The Backstory, or I'm a Fraud, But I'm an Honest Fraud

[featherynscale]

Thanks to everyone who filled out my poll yesterday. The backstory on that is this: at the PSD conference, I went to a presentation called Radical Hospitality. Radical Hospitality is the name of a for-sale workshop that you can have certified consultants come out and do with your congregation, to teach the congregation how to be welcoming to visitors and, to a lesser extent, how to care for the existing membership. The goal of all of this is, of course, to get more people to become UUs, which is not a terrible goal.

It was, however, a fairly terrible presentation. I will not recount the sins of the presentation, but will instead share my single biggest WTF moment.

The presenter was espousing the philosophy that in order to be welcoming to and supportive of visitors to our churches, we must first understand why people visit churches. She went on to say that a recent study had revealed that 50% of Americans say that they have either only one person in their lives, or nobody at all, with whom they can have deep, meaningful conversations, and that 20(something) percent said they had nobody at all. Of course, there was no citation to go with this data point, so I can't discover anything further about it (like how the study defined deep, meaningful conversation, or who the sample set was, or how the question was phrased, or who sponsored the research or anything). So I contented myself with going, "I bet that's bullshit."

She went on to say that this was why people came to churches, because they were so terribly lonely. I wasn't sure that necessarily followed, but I was willing to ride along with it to see where it went. She then lamented the fact that it was now easier to communicate with people electronically than ever before, and that this ability to email and post and so on was replacing "real connection", rendering people unable to have the kind of conversations they desperately need to have.

In fact, I heard some variant of "OH NOES THE INTERNETZ ARE DESTROYING ABILITY TO COMMUNICATE MEANINGFULLY" about four times over the course of the conference, from different speakers. Something lit up in my tiny brain at this point, because the speaker would almost inevitably go on to lament the fact that the denomination was unable to attract younger people in the quantities we would like to. I'm thinking the Luddite attitude might have something to do with that, no?

So anyway, in reaction to that, I had to ask you guys. Of course, I am stacking the deck in favor of people who feel socially connected and able to have deep conversation through electronic communications channels by taking a self-selecting sample from a social networking site, but hey. I'm fully aware of that. Part of the point of the exercise was to reassure myself that you were all still out there. :)

Comments

[zylch.livejournal.com]

Sure, loneliness might be a reason for coming to church. Kid you not, it's definitely a reason that some folks come to a customer-service oriented environment like WFM. They may not get deep, meaningful conversation, but they at least get friendly, helpful strangers.

[gamera-spinning.livejournal.com]

Y'know, murdering someone used to be so personal, you'd have to walk right up to them and then insert a bayonett or knife or (insert hand-to-hand weapon of choice). Or bludgeon them to death with a flail or mace. That was a workout, but it was personal.

Now, the kids with their guns and tanks and fighter jets and bombs and napalm and neurotoxins. They wouldn't know the difference between a sap that you bludgeon someone into unconsciousness with from the sap in a maple tree.

[gamera-spinning.livejournal.com]

I like the words 'radical hospitality' strictly in the absurd way it could be applied to customer service.

Imagine showing up at a hotel (probably in Vegas) that promised 'radical hospitality'. What would that entail? Room service alone would be something to see: "This is Mr. Maxwell in Rm. 218, and I'd like to see a bear wrestle a midget in front of me, and then the winner fucks the loser. Oh, and send up another magnum of champagne in the next twenty minutes or I'm going to urinate on the drapes."

You could only do that in a place where you felt at home.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

There are probably hotels in Vegas now where one could have a similar experience, provided that one was rolling enough cash out to that hotel.

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas (unless you're worth blackmailing)

[gamera-spinning.livejournal.com]

I think you're probably right.

[liquidfun.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough I'm one of those people who find it very hard to have deep, meaningful conversation without hearing and speaking directly to another person. As a computer geek people might think I would use e-mail or IM for such, but I don't and on the few occasions where I've tried, it failed miserably. Nuances of tone are important to me in such discussions and there's a very small percentage of people who write well enough to communicate those nuances in a letter ... granted, those few who CAN do so are almost invaluable as then you have a lasting record of their thoughts.

I'm definitely NOT one of those people.

I was really surprised by two things in yesterday's poll.

1) There's an awful lot of people who are at least fairly lonely. This backs up the point from the seminar.

2) People have what they consider deep, meaningful conversations with a whole lot more people than I would have guessed. That includes me. I had to stop and actually count off names and was surprised that I hit seven. I didn't really think my circle of trusted friends was large enough to support that, but apparently I was wrong. It's no wonder I find my time disappearing all over the place ...

[rougewench.livejournal.com]

I think your points one and two actually illustrate that the number of deep meaningful conversations a person has does not really impact whether or not they feel lonely.


D.

[liquidfun.livejournal.com]

I and several of my co-workers perform statistical analysis on data all the time, then turn over results to our consultants to support their advice to our clients ... reigning in the consultants wildly over-enthusiastic interpretations of the analysis is a strong contender for what our main job is.

I'm going to make some of those wildly unsupported leaps of illogic that I chastise our consultants for and propose:

• Deep, meaningful conversation makes me people lonely.


• Lonely people tend to have more deep, meaningful conversations, possibly by seeking them.


• Lonely people tend to view the conversations as more meaningful than other people would consider them.


• Lonely people have more time for deep thoughts, therefore their conversations tend to be more meaningful.


• Most people shun those who have deep, meaningful conversations, making those people lonely.

Jumping to conclusions is kind of fun!

[rfunk.livejournal.com]

I agree entirely. I use electronic textual communication all the time, but not for conversations with subtlety and nuance. Text is great for conveying certain types of details, but horrible for conveying emotion or just having a sensitive conversation.

(The best text-only medium I've ever used for such conversations was the Unix "talk" program, which is like IM except you see each character as it's typed, and it's possible for both people to type at the same time.)


I was also surprised at the loneliness numbers, but I don't see any reason to think that those electronic textual media are making people lonely or destroying anyone's ability to communicate meaningfully, just as in a previous age writing letters didn't do that.

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

I remember talk. You really did get a bit more nuance by watching where the person paused/erased in their typing...

[rfunk.livejournal.com]

Yes! Not to mention seeing a long response in real time (just like phone or in-person), instead of waiting until they've written it all.

[chayam.livejournal.com]

Yes, I have had and do have meaningful relationships online, so much so that the line between "online" friends and "real life" friends blurred long ago. The thing is, "online" people are real people (gasp)! Just like writing a letter or making a phone call, electronic communication is communication.

Electronic relationships have played a huge and very important part in my life.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

"online" people are real people (gasp)!
I have espoused this opinion on many occasions. Sometimes people, upon hearing it and thinking about it, say, "Oh, yeah, I guess you're right". But usually, the person I'm saying it to just looks at me pityingly and expresses some patronizing opinion about my competence or sanity.