No One Makes You Shop at Wal-Mart

In No One Makes You Shop at Wal-Mart: The Surprising Deceptions of Individual Choice, Tom Slee looks at how games theory and the theory of freedom of choice underlie most current economic thinking. Slee gives examples of how both liberal and conservative politicians in the English-speaking world hold up freedom of choice as an ideal to strive towards. But, says Slee, freedom of choice has some unrecognized effects, and he offers a wealth of entertaining examples of how freedom of choice in fact do not give us what we want.

In one example at the beginning of the book, Slee shows how the freedom to choose to shop at Wal-Mart is good for consumers at first, but then leads to less happiness for the consumer. Before Wal-Mart opens, a hypothetical person named Jack enjoys shopping at two downtown department stores: Jack gets reasonable selection and price, the variety of shopping at two stores, and the pleasure of a thriving downtown neighborhood that he gets to walk through every day on his way to work.

Then Wal-Mart opens, and now Jack’s life is lots better: now he has three stores to choose from and even better pricing because of the competition from Wal-Mart, even more variety since there are three stores to choose from and Wal-Mart is even bigger than either department store, and he still gets the pleasure of a thriving downtown. Obviously, Jack chooses to shop at Wal-Mart because it improves his life.

Improves his life, that is, until the two downtown department stores close because they can’t compete with Wal-Mart: now Jack has less variety than before Wal-Mart arrived, less variety, and little pleasure in the now-deserted downtown. Even though Jack made rational choices, Slee writes:

In the beginning Jack made a choice that he believed would make him happier, but now he finds that he is less happy…. His tale embodies the frustrating predicaments that many of us face. We have the right to make choices, and we make them sensibly, like Jack did, and yet that is not enough to lead to a happy outcome.

While we might word it a little differently, those of us in the religion business know all about this predicament. In the context of my own religious frame of reference, I might say something like: Tempting as it may be to do so, we can never make choices based simply on our own personal happiness — we always have to consider a bigger picture that includes our convenantal bonds with the wider community, particularly our covenantal bonds with those who are less fortunate than ourselves, and our covenantal bonds with (the highest ideals of humanity)(God) [pick at least one].

Slee’s book goes much deeper than the Wal-Mart example. In one of my favorite passages, Slee refers to the work of Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter:

Heath and Potter go on to make a provocative claim: that many of the supposedly anti-capitalist counterculture movements of the last 40 or 50 years have actually done more to promote capitalism than to oppose it. They argue that many on the “countercultural left” have misunderstood the nature of the consumerism they oppose, believing that consumerism is all about conformity (“little boxes made of ticky-tacky and they all look the same”) when in fact modern capitalism thrives on selling goods that allow people to distinguish themselves….

Here again, individual choice doesn’t necessarily lead to the end result desired by the individual making the choice. Here again, no surprise to anyone in the religion business, since we have long known that simply being countercultural isn’t enough.

I can’t resist mentioning that “freedom of choice” has become a watchword within my own denomination. The Unitarian Universalist Association has recently been trumpeting “freedom of choice” in the realm of placing ministers in congregations. We’ve gotten rid of the old system where denominational officials would send a short list of ministerial candidates to a congregation searching for a minister, based on a perceived match between ministers’ abilities and congregations’ needs. Now the whole process is open, and congregations can chase down whichever minister they choose, and ministers can apply for whichever congregation they please. Freedom of choice instead of some pseudo-bishop constraining choices. Everybody’s happy, right?

Wrong. Older, more experienced ministers now find that it’s harder to get a position, women are still not getting most of the highest-paid positions (even though they comprise half of all our ministers now), and I’d be willing to bet that ministers who are not white find it very difficult to find positions in the rich white suburbs. In a few years, we could find ourselves with increasing discrimination against women ministers, older ministers, and non-white ministers. Contrast this to what some United Methodist bishops are doing: deliberately placing white ministers in predominantly non-white congregations, and vice versa, in order to promote the religious values of true equality.

