it’s New York. But that interpretation doesn’t really hold up. Researchers have observed the difference between what people do when they’re alone and what they do when they’re in groups. For example, someone is screaming in the next room or smoke is coming out from under a door. We are far likelier to respond when we think it is less likely for somebody else to respond. Responsibility in a group is diffuse. It’s not that nobody responded to Kitty Genovese despite there being 38 witnesses; it’s that nobody responded because there were 38 witnesses. Human beings are more sensitive to their environment
― to the power of context ― than is usually assumed. If we want to encourage people to respond to their neighbor in distress, we need to impress upon one another and ourselves that these things are our responsibility and may be our responsibility alone.Oh, did I mention that there’s a Job Fair today? When you have a group going on a picnic, you don’t say, "Oh, we’ll have some potato salad, and some chicken, and some deviled eggs, and brownies are always nice." The only way to pull off a successful picnic is to say, "OK, I’ll bring the potato salad" and for somebody else to say, "I’ll make the brownies," and all the rest. Otherwise the picnic won’t happen.
An old Hasidic tale says that the way to be most faithful to God is to assume that there is no God, and only you are responsible.
Don’t let me forget to mention that Job Fair.
The Power of Context is most often about little things. The drop in the urban crime rate, for example, is surely related to the economy but perhaps not as much as we think
― because it actually began to drop before the economy picked up and, for that matter, in some of the worst areas of our cities, the economy really hasn’t picked up. So instead of paying attention to the so-called big issues, there’s another strategy that pays attention to the little things: in New York it was cleaning up the graffiti-covered subway trains and keeping them clean. Focusing police efforts on the 85-cent fare beaters. Moving off the squeegee guys. Now I know that some of this is sounding like I might have been a supporter of New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s, and indeed I think we must be wary of crossing the boundary to blaming the most disadvantaged, but ― you know ― some of this has merit. It’s called Broken Windows Theory. Fix the broken windows and keep them fixed and some other problems go away.I am convinced, for example, that this congregation actually built the whole thing out back here, not because we were possessed by a grand or grandiose vision, but…because Jack Mendelsohn picked up a lot of trash on the Common (with help from the Town and a lot of you)…because we replaced the pew cushions, and this sanctuary was repainted…and we got some decent folding chairs…and just maybe because the numerals on the steeple clock were gilded…and a whole lot of people generously volunteered their time to teach a few RE classes…or do a turn on the Membership or Physical Plant Committees…or make the god-blessed coffee once in a while. Little, little things
― all of them. Say, what’s happening after church today? Oh, and just remember there is no God… nobody else is paying any attention at all to what I am saying…the person next to you only appears to be awake…you alone are responsible.In Gladwell’s book, there’s a great story about seminarians who are asked to read, study and prepare a little sermon about the Good Samaritan
― the despised Samaritan who, unlike all the learned, wealthy and so-called exemplary people, actually stopped to help the man who was robbed and lying hurt in the road. The seminarians were told to prepare their little sermon and then go across the street someplace to deliver it. But just before they left to go, some were told that they were late and they better hurry, while others were told that they had plenty of time but could go now and get there a bit early. On the way, as you may have guessed, someone had been planted as a moaning and distressed homeless person lying in the street. The seminarians who thought they were late ― all of whom we still have to assume were decent enough people ― went around, ignored and even stepped over the guy lying helpless in the street. The ones who thought they had a few minutes to spare, on the other hand, were far likelier to stop and help. It’s not that some were more righteous than the others; it’s just that some thought they had a few minutes to spare. A little thing made all the difference.Gladwell observes that some of the large character traits we assume are unified, coherent and integrated into one’s personality
― things like compassion, honesty, helpfulness, loyalty, trustworthiness ― these traits are actually much more situational, nuanced, and conditioned by "the power of context." A famous study of children who were given an opportunity to cheat on tests in a variety of circumstances found that a sizeable number would cheat sometimes and sometimes they wouldn’t ― girls vs. boys, good students vs. poor students ― all these made some difference but not a lot. What this says is that much of the hype about character education is baloney; human beings are more complicated than that and that true character education must pay close attention to the effect of the outside environment on our inner state, even moreso than upon what our inner state brings to the outside environment.Many of you may be familiar with the work of psychologist Judith Harris in her book The Nurture Assumption which makes the strong claim that peer influence and community influence are much more influential on our children than the influence of their own family. This is counter-intuitive and probably unpopular and it is also more true than most of us want to believe.
It’s unpopularly true as well that much of our emotional state
― whether we’re happy, sad or whatever ― depends on our outer environment, our context. I remember an old activist’s slogan that I heard from the folksinger Holly Near: "If you think that the world’s going to hell in a handbasket and there’s nothing much we can do that will make a difference, well, maybe you’re hanging out with the wrong people."If there’s a change you want to make in the world or in your own life, consider the Law of the Few. Who are the connectors that could help reach the tipping point? Think about what might make your message to the world or to yourself stickier. And, finally, take into account the Power of Context: what are the effects from the outside-in and the effects of environment on the message you’re trying to promote. Are you hanging out with the right people?
I did mention that Job Fair, didn’t I?
I’m going to end with a poem that is going to seem totally irrelevant. So it goes. It’s about little things and is titled "Hooking Rugs and Ice-Fishing" and is about someone who might have been in our lay pastoral visitors program
― someone who just wants to help someone else. The poem says:It is by way of the little things that we find the tipping point. It is the little things that make a big difference.