HOW TO CHANGE THE WORLD
Ideas From History
Last week’s essay listed 10 peaceful ideas
about how to change our unhappy world.
Those suggestions require several things from individuals.
It has been said that empathy is an empty emotion
if you do nothing to assist those in conflict or suffering
from conditions beyond their control.
We all face another huge problem and those of us over 45 (or so)
have witnessed how the awful ruling neoliberal ideology
has taken control of our economic and political lives.
What is more subtle and less obvious
is that these same people, parties and organizations
who have taken over our day-by-day understanding of things
have also taken over our educational and cultural environments.
Children are no longer taught how to think
but rather they are taught what to think.
Books are banned and burned.
Parents fired up by their religions,
attack the reputations of teachers.
The arts are starved of money for teaching and for project support.
Voices of opposition are denied access to the media and are often stilled.
Day-by-day we allow ourselves to slip into victimhood and silence.
It has been said of historical conflicts
that the brutal bully thugs who rule us
can only do so if we stay silent and uncommitted to change.
Over the last 40 years, innumerable radio stations,
local newspapers and alternative publishers
which existed at the beginning of the Thatcher-Reagan period
of dribble down economics,
of increasingly limited individual freedom,
brought with it an erosion of communal values,
an emphasis on consumption over spirit,
an insinuation of anti-intellectualism
and more generally of anti-cultural ideas,
(meaning also, anti-experts and anti-professionals).
All of which have narrowed the information we receive
as well as the thought-provoking transformative hope,
beauty and truths of the fine and performance arts.
These high arts belong to everyone.
In conversations with people at the gates of culture
I hear one demand that I must make my work consistent
with where teenager’s choices and tastes are.
My response is that those teenage wants are contrived by media corporations.
and not by thoughtful caring people who wish the very best for our young.
We want them to be able to think for themselves,
We want them to be nurtured into reading,
away from the endless dribble of social media.
We want them to embrace the arts
from which they will learn about the human spirit,
and be helped to discover their own moral compass.
As a person who has been committed to helping inform young people
about the realities of power and wealth,
I believe and have tested my beliefs[1]
in teaching courses about photography and film.
In those workshops I try to bring people to what I have learned and experienced
in over 60 years of practice.
What is clear is that many have said that their lives
have been changed by the experience.
That is me bringing my cultural level to them
rather than me seeking to lower our discussion
to their media corporations and state-controlled culture.
In this ongoing conflict between the humanists (of whom I count myself)
and the bully-boy thugs and psychopaths who run our world,
an American community activist and political philosopher,
Saul Alinsky, wrote the following 6 tactics
to help people stand us against the seeming overwhelming forces
of the wealthy and the powerful.
* TACTIC 1: “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.
”Don’t become old news.
(Even radical activists get bored.
So to keep them excited and involved,
organisers are constantly coming up with new tactics.)
* TACTIC 2: “Keep the pressure on. Never let up.
”Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance.
As the opposition masters one approach,
hit them from the flank with something new.
(Attack, attack, attack from all sides,
never giving the reeling organization
a chance to rest, regroup, recover and re-strategise.)
* TACTIC 3: “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.
”Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist.
(Perception is reality.
Large organizations always prepare a worst-case scenario,
something that may be furthest from the activists’ minds.
The upshot is that the organization will expend enormous time and energy
creating in its own collective mind the direst of conclusions.
The possibilities can easily poison the mind and result in demoralisation.)
* TACTIC 4: “If you push a negative hard enough,
it will push through and become a positive.”
Violence from the other side can win the public to your side
because the public sympathizes with the underdog.
(Unions used this tactic.
Peaceful [albeit loud] demonstrations during the heyday of unions
in the early to mid-20th Century incurred management’s wrath,
often in the form of violence that eventually brought public sympathy to their side.)
* TACTIC 5: “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.
”Never let the enemy score points
because you’re caught without a solution to the problem.
(Old saw: ‘If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.
’Activist organizations have an agenda,
and their strategy is to hold a place at the table,
to be given a forum to wield their power.
So, they must have a compromise solution.)
* TACTIC 6: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.
”Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy.
Go after people and not institutions;
people hurt faster than institutions.
(This is cruel, but very effective.
Direct, personalised criticism and ridicule works.)
Start Sociable.
Be Sociable, Share!
These changes will rely on people’s good will and desire to become a part of something kind, helpful and democratic while beginning to live in a more collective manner. This is not about submerging one’s identity but discovering that one’s identity is a beautiful part of the whole and one will become richer from the relationships that develop.
To do this will takes perhaps 10 years of development while helping children to grow into a wholesome community filled with opportunities to do fulfilling work while feeling a vibrant member of a vibrant society.
Below are 14 rules that underlie his tactics.
1. "Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have."
2. "Never go outside the experience of your people."
3. "Whenever possible go outside of the experience of the enemy."
4. "Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules."
5. "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. There is no defence.
6. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage."
7. "A good tactic is one your people enjoy."
8. "A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag."
9. "Keep the pressure on."
10. "The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself."
11. "The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition."
12. "If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside; this is based on the principle that every positive has its negative."
13. "The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative."
14. "Pick the target, freeze it, personalise it, and polarise it."
Enjoy the struggle.
FOOTNOTES
[1] “I have participated in a couple of projects held by Robert Golden, and I think his way of teaching is very inspiring, because it gives young people a chance to learn things they'll never encounter in school or college. You will learn about where are you going, where did you come from and what is important for you. You will also learn what does the world needs, and that is; pure you, liberated of ego and expectations, with empathy and love for the humankind, but also a tendency to find naked and heavy truth. Only if you are willing to take a path to discover some things about yourself and your environment, your result from these projects will be the best thing that ever happened to you in your life.”
from a 25 year old person