Embrace The Islands

Although there are many ways to think of what makes up society, it is helpful to think of society being divided into two sections - the mainland and the islands. The mainland is the more cautious part that takes longer to adopt ideas or change their mind on issues, and the islands are the radical, liberal-minded parts that tend to be quick to embrace new ideas. People with mainland-values have a proclivity for order, rules, and traditions, while islanders, the creatives of a society, have an affinity for adventure, radical ideas, and a rejection of the status quo. For societal cohesion or progress, we have to embrace both parts of society. The mainland helps us to stay grounded in the lessons of our past, while the islands lead us into a bright and prosperous future. 

As society, we cannot have one without the other, nor live in a world of extremist propagation of one over the other. There is a need to embrace radical ideas because they will eventually be widely accepted, if and when, through the test of time, they move from conceptual abstraction to pragmatic viability. The difficult  part for those who live on the island: the weirdos, inventors, radical thinkers, and anarchists, is that their ideas need to be tempered by the mainland thinkers who do not believe in magic. The islanders need to know that laws, for the most part, are made for our protection, and not limitation. The risk takers need the actuaries to come up with the perfect insurance policy, so that everything isn’t lost. We have to accept the truth, that when left to our own devices, we can be blind to the complete picture. 

The mainland needs to give the island a safe space to experiment. Creative people need the funding that is provided by the more technical individuals of our society. This means that creative people need to understand the laws and values that govern the mainland. The islanders cannot, for a moment, fall into the trap of thinking that they cannot learn anything of value from the mainland. It is easier to see the collaboration of artistic and scientific people in the arts, but most do not seem to understand the impact that creativity plays in scientific or technological pursuits. Every product on the shelf is made by individuals from both the mainland and the island. All products are influenced by the work of both precision and nuance, detail and exploration. 

The island has to be patient with the mainland. They need to understand that the mainland does not see what the islanders see. The people on the mainland need to indulge the islanders and trust that some of those radical ideas will turn into something useful. The islanders need to understand that not every idea is a gem and that rejection isn’t always personal. Creativity is a delicate pursuit which leaves the creator feeling very attached to their ideas. The mainland can help weed out the bad ideas or ideas that society is not ready to explore. The island needs to keep working on new ideas and not get attached to bad ideas, embracing the prolific nature of creativity and imagination. The reluctance to discard a bad idea comes when the islanders have based their identity on the ideas or connected an idea to a worldview. 

None of the sections, mainland or island, should engineer society as a whole, on their own. They should work on the implementation of ideas instead of the adoption of the ideas. The mainland should not be concerned when the island rejects their ideas, and vice versa, but they should respect each other’s need to survive; knowing that society needs them both. The media should play the role that it claims to be designed for, which is holding a mirror up to society. The media is a bad actor, especially social media, because it has become an instrument for those who are driven by greed. These people may not be after money, they may be after winning at all cost. Greed is a byproduct of never fully being satisfied. 

We can have a better society when we embrace the island, and the mainland. We have to allow the abstract thinkers to create the concept, the technicians to fabricate the product, the sales and marketing teams to sell it, and the consumer to purchase it. We all need each other! We can debate all day about the proportions of art versus science, but we should all know that both must  exist. Societies that do not embrace the islands eventually see decay and those that reject the mainland descend into anarchy. The mainland tends to love war with the outside while the islands tend to love internal conflict. We can dissuade both decay and anarchy, by embracing the islands and the mainland  through meritocracy.