T: The Late Majority probably owns a bike but it stays in the garage for most of the year. They move to the biggest house they can afford out in the burbs and oppose light rail because possible tax increase aren’t justified in their view.
F: The Late Majority is satisfied shopping at mainstream chain store groceries such as Rosauers and Safeway. They may, however, take a trip to the Grocery Outlet when preparing for a large meal or block party BBQ.
M: Mainstream commercial radio is par for the course in the Late Majority car. These are the folks averaging four hours of television a day who can quote their favorite programs in the break room the next morning. Newsprint subscriptions are rare, but disaster stories and scandal trial results are of special interest.
R: The Late Majority attends Spokane Indians baseball games as a family tradition, and may buy tickets to an event at the Arena every once in awhile.
C: Volunteering habits of the Late Majority might be donating to Coats 4 Kids, or serving at Union Gospel Mission‘s soup kitchen once a year. This behavior is usually motivated by church involvement if it occurs at all. Some of these folks vote, but the majority often forget or don’t care.
- Read original post The 5 Types here.
Notice the lack of link-worthy items in this description?
4 responses so far ↓
To start with, I like the general aims of this blog, and I am in favor of a more localized, sustainable way of life, from food to transportation to media.
But I have concerns about this series of posts. Specifically, its insulting stereotypes and the use of social scientific theory in its premise.
I see nothing encouraging in the use of descriptions such as, “These are the folks averaging four hours of television a day who can quote their favorite programs in the break room the next morning” for the late majority. This sounds insulting after laudatory passages such as in the “Innovators” post. And I didn’t realize taking in a baseball game was something that is holding Spokane back.
Even if your audience isn’t offended by being lumped into arbitrary categories, I think it’s odd to cast this exercise under a social scientific umbrella. Bell curves such as the one you illustrated earlier are based, of course, upon collected data. To use a published theory as the basis for a series of off-the-cuff generalizations is not only silly, it’s misleading.
Even if the rhetorical purpose here is casual — to envision a Spokane where everybody shifted one category over — I think you’re barking loudly up a nonconstructive tree. Why not use this space and your energy to talk about how to encourage and spread the practices and behaviors under the earlier categories instead of worrying about where imaginary people fit into a rigid caste system?
I have to agree with response below. This is an opinion piece and sounds so much like when I talk with extremists on the far left or right. I feel uncomfortable with this and am wondering if you are doing this intentionally to spotlight the human tendency to pigeon-hole those we know nothing or little about? Or do you really believe that everyone around you is so easily dissected? Have you truly put yourself up to your own standards of greatness here?
To start I think it is a complete overreaction to assert that I’m worried about fitting people into a “rigid caste system”. These are nothing more than descriptive stereotypes outlined to spark and advance conversation.
It should be obvious that no one person or group of people could ever be accurately described by these associations. A person might be “Innovative” in one aspect of their life, and “Laggard” in another. A single person could easily encompass multiple “types” even within the same area of behavior. The way things are grouped here I automatically span the first three types myself!
I appreciate that this blog is taken seriously, but you have read WAY too far into the intent of these posts and have managed to decimate a straw woman in the process. To suggest that I think baseball is “holding Spokane back” is absurd. Nowhere do I come even close to making such a claim.
As a trained scientist I find it confusing you think I have “mislead” readers by discussing the Diffusion of Innovations theory. Nowhere do I claim to be doing anything more than making off-the-cuff generalizations. It should be clear that this is an irreverent attempt to advance our understanding of local cultural dynamics. It is not meant to be deterministic, scientific, proscriptive or offensive.
Exploring how attitudes, beliefs and actions relate to each other and what that means for a more localized and sustainable lifestyle is itself a constructive exercise. Identifying “Innovative” activities is an easy way to encourage people to practice them. A lot of people in Spokane have never even heard of Fresh Abundance or KYRS, and that is precisely why I choose to link to them here.
Thanks for your concern about how I spend my time. I’ll be sure to keep my comment responses to a minimum from here on out.
Re: “greatness”
Just because one person leads a lifestyle that has a less of an environmental impact or is more supportive of community assets than others does not mean they are a better or more moral person.
Being born and raised in Spokane I have met uncountable numbers of really fantastic people that honestly haven’t thought about the issues. The question of their behavior has never been posed to them because they are enmeshed in a static and homogeneous culture. I don’t blame them for this and neither should anyone else. They are not to be held responsible for the entirety of their context and its grip on their lifestyle. This is why it is important for anyone who sees the challenges ahead to “evangelize” new ways of thinking and doing effectively.
The real question should be how can we accelerate the speed at which culture change occurs? The Spovangelist believes this is the defining question of our age, and to treat it requires some basis for understanding what we’re working with. Thus you have the “uncomfortable” description of real behaviors that are regularly practiced by a sizable portion of our city’s people.