Extracts
from the aacultwatch forum (old)
“Things
probably were different in 1983. I don’t think there were so many
self-serving writers and business people exploiting AA for their own
selfish gains back then. They probably had better control over their
instinctive drives for personal power, prestige, sex and money. AA
held the Circle and Triangle symbol as a copyright trademark for AA
World Services and AA Grapevine in 1983. Now it doesn’t in 2013. I
guess there were enough old timers in 1983 who understood that their
recovery included guardianship of the fellowship against self-serving
business people from within and outside the fellowship; to preserve
AA’s spiritual entity and therefore its unity for future
generations; a responsibility and duty that was transferred to them
and to each of one of us, as the new generation, to pass on to the
next, by the founders in 1955.
I
wonder how many could have imagined in 1955 that the Circle and
Triangle would no longer belong to the heart of AA just 38 years
later in 1993? The symbol of AA’s identity relinquished from the
Third Legacy perhaps for ever, to businesses exploiting it. In
Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age Bill wrote:
“Above
us floats a banner on which is inscribed the new symbol for A.A., a
circle enclosing a triangle. The circle stands for the whole world of
A.A., and the triangle stands for A.A.’s Three Legacies of
Recovery, Unity, and Service. Within our wonderful new world, we have
found freedom from our fatal obsession. That we have chosen this
particular symbol is perhaps no accident. The priests and seers of
antiquity regarded the circle enclosing the triangle as a means
of warding off the spirits of evil, and A.A.’s circle and triangle
of Recovery, Unity and Service has certainly meant all of that and
much more. (Bill W. Extract, Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age p 139)
Now
this symbol belongs to the self-serving business people. No longer
the symbol of Recovery Unity and Service once used by AA World
Services and AA Grapevine, but the symbol of exploitation put up by
any self-serving businessman who wishes to combine his business with
AA. Sometimes it can be seen double on the internet, promoting RV
(Recreational Vehicle) Parks (a.k.a. Caravan sites in UK): two
circles with revolving triangles, (See post above) or embossed in the
background of an RV website with the slogan “ Friends of Bill W.
Always Welcome.” http://www.shadycornerrvpark.com/
No real friend of Bill W. would exploit his life’s work and the
fellowship in such a way. The consequence of widespread exploitation
of the AA trademark by AA members and outside organisations came to a
head in 1993. AA lost a valuable asset and legacy which belonged not
only to the whole worldwide fellowship, but also the generations yet
to come.
USA/Canada
General Service Conference 1993 marks a dark day in AA history which
continues to cast a shadow over AA in 2013; a day when the fellowship
in USA/Canada gave up guardianship and sent a message to all
businesses that AA no longer has its protective circle; that AA no
longer protects itself. All who were sober longer than a couple of
years in 1993 in USA/Canada bore the responsibility to provide that
protective circle and the majority didn’t. It seems not many in the
fellowship are willing to take that responsibility in 2013.
AA
Grapevine reported this sad day, and perhaps a significant turning
point in AA history, in December 1993: the legacy of a degeneration
who cared little for AA as a whole and cared little for this and
future generations:
AA
Grapevine December 1993, Vol. 50 No. 7:
“Around
AA
Whatever
Happened to the Circle and Triangle?
Have
you noticed that the circle and triangle symbol no longer appears at
the top of the Grapevine's Table of Contents? The decision to remove
it has its roots in recent events: actions of the 1993 General
Service Conference, and subsequent actions by the Board of Trustees
and the directors of AA World Services.
Adopted
at the 20th Anniversary International Convention in St. Louis, the
circle and triangle symbol was registered as an official AA mark in
1955, and has been widely used by various AA entities. By the
mid-1980s, however, it had also begun to be used by outside
organizations, such as novelty manufacturers, publishers, and
occasionally treatment facilities. There was growing concern in the
membership of AA about this situation. Some AA members were saying
"we don't want our circle and triangle aligned with non-AA
purposes." In keeping with the Sixth Tradition, that AA ".
. .ought never endorse, finance or lend the AA name to any related
facility or outside enterprise. . .", the AA World Services
board began in 1986 to contact outside entities that were using the
circle and triangle in an unauthorized manner, and to take action to
prevent such use of the symbol.
AAWS implemented this policy with
restraint, and did not resort to legal remedies until all attempts at
persuasion and conciliation had been unsuccessful. Of about 170
unauthorized users contacted, two suits were filed, and both were
settled in the very early stages.
