Conventional thinking – kill or cure in the fight against HIV/AIDS?

By Bob Maddams

I’m not a huge fan of conventional thinking. It’s practically a contradiction in terms anyway. Surely, by following a convention you cannot be giving it any thought at all. The other thing I hate about conventional thinking is that it often masquerades as common sense. There’s a distinction.
Conventional thinking is the realm of the lazy thinker, someone who accepts rather than challenges. Whereas common sense is arrived at the hard way, it is a fundamental truth that has been interrogated to death, so much so that it is held to be glaringly obvious. Human nature dictates that it’s easier to follow the herd than come up with something new, or make the effort to challenge the status quo. None of the great inventors, or artists, or pioneers could possibly be called conventional thinkers.
Progress doesn’t come from conventional thinking. Quite the opposite, progress has always come from challenging the conventional thinking of the day, and I suspect it always will. Christopher Columbus challenged the existing conventional view which said that the world was flat. And Galileo challenged the conventional view that said that the earth was the centre of the solar system, and that the sun went round the earth rather than the other way round. So my argument is that conventional thinking never gets us very far.
I was reminded of this the other day in a meeting at a large NGO here in Addis Ababa that shall remain nameless. We were discussing strategies for combating the spread of HIV/AIDS in Ethiopia. One of the subjects we touched on was promoting the use of condoms. Right on cue someone piped up with the same piece of “conventional thinking” I always hear when the topic of condoms is raised. “But by promoting condoms won’t we also be promoting promiscuity,” the conventional thinker said. I’ve heard this hoary old chestnut come up in meetings countless times before. What people need to get fixed firmly in their heads is that promoting condom usage doesn’t promote promiscuity; promoting condom usage promotes safe sex.
It’s really very simple. What you have to remember is that there are two types of people in the world, those who are promiscuous and those who are not. Lets look at the first group first. If these people are promiscuous anyway then the need to protect them and the people they’re having sex with (who presumably are also promiscuous) through condom usage is paramount. The argument that not promoting condoms for fear that it will promote promiscuity is ludicrous here, because the people we’re talking about are already promiscuous in the first place. But I suspect that what the “conventional thinkers” are really worried about is the second group, the non-promiscuous people. But they shouldn’t be.
When I hear people say that promoting condoms promotes promiscuity amongst people who are not promiscuous, it makes my blood boil. Why? Because it’s not only a piece of lazy “conventional thinking”, it’s also highly dangerous when it leads to the prevention of condoms being promoted. Do these people seriously think that by making condoms available to non-promiscuous people it is going to transform them into raving sex maniacs? Let me put it another way. My brother is extremely musical while I can’t play a note. There’s hardly a musical instrument he can’t pick up and within a few minutes coax a pretty coherent tune out of. He’s musical by nature whereas I am not. So lets suppose musical instruments were suddenly made freely available, and someone put a guitar in my hand, would that make me musical? I don’t think so. Why? Because I’m not. But lets get back to my brother for a moment. He may be brilliant at music but he’s completely useless at sport. So, if someone put a golf club in his hand, would he suddenly be able to tee off with a wallop and hurtle a small white ball 150 yards straight down the middle of the fairway. I don’t think so. Why? Because he’s not sporty. And it’s the same with people who are not promiscuous; promoting condoms isn’t going to turn them into people they are not.
I read a statistic somewhere recently that said that 5,000 people are newly infected with HIV in Ethiopia every day. I mention this because the meeting we were in lasted two hours. By my reckoning that means that while we were sitting around discussing HIV/AIDS prevention strategies, something like well over 400 Ethiopians were busy getting infected with the virus.
So, if you’re one of those “conventional thinkers” who holds that condoms should not be promoted because they “encourage promiscuity”, ask yourself how many of those people could have been saved from being infected if they had been encouraged to use a condom? Forgive me for repeating myself but the point has to be made unequivocally: promoting condoms doesn’t promote promiscuity, promoting condoms promotes safe sex. And safe sex saves lives. And that’s not a piece of conventional thinking, that’s true common sense.