P.S. How did you guys get you posts to include hard returns for paragraph separation? :) JOHN

I would like to add my two bits to your comment. First I agree with your perspective that more bees are attracted with honey than vinegar. Further, I think this extends, of course to other realms beyond peace activism (obviously). I think it\'s important to remember (especially when dealing with fence-sitters or opponents) that when dealing with a contentious subject that you reject the oppsing perspetive or behavior - not the person espousing the perspective. Noam\'s work exemplifies the strategy of rational criticism without personalizing (attacking) the discussion - a sure way to turn people off. Likewise Justin Podur and Stephen Shalom come to mind as being particularly careful about this. Your point about anchoring is also a good one. We should keep in mind that on a broad range of subjects left activists find themselves squarely in the mainstream of public opinion. So if we\'re discussing education, healthcare, foreign intervention or money in politics we are already starting from the same ethical perspective as over two thirds of the populace. This greatly simplifies the anchoring strategy. At this point the same applies the invasion/ occupation of Iraq - even among US troops currently engages there. As a result with a little effort we ought to be able to engage people in ways that don\'t alienate them as long as we don\'t make them feel ignorant or irrelevant. Since most people are already right there with us on a host of issues, it seems that the main barrier to increased levels of activism is our failure to persuasivley present vision/solutions. I won\'t go on about the vision thing, as most readers of Z are familiar with the important work on this subject of Lydia Sargent, Michael Albert and others. That being said, I think Justin\'s point about circumstances where the goal isn\'t education or coalition building is perfectly valid. One should assess tactical considerations circumstantially with an eye toward outcomes. Thank you for your important and insightful comments. Regards, JOHN

This actually ties into something I just wrote about in regards to activism in the workplace called Occupational Insurrection.  There is a time and a place for yelling and confrontation; finding that place is much more important than the actual yelling.

Good thoughts Summer. I think the concept of tension is relevant here as well. Change often happens when there is tension between where someone is and where you want them to be. So often it\'s good to lay some sort of common ground or shared assumption (like your anchoring example), and then present something that pushes the idea a bit further, shows an inconsistency, makes them think. Being friendly, apart from being good all on its own, is part of laying that common ground from which you can build. If they see us as people first it will be harder to dismiss what we are saying.

Hi Summer!

I think what you are saying is important, but I think it needs to be understood in a careful way.

On the positive side, I think about a particular peace group that I participated in for awhile. The baseline activity of the group was a vigil. There are all sorts of things that could be said about how useful that activity was, and about how useful a location we were in, but that aside there was the occasional opportunity to engage with people. But there were a couple of middle-aged white men who would occasionally show up and just demonstrate the absolute worst of activist masculinity by shouting at passing cars, getting into arguments, and so on. Anger is understandable, but they were just engaging in pointless posturing and not being at all strategic, as in your example.

On the other hand, a lot has been written about how the idea of "civility" is used to control those with less power in a given situation, including in the context of social movements. Just in the context of blogs that I have seen, mainstream liberal men have used calls for "civility" as an excuse not to listen to (understandably angry) challenges from feminist women, and white feminist women have used calls for "civility" to dismiss radical women of colour. We need to be able to hear the unvarnished anger of those whose oppression creates our privilege without melting into a puddle of guilty goo or just flaring in angery in return, and we need to be very wary of gatekeeping resources of various kind just because a certain individual or group whose oppression creates our privilege has decided to organize their activities around norms of expression or action that are different from our own.

 

 

I tend to agree with you Summer, but I think it is an issue of what is the desired outcome of speaking with your interlocker.  In most contexts the purpose, if we are being upstanding activists, is to change minds.  And, in that context taking effort to make the person you are talking to feel comfortable and speak using direct, honest, and respectful language is the way to go.  However, there are a couple of other goals I have had in engaging non-movement people in political actions and those would describe different type of behavior. 

One is to shock, the other is to demoralize.  By shock I just mean to break with the expectations of the person I am engaging as to force some level of fresch consideration of the situation this person finds herself in; you may be familiar with lots of types of street theater that use this type of logic. In regards to demoralization, I have not really had much opportunity to pursue this end because of the relative feableness of the left in the United States, but when I imagine this being a useful tactic is when engaging activist of a reactionary movement. 

Take for example the "Minute Men;" in case you are not familiar, the minute men are an anti-immigrant/ crypto white supremacist organization who go around harassing immigrants trying to find work.  I have participated in anti-minute man actions, and in that context I do not attempt to engage the minute men in a respectful discussion because I do not imagine it being fruitful.  In that type of context of I am cognizant in three main goals, winning the minds of non-participants, demoralizing the antagonistic participants, and protecting the entangled immigrants who are the targets of the minute men.  Now, being a belligerent bastard may or may not serve those three goals (for example the news media is likely to portray the minute men favorably in any out right conflict between the protesters and the minute men, so provocation has to be used carefully) but if it does I think it is legitimate.  For example, in one locality in which this played out enough pro-immigrant activists were able to come out and behave rowdy enough to discourage all but the most diligent minute men members in the area from doing actions in that area.  I considered this a success, but of course we did not change the minds of any of the minute men.


Justin

I have also found that a non-judgmental tone and friendly demeanor is at least as important as the content of one\'s speech / argument. I don\'t always live up to this .... but try to keep myself in line.

Hey Summer,

Right on. Civil and respectful discussion and dialogue is very important. Have you ever checked out stuff by Frank Luntz (conservative), George Lakoff (liberal), or smartMeme.org (radical)? All talk about how it isn\'t what we say, but rather what people hear, how they hear it, what stories they have in their head about war, imperialism, sexism, and so on. We just need to find better ways of communicating our values, vision, and alternative narratives of what society can look like!

-Brian

It makes sense to me, what you say. I know online it helps to be both courteous and go out of your way to explain what you mean, if you want any kind of conversation with someone who disagrees with you (and even then it might not work). I get to talk all the time with my father-in-law, who has very right-wing foriegn policy politics (and a confused mix of progressive sounding and reactionary domestic ideas). What seems to work best with him is straightforward and honest disagreement with just about everything, and occasional agreement.  At least he seems to respect my determination. Of course, you don\'t want every conversation to be a debate, especially when other people are around....