No One Makes You Shop at Wal-Mart: The Surprising Deceptions of Individual Choice could be a very useful book to promote reflection among people of faith who might want a little critical analysis of the seductive pull of “freedom of choice.”

Reading beside the window

By midnight the sounds from Rindge Avenue have died away: the shouts of the children coming home from their summer school, the roar of the city buses, rush hour traffic, people returning from wherever they went for the evening. The church bells on the Catholic church chime, then stillness. I can hear a faint nasal sound from the sky — peent peent — a nighthawk flying somwhere over the city in darkness.

Willie sez…

Biodiesel is a big deal in our household. Carol bought her used VW Beetle because it has one of Volkwagen’s excellent little TDI diesel engine powering it. When she first got the car four years ago, she had to drive to southern Maine or to Chelsea, Mass., to find biodiesel. Slowly, it has become more readily available, and now she can get it at Bursaw’s in Acton, Mass., not far from her co-author’s office.

But now biodiesel has really hit it big. Today’s New York Times reports that long-haul truckers are starting to buy biodiesel because of one very influential man.

[Mike Frybarger] filled up his truck’s 300-gallon tank at Carl’s Corner, a Texas truck stop that is the center of the nation’s growing biodiesel industry.

“I heard about biodiesel on XM Radio,” Mr. Frybarger said. “Bill Mack has Willie come on his show and actually talk to truckers. Before Willie got involved, biodiesel wasn’t well known. But once Willie got behind it, he brought biodiesel to the forefront.”

“Willie,” of course, is Willie Nelson. Seems that Willi’es wife, Annie, bought a VW Jetta with a TDI diesel engine for the same reason Carol bought her Beetle: so she could use biodiesel. The Nelsons live on Maui, where biodiesel has been more readily available than on the mainland, thanks to the efforts of Pacific Biodiesel, one of the earliest successful marketers of the fuel.

Biodiesel pollutes less than petrochemical-based fuels, it does not release carbon that’s been stored for eons, it supports agriculture, and best of all it now has the .

Fireworks

“Why does Providence have its fireworks on July 3?” someone asked. Three of us don’t live in Rhode Island, and two of us were new to the city. We were sitting around behind Sally’s house waiting for it to get dark.

“It’s because of the Bristol parade,” said one of the Providence residents. The other Providence described the parade to the rest of us.

Rob and Sally and I wound up talking together, first about how Sally found her house, and then about how she had been living a few blocks from the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. “I saw the first plane go in,” she said, and told us the whole story of that morning. She had worked in one of the towers, and many of her co-workers had died. But what she really remembered was how her neighborhood had rallied, and pulled together to support the relief workers.

The conversation drifted along from there, covering Providence’s ex-mayor Buddy (who’s getting our of prison soon), Warren Buffet (I was the only one who thought his philanthropy less than admirable), historic preservation (inevitable, given that there was an urban planner, two New Urbanists, and two owners of historic houses present), sailing (when Chris is around, sailing will come up in conversation) —

— and then the first rocket went up, and the fireworks began in earnest. As fireworks displays do, it started slowly, and gradually built up momentum. A particularly good one went off. “Baby!” shouted a man from the top porch of the triple decker up the hill from us. The fireworks were framed by the trees down the hill from Sally’s house. They lasted for a quarter of an hour, and built to a deafening climax that left little spots of light in my eyes, like looking at a camera’s flash. Boom! boom! boomboomboomboom!

A car alarm went off, and we all laughed: someone had predicted that would happen. The fireworks were over. “That finale was actually a little frightening,” said someone. It had been, and I fleetingly worried about returning veterans suffering post-traumatic stress disorder.

On the drive back up to Cambridge, Carol said that Norwegians celebrate their national independence with a children’s parade. We speculated on why fireworks became a tradition for our Independence Day. I mean, why do you set off fireworks to celebrate the signing of a document? Maybe we should celebrate by writing pamphlets on democracy and liberty. But we both agreed the Providence fireworks had been well worth watching. They were so good that Carol is now thinking she doesn’t need to fight the crowds to go see Boston’s fireworks.

