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A Ten Point Rant About Why Ranting Leads to Reality – or @)!@

Larry Quick Dec 1st 2008

1. A rant is defined in the dictionary as: to speak or shout out loud at length in a wild, impassioned way.

2. I would assert that ALL new thinking and doing starts with some kind of rant -and from that rant comes reality.

3. When Kennedy asserted on May 26th 1961 ‘……. “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth” - that was a considered by many as a rant - and a gross, unsubstantiated and self-opinionated rant at that, that caused mayhem, angst and uncertainty for even his true believers.

4. Rants can be very useful when intended to provoke, engage, align and even gain commitment to all sorts of ideas, from all sorts of people. Especially those ideas in their infancy, put to a diverse and multi-disciplined network of people to provide feedback, and move the idea toward its next stage of growth, or death.

5. JFK’s ‘man on the moon’ idea was not just about the act of putting a man on the moon. In fact, the main reason for doing it was to lay a foundational platform for inspiration and transformation, and to provoke a conversation amongst a local and global network that became enabled and empowered to move a topic or set of topics forward into mainstream thinking, and doing. A relatively simple speech asserting an outrageous, ‘out there idea’ of a ‘man on the moon’ that welded the American people and the West together at a time of fragmentation and general malaise at the state of their world (sound familiar?).

Incidentally, Gandhi was a master of the rant, so was Hitler, Churchill and Curtin. And so is Barack Obama. Polies are maybe the original professional ranters, and it is what sets them apart from most other professions except the advertising industry and sports fans. And the rant, is a child’s best tool for getting noticed and getting what they want. From my direct experience from five great kids, they got both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ with the rant. I even use it to get chocolate, to buy books, and with my wife Helen to get extended trips away from home (again - sound familiar?).

6. In the case of global change for good, a rant begins a journey and cognitive process that inspires and fires across synapses, through me, from me to you, to simple social networks, to complex diffusion and repositories of truth, to the facts of life and what we do in every day life. From the what might be of source thinking and thinkers, to the framing of ideas and propositions by conceptual thinking and thinkers, to the concrete thinker-doers who clarify and bring structure to the idea. To the action oriented initiators and completers who do the projects and make the idea all come to be. And along the way, another rant from that first rant in action, and the process spreads an idea virus (cite Seth Godin) of potentially contagion proportion.

The person doing the ranting does not necessarily need to make it happen. Gandhi had Nehru to take a rant and operationalize it. John had Bobby. John and Paul had each other, and George and Ringo. The boys had George Martin, and the 60’s had the Beatles, psychedelia, Andy, JFK, Martin Luther King and my Mum - all ranting in their own way - and the world was laid bare for change. And, Neil Armstrong finally stepped out of Eagle - a spacecraft never to be, and onto the Sea of Tranquility, on July 21st 1969, at 0256 GMT, just over eight years since JFK’s initial rant, and declared as he put his left foot down: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”. And the whole world was changed, and we all remember the day, and we all have our own personal rant of what and why it changed you, me, and our world.

7. Rants aren’t NOT meant to be ‘right’ or provide certainty. On the contrary. Good rants are intended to up-end conventional wisdom – especially in unconventional times – and their expression is a ‘revolution of conscious thought and will’ that comes from the future, and not from the past - hence there is little base for substantiation. Think about it. How could Kennedy accurately identify the need for a man on the moon? Sure, he did have some support in the idea that if the USA didn’t do it, the USSR would become an expanded threat. But that argument was relatively shallow when compared with the real reasons that have unfolded since the space race matured. Just look at the immense role that space travel has played in the development of technology and humanity’s view of and relationship with our world and planet. Think about Churchill’s rant when he stated ‘we will fight them on the beaches” as an expression of will when ALL of the evidence was absolutely contrary to the immediate reality. What a binding influence and self-proclaiming belief that even Hitler’s best rant couldn’t beat!.

8. The choice for people of whether the rant makes sense to pursue, is a very personal choice and framed by a individual’s profession/discipline, way of thinking, experience and legacy investment in life.

People can get very upset if you indicate that they may be thinking incorrectly. That their frame of reference is incorrect. And the javculazsr f spelling or unusual language or delivery or protocol is new or outside of an ‘acceptable vocabulary’. This can provoke a ‘no jargon here please’ defence of conventional thinking and doing – ‘Internet, Google, Ford, Levis and teenager are not in the dictionary’ – so what the hell do you mean by idgeflop?? (that should have been Idegflop with a capital I– get it right!)

