Ernest Becker, TV Producer

[UPDATED below]

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MSNBC: ‘Survivor’s’ new racial divide
Dividing this season’s teams by race is just a bad idea

Leave it to "Survivor" producer Mark Burnett to find the one thing you definitely didn't think he would do. As announced on this morning's "Early Show," the cast of the 13th "Survivor," set in the Cook Islands and scheduled to premiere Sept. 14, will initially square off in teams divided by race. That's right: the season will begin with a bloated cast of 20, and they will be divided into four tribes, which the show is calling the White Tribe, the African-American Tribe, the Asian-American Tribe and the Hispanic Tribe. If your reaction is "oof," you are not alone.

Given its long history, "Survivor" has been surprisingly resilient, but its greatest challenge has been avoiding staleness. Burnett and his team of strategic mad scientists have unveiled tribe shuffles, season themes like pirates and volcanoes, and most recently the division of teams, for a brief time, by gender and age — older men, older women, younger men, and younger women.

But nothing compares to this. It's not even sporting to rattle off the reasons why it's a terrible idea. Start with the fact that it smells like an attempt to "represent" everyone, and expecting five people to be representative of millions or billions is begging for trouble. Consider what happens if, for reasons unrelated to race, four of the first five people to leave are Asian? What if the final four are all black? Or all white? What do those headlines look like?

What are you afraid of Linda? Riots? Dented self-image? Latent perceptions of superiority anecdotally put to the test? Linda, they will look like what they look like. What those headlines say will, I suspect, will be far more telling about the headline writers or pundits like yourself--the White Shoe Media--than they will be about the 20 folks on that island. Sure, it's info-tainment, but I think Burnett may finally be on to Survivor's base archetypal attaction. I bet he's wanted this all along. And I hope Survivor does more seasons following this pattern after this Fall's run. Let us all watch Burnett build a gritty pattern language about the reality and relevance of tribalism for us 21st Century types who think we're beyond that.

Hmm, Survivor? Rings a bell. Let's go to the vault....

We left things in Part II, promising some examples of archetypes in brand-motion... and to explain why "Survivor", "American Idol", "The Apprentice" and "Junkyard Wars" have some of the most brand-loyal viewerships going.

R-Complex boredom.

Education author Eric Jensen, in Arts with the Brain in Mind reveals that "America is a feeling-phobic society." This goes in spades for subgroups filled with "Professional Adults" called corporations. Of course, the feelings are still there and very active. They're just non-sanctioned, unofficial "elephants" taking up space and sapping oxygen. And this reveals a paradox for most businesses interested in moving product: many have no firm idea what moves people. Nor do they have processes to share this knowledge. That's hardly surprising. Most organizations are configured to hard facts, heavy analysis, and predictable results. Bureaucracies define themselves by their aim for consistency. What is surprising is that that bland paste of "consistency" equates to figurative "death" to our R-complexes. If there is no challenge "I am dead and useless" goes the brain imprint. And people shut down. Or they move on. Or they fight. (More on this below.)

Our brains--at least the parts willing to exert for ambition and spend for affirmation of identity, these parts recoil at spadework and predictability. And they have unique ways of showing themselves, depending on the circumstance. For example, have you ever asked yourself why "Survivor" or "Junkyard Wars", "American Idol" or "The Apprentice" or even Extreme Sports blasted so powerfully onto the American scene?

R-Complex boredom. These shows or activities feed our primal need to face and identify with challenge. Notice that some are solo efforts, some are teams, but all are competitive. Each has conflict, alliance and resolution. Each has winners and losers. Each is simple in its outcome.

That's because simplicity and rigid black and white choices--the R-complex's definition of Authenticity--is what's missing from modern life. For some of us, watching a TV show is enough of a fix. But most need more.

We were built to fight, flee, feed and, well, you know the other "F". The R-Complex is home to The Four F's. Modern life deprives us of opportunities to exercise these primal, hardwired facilities. Today, we are safer, better fed, more socially-secure than ever thought possible. The closest we come to exercising our basest skills is office politics. Or family feuds. And, yes, institutions and their power are quietly strangling because of it: Digital, synthetic, polished and too good to be true characterize much of what passes for official reality today. The R-Complex says "Bullshit!" It knows what natural feels like, and this ain't it. Natural isn't perfect and perfect isn't natural. Oddly enough, perfect is a Downer. Because in the minds-eye of the American R-Complex, perfection is the end of the road--nothing left to do. Again, Death...

Bring it on, Burnett. Show us how fundamentally undifferent we are without our crutches and yet, how veritcally unique. And may the best tribe win, gracefully. I gauran-damn-tee that, whoever comes out on top, Claude Levi-Strauss mated with a bit of Musashi's wisdom will guide the eventual winners.

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UPDATE: In comments, Mike points out some very useful stuff in this realm from Dan, over at tdaxp. The idea and practice of bricolage, referenced in the Levi-Strass link above, is a fair facsimile of many attributes of Boyd's Observe-Orient-Decide-Act cycle, most specifically the Orient function -- assessing the relative worth, utility and opportunity inherent in things, situations and people....



ORIENTATION

We'll be covering some of this in Moonshot's & Tsunamis--building and blending the horizontal to power the vertical leap. The funny thing is, this is the ultimate expression of "diversity," in the sense of allowing for, or mining, varied inputs that could inform either breakthroughs, advantage, or just the enviable ability to arrive at a useful truth while others are still arguing through the filters of Ideology or Group Identity.

Yes, diversity, as commonly held and bandied about is as Saccharine is to sugar. (Tribe isn't good or bad, it just is. And it's a constant struggle, as Becker says, to stand out within a group, which means you have to have a purpose beyond just "belonging," and the courage not to whiff wholesale the fumes emanating from the noisier amingst you. A balancing act, and one carried off more confidently with a little forethought and bricolage in the personal realm.)

Anyway, here's some of what Dan has up from "The Origin of Politics: An Evolutionary Theory of Political Behavior," by John Alford or RiceU, and John Hibbing of UNebraska - Lincoln. As Dan says, "it's so good it's dangerous."

Our genetic composition is to some extent the product of conditions faced by our hunter-gatherer predecessors of perhaps 100,000 years ago. One of the keys to an individual’s survival was being a respected part of a viable group. The central insight of a behavioral theory built on evolutionary biology is that the desire for group life is a fundamental human preference. What kinds of behaviors optimally promote belonging to a viable group? (Alford and Hibbing 709)

To sustain group membership, individuals must
1. cooperate with others in their in-group;
2. dislike those in out-groups;
3. punish or banish uncooperative in-group members;
4. encourage others through norms, institutions, or moral
codes to (1), (2), and (3);
5. be ever sensitive to status, payoffs, and reputation relative
to other in-group members;
6. cease cooperating if the noncooperation of other members
goes unpunished. (Alford and Hibbing 710)

In addition to expecting cooperative behavior in some circumstances, our theory also expects—and empirical studies have proven it to be the case—that people mindlessly conform, passively obey authority figures, are competitive to the point of taking pleasure in the misfortunes of others, initiate hostilities toward those people in outgroups, construct out-groups for the sake of having them, and are disconcertingly enthusiastic about punishing those not perceived as living up to the group’s behavioral standards, especially when personally victimized. (Alford and Hibbing 710)

Check out Dan's site. There's all kinds of mo' better, like How cooperation works.