Denying
the use of the symbol to outside entities raised other problems,
however. By early 1990, it was clear that some AA members very much
wanted to be able to obtain medallions with "our" circle
and triangle. Both the AAWS and Grapevine Corporate boards began
receiving requests to produce sobriety chips and medallions, and the
matter was discussed at a joint meeting of the two boards in October
I990. Their consensus was that production of tokens and medallions
was unrelated to our primary purpose of carrying the AA message, and
they suggested that the matter be given a thorough airing at the
General Service Conference in order to seek a group conscience from
the Fellowship.
At the
1992 Conference, there were presentations on why we should or should
not produce medallions, and on the responsibility of AAWS to protect
our trademarks and copyrights. The result was a Conference Advisory
Action asking the General Service Board of trustees to undertake a
feasibility study on the possible methods by which sobriety chips and
medallions might be made available to the Fellowship, and to report
its findings to an ad hoc committee of delegates.
The ad
hoc committee met prior to the 1993 Conference, for several full days
of discussion and deliberation, and in turn presented its report and
recommendations on the Conference floor. After discussion, the
Conference approved two of five recommendations: 1) that the use of
sobriety chips/medallions is a matter of local autonomy and not one
on which the Conference should record a definite position; and 2)
that it is not appropriate for AA World Services or the Grapevine to
produce or license the production of sobriety chips/medallions.
In
substance, the ad hoc committee report said: "We began to see
that the issue is 'What is best for AA as a whole' and not 'Does the
Fellowship want AA sobriety chips/medallions?' or 'Can AA produce
sobriety chips/medallions?' The committee did not focus on the use of
sobriety chips/medallions--groups and individuals are free to use
them if they wish. The question is whether it is best for AA as a
whole to have a sobriety chip/medallion with the AA name on it
authorized and/or issued by an AA entity.
"Some
of the comments made during the Traditions part of the discussion
included:
"The
First Tradition --At the heart of the matter is unit. . ."
"The
Second Tradition --Therein lies our solution. Where is our ultimate
authority and where is our center? Is it internal or
external--principles arising from a power greater than people, or
values of the world? We must keep in mind that this is also the place
where Bill W. points out that '. . .the good is sometimes the enemy
of the best.'
"The
Third Tradition --We were reminded that we are a self-correcting
Fellowship. . . We felt that it is time for the whole Fellowship to
get back to the simplicity and basis of our message.
"The
Fourth Tradition makes it clear that we must separate the spiritual
from the material. Keeping in mind that any action we take could
affect AA as a whole. . .
"The
fifth Tradition --The Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, The Twelve
Steps and Twelve Traditions, AA Comes of Age, and 'The Twelve
Concepts for World Service'--are the basic message, the core message
of AA. Everything else is commentary on the basic message: all
literature published, comments and sharing at meetings, even the
Grapevine, is a sort of national commentary. Could chips/medallions
be another form of commentary, another form of a pamphlet?
"The
Sixth Tradition calls on us to 'divide the spiritual from the
material.' Money is not a valid consideration in the question of
whether or not litigation should be brought against misusers of our
logo since AA is not in the business of making money. Similarly, the
fear that others would be making money off our logo does not hurt the
Fellowship on a fundamental level. How do we let go of this tiger we
have by the tail?. . . We are at the tip of the iceberg of litigation
right now. . . We went many, many years without lawsuits. To continue
on this path threatens to keep our focus on money and property
instead of allowing our view to widen spiritually.
"The
Seventh Tradition reminds us 'Experience has often warned us that
nothing can so surely destroy our spiritual heritage as futile
disputes over property, money and authority.'
"The
Eleventh Tradition --explicitly warns against the sensationalism that
follows litigation. It is essentially negative attention and puts the
Fellowship at risk.
"The
Twelfth Tradition --Humility is the key, working from the internal to
the external, from the smaller to the larger, from 'I' to 'We,' in a
spirit of humility and trust. What course of action will keep us on
the path of spirituality?. . .
"The
committee spent a great length of time in the discussion of the
Warranties. Warranty Five states:
"'Practically
all societies and governments feel it necessary to inflict personal
punishment upon individual members for violations of their beliefs,
principles or laws. Because of its special situation, Alcoholics
Anonymous finds this practice unnecessary. When we of AA fail to
follow sound spiritual principles, alcohol cuts us down. Therefore,
no humanly administered system of penalties is needed. This unique
condition is an enormous advantage to us all, one on which we can
fully rely and one which we should never abandon by a resort to the
methods of personal attack and punishment. . . .
"'In
case the AA name should be misapplied. . .it would of course be the
duty of our General Service Conference to press for the
discontinuance of such a practice--always short, however of public
quarreling about the matter. . . . It was recognized that a public
lawsuit is a public controversy, something in which our Tradition
says we may not engage.'
