This one from the wife: Are we a movement that attracts more outsiders than most? Or as frequent commenter 4alarm puts it, are we a nerd party?
« And our top commentators are…
» Write the web ad: “Come join the UU freakshow!”
« And our top commentators are…
» Write the web ad: “Come join the UU freakshow!”
» Write the web ad: “Come join the UU freakshow!”
nerd-party, UU, welcome
Are UUs freaks and geeks?
08.18.07 | 14 Comments
14 Comments
« And our top commentators are…
» Write the web ad: “Come join the UU freakshow!”
Both. . .
I would say introverts and maybe neurotics, but not necessarily outsiders. Almost every UU I know is very involved in stuff outside the church.
Sure UUs are involved in stuff outside church… stuff like the local comic book collecting club and bird watchers of America society.
I am convinced that almost all UUs are the biggest bunch of nerds on the planet. We’re just a click above Star Trek conventioneers and Dungeons & Dragons aficionados.
I went to GA a few years ago and a buddy of mine who was there with me looked around on our first day and said, “wow… we’re a motley bunch aren’t we.” He said this coincidently as a few fellas walked by sporting black socks hiked almost to the knees with sandles and shorts and another wearing a signature nerd pocket protector.
Just my 2 cents.
and if you will excuse me… I must retire to the nerdatorium. :)
The smaller the religion is in numbers, the more likely that it attracts only a specific segment of the social spectrum. UUism is a small religion (not tiny, but small). When there are 80 million UUs, then we will be typologically diverse.
We’re not nearly as nerdy as Mensa. We’re also more nearly emotionally normal than Mensa. But we do seem to have a lot of shy or socially disabled persons. Probably because of our high average IQ — in this culture high IQ is a social handicap, so bright kids don’t get as much social practice to learn how to interact with others effectively as average kids do.
Seems like there are a number of slightly different issues here. First, are there more outsiders/nerds in UUism than in the general population? Based on my observations I would say yes, but it’s hard to say for sure without rigorous data. Second, if there are more, why are there more? Is it that we attract such people? I.e. is UUism appealing to people who are outsiders/nerds? Or is it that we attract certain types of people who also happen to be outsiders/nerds? I.e. is UUism appealing to personality types/subcultures that happen to also include a higher than average number of outsiders/nerds, making it a less direct effect?
We also have to think of the people who are raised as UUs. Does UUism have a tendency to make us into outsiders/nerds? For that matter, once someone joins UUism, are they thereby more likely to become an outsider/nerd?
Clearly we need some major grant money to get to the bottom of this.
Lacking such a grant, I’ll just say that it seems like a combination of all of the above. We are attractive to outsiders because we’re self-consciously against the mainstream in certain ways and far more tolerant of difference than many groups (I don’t suggest this tolerance is absolute in either theory or practice). We are attractive to the intelligentsia (regardless of one’s economic class location) because of our emphasis on reason and fondness for debate, discussion, and intellectual stimulation–and there are plenty of nerdy intelligentsia types. People raised as UUs are to some degree outsiders, brought up in a tradition shared by only a few hundred thousand of their peers; certainly I was aware from an early age that there was a degree of distance between the kids in my Sunday School class and the other kids on the playground. Raised in such an intellectual climate, we’re also at risk of becoming nerds. And people who join the UU subculture are outside the mainstream and encouraged toward radical self-exploration, which makes them prone to increases in outsiderness and potentially nerdiness.
Maybe UU churches should try marketing themselves with banners that say “Come join the freakshow!”
Last week, I attended a UU service; they had Joys and Concerns. Three folks shared. Two of them said harsh things about Republicans. This in strongly Republican area. I’m a centrist, tilting slightly Democrat. But I was appalled; I had voted for the Republican governor they were dissing.
I think UU attracts seekers from across the spectrum. We just have ways of disinviting those who aren’t sufficiently counter-cultural.
Well, because this is in reference to one of my favorite TV shows ever I would say yes. We are Freaks and Geeks, probably more Geek then Freak. We are also Square Pegs (the lovely start of SJP’s TV career). My family jokes that sometimes we are the Church of the Frozen People which is in reference to our inability to show any kind of emotion or sometimes care. Oh… yes we are GEEKS!
When I add together Jaume’s and Jeff’s comments, I start to wonder if we should be targeting freak-and-geekdom. I just put up a new post to play with the idea.
You have started writing one of my own long-delayed blog posts for me! At the 2006 General Assembly, I was having drinks with some friends when we came up with the observation that the people who identify most strongly with Unitarian Universalism shared the common experience of having been dorks in high school. I call it the High School Dork Theory of UU Affiliation.
