The Perpendicular Problem

In my last Post, I talked about the difference between the message of a prophet and a genius, how the first, according to Kirkegaard is pertuated in more of its totality, mystery, and essence, while the second, no matter how brilliant, still gets broken down and somehow dissolved.

Well, let's return to the problem of how a speaker considers that difference when deciding how to approach his or her audience.

Each potential speaker, whether in private or in public, considers how to connect with some sort of audience, of one person, a few, or a crowd. Picture the potential speaker as a vertical entity, with a point of view, images, and ideas. Other vertical entities exist in the form of the audience, irrespective of size.

What horizontal connects these verticals of speaker and listener?

In the last post, we talked about the insistence on "takeaways". This insistence is akin to the notion of repetition, or being "on message" for a political campaign. We have to say the magic word or phrase, over and over, like some sort of superstitious incantation, lest we step on the crack of the political sidewalk and break the campaign's back as a result.

This is the same approach that commercials use, bludgeoning listeners' minds, particularly in radio, with a repeated, and, as radio ad reps term it, "intrusive" message.

That notion of enforced repetition is the language and idiom of fascism.

Should we be surprised at the coarsening of political dialog, with the suspiciousness and anxiety that the wrong thing might be said and the right thing might not be repeated enough?

And, when politicians see a particular audience, because they've polled that audience exhaustively, they think they know what the audience's perpendicular is, and they think they know what horizontal will "connect" the speaker with those voters.

Add to these concerns of the horizontal and vertical, the problem of market segmentation. What's that?

Well, you love your very small music devices because you can control exactly what you listen to on it. Your choice rules the device. You've never had more choice in this regard, in these smaller and smaller, sliced pieces of media that bring you exactly what you want. Niches...market segmentation...advertisers love these phrases, and so do consumers, who are able to make individually imposed choices and intense satisfaction.

What a perpendicular feast!

But can voters get the same satisfaction in a democratic universe where compromise is a prized value? Are they more inclined or less inclined to get the whole in a world where they are used to getting exactly what they want as consumers?

Notice the perceived famine for the horizontal as a result.

Part of this phenomenon is the localized, messy, deconcentrated, and particularly American democracy, designed in its splendid quirkiness by the Founding Fathers who distrusted the public and each others.

Market Capitalism and democracy raise expectations.

Market segmentation and consumer choice challenge politicians to create a horizontal that can join their vertical to that of the voters. Who will do a better job in discovering or creating the better horizontal in the coming elections?

In short, who will bring "axis grease" and balance the vertical and horizontal most effectively?

Stay tuned.