Summer reading

A new category on this blog is “Summer reading,” short critical summaries of what I’m reading this summer. They’re classified under the general heading of “Meditations” because for me reading is an act of meditation. For some people, meditation involves emptying the mind, but for me religion has to include serious thinking. Since ancient times, Christians have done what is called “lectio divina,” or “divine reading,” reading the scriptures as a way of prayer. I’d like to think that “scriptures” can mean more than just the Bible; I’d include the scriptures and basic texts of all the world’s great religions, commentaries on those scripts, works of theology and philosophy, and really any poetry and prose that invites meditation or thinking, or that just calms me down. But if my reading notes bore you too much, you can just skip over them!

Religious Naturalism

One of the papers that’s on my summer reading list is “Religious Naturalism in a Unitarian Universalist Context,” a paper presented at General Assembly under the auspices of Collegium, June 23, 2006, by Jerome A. Stone [full text]. Here’s a short critical summary of my reading:–

“Naturalism,” according to Jerry Stone, is a “set of beliefs and attitudes that focuses on this world.” Stone says that naturalism rules out an “ontologically distinct and superior realm.” Religious naturalism, of course, concerns the religious aspects of this world “which can be appreciated within a naturalistic framework.” [p. 2]

Religious naturalism is of particular interest to Unitarian Universalists for two reasons. First, there are many people associated with Unitarianism or Unitarian Universalism who can be considered religious naturalists, including: Henry David Thoreau (raised Unitarian), Henry Nelson Weiman (theologian who joined a UU fellowship), Frederick May Eliot (president of the AUA), Stone himself, and others.

Secondly, religious naturalism is a theological position that encompasses both those who include the concept of God, and those who don’t, in their theologies. Many people think that if you believe in God you can’t find common theological ground with those who don’t spend time thinking about God, but religious naturalism proves this need not be so.

Stone identifies three basic types of religious naturalists, and his typology has to do with how different religious naturalists deal with the concept of God.

(1) The first type includes people like Henry Nelson Weiman, and they conceive of God as creative process within the world. Weiman was committed to common sense empirical inquiry and to scientific method. In the context of this kind of inquiry, Weiman wondered what allowed human beings to escape form evil (which we occasionally do manage to do). Weimen felt that individual human beings were not always capable of extricating themselves from evil, but that there was a transformative principle that could and did pull us out of evil. This he called “creative interchange” in his book The Source of Human Good; this he was willing to call by the name “God.”

(2) The second type of religious naturalist considers God to be the totality of the world, considered religiously. Stone gives Bernard Loomer as an example of this type of religious naturalist. In a 1987 essay, Loomer wrote: “If the one world, the experienceable world with its possibilities, is all the reality accessible to us, …then it follows that the being of God must be identified in some sense with the being of the world and its creatures.” Loomer, too, is committed to empirical inquiry as opposed to metaphysical speculation.

Stone believes Loomer coined the phrases “power with” and “power over” (the second phrase implies a relationship wherein one party has the power and uses it to dominate another party; the first phrase implies a relationship where the party with the power shares it with others, thus avoiding domination). Loomer also refers to an inter-connected or interdependent web of existence, and Loomer identifies this interdependent web with the concept of God. Thus, Loomer appears to be somewhat interested in creating a liberative theology.

(3) A third type of religious naturalism sees no need to use the concept or terminology of God. Stone himself is an example of this third type. He writes:

I hold that many events have what could be called a sacred aspect. I am not talking about a being, a separate mind or spirit. I am saying that some things, like justice and human dignity, and the creativity of the natural world, are sacred. This vision is very pluralistic. What degree of unity there is to this plurality I am reverently reluctant to say.

Stone is willing to allow for transcendence, but only relative transcendence. In other words, there isn’t anything that is absolutely transcendent, but in certain situations there are things that surely do feel transcendent. Stone says that if he were forced to choose between humanism and theism, he’d reluctantly choose humanism; but really he’s somewhere in between the two positions. Indeed, he has what he calls a “minimal definition of God” which he uses in ordinary conversation, when leading worship (he’s in fellowship as a Unitarian Universalist minister), and when talking with other “religious voices.” His minimal definition is as follows: “God is the sum total of the ecosystem, community and person empowering and demanding interactions in the universe.”