"The
chips/medallions and trademark questions were dealt with as
separately as possible. The committee felt that a distinction could
be drawn between the two in terms of their respective significance to
AA. The trademark (logo) is the embodiment of the AA name. The
significance of its shape is described in AA Comes of Age, page 139:
'The circle stands for the whole world of AA, and the triangle stands
for AA's Three Legacies of Recovery, Unity, and Service. . . The
priests and seers of antiquity regarded the circle enclosing the
triangle as a means of warding off spirits of evil, and AA's circle
and triangle of Recovery, Unity, and Service has certainly meant all
of that to us and much more.'
"Medallions,
on the other hand, are not universally considered an embodiment of
the Fellowship as such. Many stories are told about the role that the
coins play in an individual's continuing sobriety: the coins act as
symbolic recognition of the length of sobriety. They are not the
sobriety itself and any attempt to make medallions more than a symbol
may lead perilously towards ego-inflation, self-glorification, rather
than ego-deflation (see Tradition Twelve).
"The
committee felt that the desire to protect the unique meaning of AA's
symbol is at the foundation of litigation, as well as the fear of the
trivialization of the mark. But despite the vehemence with which we
feel 'ownership' of the symbol, we suspect that the belief that we
(or anyone) can 'possess' the symbol is a fallacy.
"It
actually works against the foundation of the Steps that lead us to
sobriety. Ownership necessarily involves control and to argue over
that control through litigation takes the focus away from the fact
that we are ultimately powerless. We can own the meaning of the
symbol, and if someone uses die graphic, our meaning will not be
diminished, as long as we keep the principles it represents in sight.
"The
committee finally questioned the goals of litigation, what would
actually he gained from a lawsuit. We suspect that the harm done
internally as a result of litigation would be far worse than the harm
others could do to our 'property" from the outside. At the base
of this approach is the trust that is the foundation of AA. It is our
trust that AA principles will work to protect our name, just as our
trust in God is the foundation of our program and of our lives.
Warranty Five says that we can '. . .confidently trust AA opinion,
public opinion, and God Himself to take care of Alcoholics Anonymous.
. . ."
"Concept
Seven states '[The Conference] Charter itself is not a legal
document. . . .it relies instead upon the force of tradition. . .for
its final effectiveness.'
"To
us, the fear that the incorporation of the symbol by others outside
the Fellowship would somehow detract from the significance of the
symbol is really unfounded. No one outside the Fellowship can detract
from AA's strength if we stick to the Steps, Traditions and Concepts,
which unite us.
"The
registered trademarks, service marks and logos are symbols of our
spiritual Fellowship, Alcoholics Anonymous, and should be treated as
such.
"The
General Service Conference is a living entity. From the group
conscience will eventually emerge an expression of the will of a
loving Power greater than ourselves proven to be firmly linked to the
Traditions and Warranties, keeping us safe for as long as we are
needed."
The ad
hoc committee report was debated on Tuesday and Thursday of
Conference week, and the subject of chips and medallions came up
again during a final sharing session on Friday. The chairperson of
the AAWS Board made the following statement at that time: "The
AAWS Board will immediately begin a thorough review of us policies
regarding our marks, will do everything possible to avoid initialing
litigation, and will prepare a revised policy statement to be ready
for next year's Conference."
Immediately
after the Conference, the General Service Board accepted AAWS's
recommendation to discontinue protecting the circle and triangle
symbol as one of AA's registered marks. And by early June, the
trustees reached substantial unanimity in support of AAWS's statement
that, to avoid the suggestion of association or affiliation with
outside goods and services, AA World Services, Inc. would phase out
the "official" or "legal" use of the circle and
triangle.
If
you're wondering how to identity Conference-approved literature in
the future, it will carry the words "This is AA General Service
Conference-approved literature." As pieces of literature are due
for reprinting, the symbol will be deleted; and new materials will
carry only the Conference-approved wording.
Like
the Serenity Prayer and the slogans, which have never had official
recognition, the circle and triangle will most likely continue to be
used widely for many AA purposes. The difference from earlier
practice is that its official use to denote Alcoholics Anonymous
materials will be phased out.
(This
material is adapted from the August-September issue of the GSO
newsletter Box 4-5-9; portions of the ad hoc committee report are
taken from the Final Report of the 1993 General Service Conference.)”
http://da.aagrapevine.org/"
Comment; It would seem from the above that it's not only drunks who rationalise their stupidity! Come to think of it! A drunk would have done a better job! It turns out we sold out for a few pieces of silver - or rather plastic!
Cheers
The
Fellas (Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous)
PS
To use “comment” system simply click on the relevant tab below
this article and sign in. All comments go through a moderation stage
PPS
For new aacultwatch forum see here.
Have your say!
