I was once asked in a rather threatening way if I was ‘in the tent, or outside the tent?’ The inference being that if I wanted to be outside the tent then I would immediately be a pariah, an unworthy, a person who would never be allowed in a tent of any description ever again. I decided to stay out of the tent. Instead, I joined the Camping and Caravanning Club and have enjoyed many days and sometimes weeks in several different tents in many different places in the UK and abroad. I even once spent a day in Google’s Big Tent, but that’s a story for another day.
I guess that my tent analogy is all about how easy it is for a few people to undermine innovation, progress and free speech by suggesting that if we don’t do it their way, (in their tent) then we shouldn’t be doing it at all. This approach tends to happen when a way of established thinking (that has been slightly reframed over the years) tries to recycle itself into a new a radical way of thinking, when all it is is the same old thinking slightly reframed. This reframing happens as a way to prevent the new ways of thinking and doing things from taking hold. It has nothing to do with the value of new ideas and everything to do with those being challenged being fearful that their power base is being undermined and that their power may be slipping away.
This can be one of the biggest barriers to progress for an innovator. when they either accidentally step into a tent in which they are not welcome or they do something in good faith that other tent dwellers see as positive, but which upsets those in charge of the tent who want the innovator to stay in their place and for the tent’s hierarchy to remain unchanged. When this happens it can make an innovator wonder why they ever wanted to be in that tent in the first place.
In reality, this blog has nothing to do with tents and is all about power, people’s egos and ideology. Many of the most challenging people in the tent are challenging because those with the biggest egos are unable to accept that anybody else might be able to take their ideas, their ideology and improve them or get them to a wider audience. Which might not recognise or value the ego of the founders of that particular tent.
Tent based power and ideology is a very seductive thing. Once someone has tent power and influence it can be very hard to accept another person’s way of thinking, or be confident enough to enable others to share their power with them. Those around them start to parrot them and find it hard to challenge them even when the tent is clearly collapsing.
Leaving a tent can be very hard and often leads to people’s health, wellbeing and personal life crashing down around them. That’s why having multiple tents in multiple places is so important and why being able to move from one tent to another and being accepted for who you are and what you can bring to the debate in that tent is so important. There is no such thing as the right tent to be in, every tent has its pros and cons. It’s only by being open minded and being able to celebrate when someone has taken your ideas and improved them that we get better tents. That’s how ideas and ways of doing things that are sustainable become a long lasting success.
So the next time someone you don’t agree with is trying to get into your tent let them in. Maybe they will change the look and feel of your tent. Or maybe together you will step blinking into the morning sunshine, hug and discuss how to erect a new tent that both of you and others can get inside, freely share and discuss ideas and make things happen without fear of retribution even if their way of doing things doesn’t fit exactly with your original ideology and vision.
Jim Thomas
April 2025
Ideology (second edition) (1995) David McLellan, Open University Press.
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