Yesterday I reflected on whether “mainstream” refers to one stream or many streams. After all, it is certainly possible to have one single main thing or many different main things. Nothing about “main” is really unique, “main” is mainly somewhat more significant.

And yet, oddly, many seem to gravitate towards referring to “the” mainstream. Why?

My hunch is that this stems from something like religion — maybe it’s orthodoxy … or orthodoxies? What would it take for someone to accept the concept of a multitude of mainstreams?

Maybe a multitude of languages?

This makes me wonder: How do societies with one predominant language differ from societies with many predominant languages? (note that this question is kind of moot, because in any society, no two individuals speak  exactly the same language — perhaps unless they are perfect clones of one another, or maybe simply robots?).

All in all, I feel as though I am (personally) inclined to reject the notion that “mainstream” must be “the” mainstream. In my somewhat humble opinion, it is really nothing other than your mainstream or my mainstream, maybe our mainstream or their mainstream, but that nothing about “mainstream” makes it true, or valid, or indeed anything at all.

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