Screw the majority
Walt Disney:
When I started on Disneyland, my wife used to say, ‘But why do you want to build an amusement park? They’re so dirty.’ I told her that was just the point; mine wouldn’t be.
I love that quote; it shows such depth of personality and drive. I think the attitude really exemplifies the American spirit — e.g., “screw everything, I’m going to do it RIGHT.” It is pretty much the American Grail, the cowboy in everyone. It is what allowed us to pull ourselves up by our collective bootstraps.
So this is clearly one of the main tenets of innovation: the ability to see something as it should be. Of course, doing so, by definition, seems abrasive to others and almost certainly ruffles feathers. Disney’s own wife was skeptical of his plans; think what other people’s reactions were. The computer-buying public nearly revolted when Apple ditched the floppy disk, and they’re now shaking their torches and pitchforks over Flash. Change sucks; radical change inspires revolutions.
What’s embedded in the sentiment, and what I think is at the root of the hostile reaction, is that what most people think is right isn’t always right. What the majority thinks is best sometimes turns out to be wrong. And so the cowboy has to stand up to the majority and tell them they’re wrong. That’s a tough scenario … no wonder it rarely happens.
It is interesting that, despite being infrequent, standing up to the majority seems to happen with regularity in America … in a place where the majority is always quite sure of itself (they choose the nation’s leader, after all, why shouldn’t they feel important?). One would figure it would be easier to stand up to a pliant majority … i.e., that innovation would be more easily accomplished elsewhere.
Or perhaps it is because the majority is so confident that it can produce such visionaries, people who believe in what they think is true, despite external pressure. I like that answer better.
So that’s a theory worth testing … do free societies, in which the populace is enabled and thus confident in its own abilities, innovate more frequently than repressed societies? Food for further thought.
[May 08 Edit: shortened title]