And direction? This rant gives us no direct course of action or certainty – we will have none of that! We know we can’t predict the future – but please, when talking about tomorrow, please make it sound like today!

Or in their world, the ranter has no credibility or right to deliver such a message! And dear me, the girl is a girl, and hasn’t been to Oxford, Harvard or even Byford!

And, that if they are to take on thinking about the rant, they have to invest in new thinking and behaviour - ouch!! We’ll have none of that here …… this is a local shop for local people@)!@

And if you swear while saying it (oh my gGod!) – well farque you! And don’t ever mention that ‘gG’ word again.

9. For others the rant can be a joy - maybe because they are less invested in the change being suggested in the rant, or, they are open, wholesighted and whole systems thinkers having the foresight to be proactive in transformation and working in a flow with changing conditions and sensing there may be new value in what the rant is proposing (irrespective of the way it is delivered). Or, they simply don’t have a choice - what they are currently doing isn’t working.

Whatever …… some people just LOVE to get involved in the rant. Whether episodic or serial transformers, the mere act of playing outside their comfort zone and tinkering with thinking is just the ‘beez knees’. This is especially so if they are experienced in thought fora, the ‘creative process’, innovation or being advocates and initiators of change. Demos, the excellent UK-based think tank uses ranting all the time - a lot of their great stuff is put out as rants. Check out the Demos Friday Rant - http://www.demos.co.uk/search/newsearch. At a more ground level view - ‘Yes We Can’ came from a serial ranter – as was “I Want to Become President” written by most third graders in history, including Barack, and me.

10. Ranting and being involved as a ranter is CRITICAL for new ideas to breakthrough the fog of fixed thinking – speaking over the ‘fappers fapping’ (fixed action patterns) at the thought of something new - especially in times of extraordinary change. A rant can be used as a subtle nudge for value adding to what is a continuous change to ‘industry standard’, or for an explosive discontinuous change revolution that reorients not only industry standard capability, but the value propositions that have concreted such capability into conventional wisdom. Whether a continuity or a discontinuity depends upon the severity of the immediate and emergent conditions that frame the rant.

In making his man on the moon speech Kennedy was highly provocative, and his message was disorienting and discontinuous to many. Very few people understood it. Much less were engaged and aligned with the idea, and relatively none were committed to action in this area - even those with the technical experience who were needed to make it a reality. To top it off, John was asking for more money to do it, at a time when cash was tight.

He was also breaking with convention in when these types of rants were delivered. The speech was delivered as a special message to the US congress on urgent national needs, and he opened it by stating: “The Constitution imposes upon me the obligation to “from time to time give to the Congress information of the State of the Union.” While this has traditionally been interpreted as an annual affair, this tradition has been broken in extraordinary times. These are extraordinary times. And we face an extraordinary challenge”.

If there was ever a time for ‘gloves off’ ranting, I think that might be now. Do you agree?

The time that really forged my thinking was the 60’s and 70’s. Maybe the time post the idea and rant of a ’summer of love’, ‘ban the bomb’, ‘give peace a chance’ and ‘imagine’ has lost the true spirit of the rant. Maybe ‘Coke Adds Life’, ‘I’m from the government and here to help’, and even ‘just do it’ have somehow diverted the persuasive tone and temper of the rants of the past? Maybe ‘yes we can’ will be the start of a new age of rant, ranting and ranters? Maybe?

The world is or could be in big, heavy metal, gross-out schtook my friends - and as a school mate of mine from Romania used to rant in his very broken English about his entry into his new Australian world: ‘mate, its all up to sheeet!’.

2008 and next year is 2009, with climate change, economic crisis and social angst as the backdrop - I think it is the time to rant. I also think that you are the potential ranter to do something about it in your way. Use what it takes. Your experience, your energy and your ideas, and your God. Whatever it takes to put your man on the moon.

So, in closing, I would assert that my rant has proven - ranting leads to reality - especially when you use this rant as evidence and as a citation for your rant, and the whole world eventually accepts ranting as the ‘normal’ way to begin life and world changing events and action. Even those academics, nay sayers and ’squelchers’ (gotta love one of the greatest ranters of all - Jane Jacobs) who may have to refute the idea because, well ………., uhhmmm ……. just because, or ……… because (put your rant in here).

That is unless someone has a counter-rant to this idea?

Or maybe a support or counter for another very rantable idea – “A Resilient World by @)!@ – What is Your Role?”

Whaddya reckon ranters?

Don’t be ‘ronry’ - get ranting!

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