A couple caveats: There are lots of members of UU churches that this theory doesn’t fit, but I suspect they’re more often found in the largest or oldest congregations, places where the UU counterculture vibe is less dominant. I also suspect that those less-dorky members identify more with their local congregation than with the denominational Ism. General Assembly-goers, however, fit the profile in spades.
I first stumbled onto this theory when leading a Coming of Age program for ninth graders at a large UU congregation in the Boston suburbs. Each year we’d show “The Breakfast Club” at the beginning of the program and talk about high school cliques and personal integrity. We asked the kids which character they identified with the most. Each year, at least one kid identified with each of the characters (although Andy the Rebel, played by Emilio Estevez, was somewhat rare). But all of the adult mentors, year after year, identified with Brian the Nerd (Anthony Michael Hall) and Allison (Ally Sheedy). In other words, UU parents might raise jocks and princesses, rebels, nerds, and loners, but only the nerds and loners stay with UUism. And I felt quite confident that the kids who identified more with the jock and the princess would not remain actively UU in adulthood, though they were wonderful in every way.
One thing I’ve long wondered: In my UU young adult experience, the college majors of most of my UU friends tended strongly towards the practical sciences and nouveau majors like environmental studies, peace studies, and queer studies. In the large young adult group I founded at the University of Utah, I was the only English major; we attracted lots of computer scientists but very few humanities majors. Which makes me think that we’re capturing a very tiny slice of the nerd market. Time to diversify!
I actually mentioned this theory to a group of senior UUA staff last year. Someone asked how it could be squared with the high socioeconomic characteristics of UUA church members. (A somewhat different group than self-identified UUs, who may come up a little farther down the scale.) I’d call it the revenge of the nerds: People who have ended up financially well-off, but who still remember being uncool.
You know, I think you’ve got a point, Philocrites, that our parents are typically freaky and our kids are more diverse. In my home congregation, we’re trying to design an LFD curriculum that serves all kinds of kids, not just the geeky. As we expand our ministry, we attract non-geeky people in droves.
I think we may have some geeky congregations, but that identifying as intentionally square pegs is bad for our denomination as a whole. Don’t we have a wider love? Don’t we have a message for everyone? Isn’t that the whole point of Universalism? So we should try to serve all kinds of people, not just the brainy loners.
LOL i LOVE the breakfast club analogy, philocrites. man, i love that ally sheedy. i wonder how many of those UU adults get really upset at the end when molly ringwald makes her “pretty,” and she loses her outsider punk rock awesomeness. i hate that part. heh. i bet others do to. we are Different, and we like it that way. :)
on my nerd party assessment, i think that in addition to the social misfit sense of the term “nerd,” UUism itself is attractive to folks who are nerds — most of us, in some manner or another, are researchers by nature.
we want and love having tons of information, and UUism gives it to us. not just one Book — as many as you want! i mean, where else would you go to a sermon that sounded like it came out of a freakin’ academic journal? my husband, in fact, dislikes coming to the services because he feels intellectually inadequate.
i think UUism is attractive to people who experience the spiritual through their nerdiness, religion as an academic pursuit…(we are the most highly educated denomination in the US also, right?)
my chief criticism is that we don’t push ourselves and each other to stop the endless cycle of research and information gathering and actually DO something. UUs have a tendency to view thinking about things as a way of acting in the world. we need to get out of our heads a lot more. because if we are really going to be the people the world needs, we need to live our spiritual lives with our heads, hearts and hands.
okay, haven’t read the new post about marketing to freaks yet, just had to get that out.
chutney, we should totally start a UU discussion board called nUUrdparty. :P
I’ve used my own UU church as a kind of sanctuary from the rest of the world. But as I’ve been contemplating it, I wonder if I did myself a grave disservice by only surrounding myself with my fellow freaks and geeks.
I feel as though I’ve used that almost like a drug. I was around like minded neurotics, introverts, and malcontents–and among them I felt at home. But this did not teach me how to interact with the average person out there. Nor did it teach me how to build social skills.
It’s always been tough for me to relate to the more average sorts of people out there. It’s been a challenge to put myself around a cross-section of humans rather than people like me. But I’ve come to understand that I cannot make progress unless I force myself to be around most people…and most people are not Unitarians. They’re theists and Christians by default.
It’s like a train wreck…
I know I shouldn’t stare but I couldn’t help but keep looking as the season premier of Beauty and the Geek aired. I don’t normally watch tv. It’s more like background noise that I just kinda listen to as I do other things aro…