In order for me to be interested in a new theological position, I have to be able to understand how it will contribute to liberation. In this short paper, Stone does not adequately go into how religious naturalism might be applied to liberation (perhaps that will be a part of his book-in-process). But Bernard Loomer’s religious naturalism has definite implications for liberation; and Stone’s own religious naturalism could have as well. As attractive as I find religious naturalism to be, I can’t call myself a religious naturalist until I know more about how it will contribute to liberation.

What I did at General Assembly

The complete text of my General Assembly workshop, “Creating Great Content for UU Web Sites,” is now on my Web site, including written responses to questions asked by participants during the presentation — Link.

For my own reference, below are links to all GA events I reported for the UUA Web site. If you actually want to read some of them, the starred workshops were best.

  • Opening celebration: Link.
  • *1029 Capital Campaigns: If You Build it, They Will Come, But Will They Stay?: Link.
  • 2058 Why Here? Why Now? Why Us? The Urgency for White Ally Activism: Link.
  • 2084 Service of the Living Tradition: Link.
  • 3008 A Report on Youth Ministry in Our Association: Link.
  • *3062 Religious Naturalism: A New Theological Option (my report will be posted within a week, text of the presentation is up now): Link. Excellent, thought-provoking presentation.
  • *4012 Growing and Mid Size: Link. Excellent overview of growth issues.
  • 4044 Race, Youth, and General Assembly: What We’ve Learned: Link.
  • 4079 Defending Workers’ Rights: Innovations by Informal Worker Movements: Link.
  • 5002 Sunday Worship: Link.
  • 5011 Creating Great Content for Church Websites: Link.
  • 5048 Closing Ceremony: Link.

uuga06

On the train, 6/26-27

From notebook and memory:

Still dark when I get on the train at 4:30 a.m. As we roll across the Mississippi River, the sky has lightened, and the Gateway Arch catches glints from the east.

North of Springfield. Young man behind me answers his cell phone. Drowsily, I hear the end of the conversation, which to my New England ears sounds like this: “Yahp. Bea raw nair. Bah.” He’s saying: “Yeah. Be right there. ‘Bye.”

Downtown Chicago, 65 degrees, cool and cloudy, the locals wear windbreakers or light jackets. In the Art Institute, two young men look at a painting: “I like that. I don’t know why I like that, but I like that.” They walk away from me, still talking about the painting. They burst into laughter for some reason.

The train is late coming out of the yard. While we wait, Robert and I joke about waiting. He’s on the same sleeper as I, except when we get to the train our sleeper is gone (toilets don’t work), they give us a coach instead. We talk and figure out how to make the best of it. The sleeping car attendant gives us blankets: “Brand new,” he says; they’re still in plastic wrappers. “Keep them, you deserve something for this.”

Robert’s a rail fan and a model railroader. In the dining car, we talk about trains and model railroads.

The sun awakens me somewhere in Pennsylvania. Six hours of sleep.

At lunch, Robert and I eat together for the third time. The two other people at our table talk about being in St. Louis, and I figure out we’re coming from the same event, but I’m tired of talking about religion and move the conversation in other directions. Later: “Look at that,” I say, pointing to a beautifully restored locomotive. Robert looks and says, “An F-7. Nice job on the New York Central colors.” The couple is only politely interested.

I doze some more.

At Rochester, the train is stopped by federal agents from the Department of Immigration and Naturalization Service. We sit and wait. Robert and I and some others get out to stretch our legs. At the end of the platform, everyone from the last car is off the train, with their bags. They start herding people back on the train. As we pull out, I see a police car driving down the platform. Later I overhear: “They arrested two guys.”

The whole way through the Berkshires, I sit in the cafe car and talk with Bob from Chicago. We look at the scenery. We talk about snowmobiles, we talk a lot about how much we like Chicago, I point out a beaver lodge next to the track, we talk about Geneva, Illinois, where I lived last year, he mentions his wife who died a decade ago and his Navy buddy who has cancer, we talk about our favorite fishing expeditions. After an hour: “Nice talking.” “See you.”

