Down the street from my house is a slot-car racing club. For those of you who don't know, slot-cars are the little tiny electromagnetic toy cars that run on a plastic track. Enthusiasts can race against one another.
On a Friday night this place is more crowded than any local bar. Swarms of grown men in team shirts lean over one another's shoulders to get a view of the action.
I'm not knocking these men or their hobby, but I wonder what their subculture is like.
Every interest has a subculture.
For example, if you're into Jeet Kun Do, the martial art founded by Bruce Lee there will be an entire subculture around Jeet Kun Do. There will be cliques, subcliques, leaders, followers and - most of all - mediocratizers.
The mediocratizers will be the ones who say: "I met Bruce Lee's widow, Linda, at a conference a few years back and she was telling me that the side kick was never meant to be thrown with both hips, blah, blah, blah..."
The mediocratizers are the dogmatists in every subculture. Investigate any subculture and you'll find the mediocratizers.
Who are the mediocratizers in slot-car racing? Who has met the widow of "So and So Smith, the greatest inventor and innovator in the world of slot-car racing"?
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