It gets dark after Worcester. I doze. At last we make it to Boston.

Guerilla marketing for churches, pt. 6

More from Jay Conrad Levinson’s Guerilla Marketing Excellence, as adapted for church marketing. Part 1 of the series has a general introduction to Guerilla Marketing [Link].

*****

Strategic alliances, Guerilla Marketing’s golden rule #28:

To assure your marketing success in the future, become more oriented to cooperation than competition.

As the owner of a business that engages in marketing, you’re out there amidst the competition all by yourself. It costs more to operate that way. And you options, as a loner, are more limited. So is the service you are able to provide. This is not good in an era when customers require more than ever in the way of coddling and follow-through.

Recently, we’ve been seeing groups of Unitarian Universalist congregations band together to buy billboard space, underwriting on public radio, regional Web sites, and so on. So far, many of these cooperative ventures have been pretty successful. Slowly, we’re getting over the idea that your Unitarian Universalist congregation is a cut-throat competitor with all nearby Unitarian Universalist congregations (to say nothing of liberal Christian and Jewish congregations, the local Buddhist group, etc.).

But I don’t think we’re going far enough. Beyond Jay Conrad Levinson’s broad assertion that you have to cooperate to survive, there’s an added factor for us: Liberal religion has its back to the wall right now. If we keep trying to cut the throats of other liberal religious congregations and groups, we’re all going to die.

For small businesses, Jay Conrad Levinson offers a list of potential partners in strategic alliances. I’ve modified his list to apply to liberal congregations. Consider making strategic alliances between your congregation and these groups:

  • Denominational and district authorities
  • Other Unitarian Universalist congregations in your area
  • Unitarian Universalist congregations outside your area
  • Other liberal religious groups
  • Other churches, synagogues, and places of worship on your street
  • Huge national organizations
  • Private individuals in your community
  • Your staff
  • Businesses and banks in your community

How can you make alliances with these persons and groups on the above list? Use this guiding principle:

In the book Guerilla Financing, co-authored by Bruce Blechman and me,… we define partnerism as “combining all the necessary resources to make a business successful.” A key point we stress is that you must consider everyone you deal with on a business basis as your partner — as a potential ally for a strategic alliance.

I’ve started thinking this way, and here’s what I have done so far:

(1) My denomination, the Unitarian Universalist Association, wants to build strategic alliances with congregations to promote growth, and they do this by offering lots of resources, so I take them up on their offers. Maybe what they have to offer isn’t exactly what I’d like to use, but I can’t afford to turn down the high-quality ad materials they offer at cost. Like the big banner we bought from them for $100 that says “Civil Marriage is a Civil Right” — if we got our own banner made, it would cost twice that.

(2) We’re beginning to cooperate with the Unitarian Universalist congregation in the next town as we plan advertising. In the past, the two congregations saw each other as competitors. Building an alliance helps us see how we can pool resources — for example, we’re working together on a campus outreach program at UMass Dartmouth, and already that strategic alliance has raised the visibility for both of us in the community.

(3) Recently, I heard from Donnis, who is a member of a Unitarian Universalist fellowship in Puerto Rico. She pointed out that their Spanish-language Web site gets thousands of hits from all over North America. She asks rhetorically: Why doesn’t every Unitarian Universalist Web site put a prominent link on their Web site to Unitarian Universalist Spanish-language materials [link]? So what if you can’t offer much to Spanish-speaking people in your area — you’ll still build additional credibility in your community, which can only benefit you.

(4) I’ve just begun talking with other liberal religious groups in our immediate neighborhood. We’ve just begun to explore how we can pool our resources to promote liberal religion in our area. With a big evangelical mega-church going in just a few miles away, we’re going to have to build alliances just in order to get our liberal religious message out in the community.

OK, now it’s your turn. How are you building strategic alliances? I’d especially like to hear from people who have organized successful regional ad campaigns — but feel free to share anything you want.