Book Review: Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinksy

One sleepless night last week I read “Rules for Radicals” by Saul Alinsky – that bugbear of a certain segment of the right. I write this now, after some sleep, while the book is still fresh in my mind.

It says something about the Alinsky’s life and work that decades after his death his name is still spoken with such vitriol in certain reactionary circles. And reading this book I can see why! Alinsky’s tactics were disquieting. That was the entire point! Alinksy sought to change the status quo by discomforting those comfortable with it, disturbing people who should be disturbed by the present situation but aren’t. If you’re going to use protest and activism to try and force changes (the other uses of protests are for elsewhere) it can’t be something people can just ignore. Alinsky’s politics made him enemies, and he spent his life fighting them. Many of the same sorts who so resented say, holding shop-ins (packing department store with discriminatory labor policies with black shoppers to spook affluent whites) are still alive and circulating in American politics today. That Alinsky was on the right side of history apparently still galls them.

But at the same time, separating the book from the author, “Rules for Radicals” is fairly… I don’t want to say banal, since truthfully it is a well written and useful manual, but it is nevertheless a manual; and similar sorts of advice could be found reading other treatises on strategy, tactics, and political maneuvering. What might be especially useful is that it places these concepts in the context of organizing and provides many illustrative (and entertaining!) examples. Still, what is useful is not new to a 21^st century reader. For example, Alinsky was quite enthusiastic about the possibilities of the then new tactic of campaigning for proxy votes. But those tactics are now well known and widely used, precisely because they were effective.

The advice in “Rules for Radicals”, like all advice, is easier to give than to follow. In no particular order, and with no guarantee of completeness, I’ll try to summarize and comment on the key notes.

First, the organizer is advised to always respect the personhood and dignity of others. That this advice needs to be given is somewhat embarrassing. That it is not always followed is downright shameful. The organizer must be liked by the organizees, since there is no power to compel they must freely give their support.

Second, the organizer is advised to have a pragmatic, even cynical view of human nature – the sort of view you can find, expressed mathematically, in most economic models. At the same time, people are reliably irrational and you can use that. For example, Alinsky believes that people seldom right thing for the right reasons. However, you can get them to the right thing for the wrong reasons, and once that is done they’ll rationalize their behavior so that in their mind they were right all along. There’s much more than that, but this is a review and a summary, so if you are curious you’ll have to read up on these things yourself.

The third piece of advice is to meet people where they are and stay within their frame of reference. This is part of the art of organizing – different communities will have different experiences, and so different things will be possible. Essentially the organizer must have low expectations. The best organizing involves the uninvolved, which is hard enough to do when all you need is signature, let alone a more substantive contribution. So make things as easy as possible for people.

There is one other thing that stands out in Alinsky’s understanding of organizing, and of politics in general. Alinsky understands that politics, especially politics in a free, democratic society, is about more than power and incentives, substantive gains and losses. It is about theatre. Showmanship, the emotional appeal, the narrative presented to the mass audience is just as important. Maybe more important. To quote Napoleon:

“A man does not get himself killed for sixpence a day and a piece of ribbon. You must speak to the soul to electrify him”.

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               In Star Wars, how is it established that the Rebels are the “good guys” and the Empire are the “bad guys”? That is, what shortcuts are taken over the length of feature film that allow the audience to identify the morality of each side of the conflict? Oh, certainly we are inclined by mere familiarity to sympathize with Luke, a humble farmboy from a backwater planet dreaming of the stars. But Imagine if you will that you were watching the film de novo, (difficult I know). Luke casually remarks that he is thinking about becoming a pilot for the Empire! If the villainy of the Empire isn’t immediately obvious to Luke, our sympathetic protagonist, how is obvious to us?

                First is the style of the empire, meant to evoke the Third Reich. “Stormtroopers” and cleanly cut grey uniforms – the assumption being that the audience would make the association with fascism, and with fascism to plain evil. Another trick for managing our sympathies are the face-concealing masks of the stormtroopers, meant to dehumanize the antagonists.

                But it is in the conduct of the Empire that its essentially villainous nature is laid bare. The audience is expected to immediately and unambiguously look at the actions of the Empire and go: “They are the bad guys, only bad guys would do things like that”.

                So, what does the Empire do? In the pursuit of vital intelligence, the Empire kills innocent civilians, tramples on civilian authority, and tortures suspects. With the aim of intimidating its enemies it a weapon of mass destruction and demonstrates it on a target of limited military value. It tramples on democratic rights and institutions in the name of peace and order.

                But save the last, the United States has done all these things. The secrecy of the security state, warrantless wiretapping and mass-surveillance, the absurdly broad war-making powers in the post-9/11 AUMF altogether seem to constitute, if not trampling, then at least walking, on civilian authority. The drone war – in Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria, and other places, may or may not keep America safe, but it certainly sheds a lot of innocent blood. And of course the United States used – perhaps is still using, for such things are kept secret – torture with the aim of obtaining vital intelligence. We developed nuclear weapons and used them on targets of limited military value (Nagasaki and Hiroshima were chosen precisely because for that reason they had been only lightly damaged in previous bombings). And after demonstrating our power, we used our to advance ourselves at the expense of others. And the American government has in the past, and continues in the present, to be much more talk than action on human rights – even the rights of its own citizens.

               

            Now, all of these things, it is argued, were done from necessity. Perhaps so. But I am somewhat concerned that the American people did not, do not, balk at these acts, that we do not turn our heads and go: “No that is not us, we’re the good guys, the good guys don’t do that”. It suggests that, at least for some, the reason why the Empire is the villain of Star Wars is not because the Empire is bad, but because the Empire opposes the protagonist. That because of the choices of the storyteller we do not sympathize with Luke because he is the “good guy”, but rather he is the “good guy” because we sympathize with him. That the same story could be told as a tragedy, with Empire doing everything it has to, yes, even unpleasant things, to protect itself, but despite its sacrifices is still overthrown. That you could easily make Vader the hero, and Luke the villain – and that people would believe it.

On Being Unafraid.

Fear is not a useless emotion. Fear can keep you alive. It is often rational to be afraid. But fear is not itself rational. It is a wild, unreasoning emotion, the enemy of reason. Fear wants to move your feet for you, wants to speak for you and act for you and deprive you of your will – in the moment fear can keep you alive, move you faster and further than wolves behind you, give you the strength to go on, to overcome, to survive the crisis. This a healthy fear.

But Americans (especially older Americans) seem to me a fearful people, though whether they are more or less fearful than any other I cannot say, and their fears seem much more the unhealthy sort. They are more afraid of terrorists than dogs, of strangers than intimates, of crime than of crossing the street. I my head understands this, that to most it is somehow much worse for a bad thing to be done to you than for a bad thing to simply happen, that malice terrifies while incompetence frustrates. My heart does not understand this though. When I think of the things that could ruin my life, that could harm me, that menagerie of misfortune is populated principally with the spawn of incompetence. Those creatures of malevolence are a sideshow compared to them.

And then there are the natural disasters that people fear, but to fear them is useless. After taking the precautions you think best, terror will not help you survive a tornado. If you let it though. it will gnaw at your guts before the storm and torment you – useless suffering which offends my sensibilities. The fear of incompetence may drive us to scrutinize the work of others, the fear of indifference may cause us to speak for ourselves, the fear of malice may push us to look to our protection, and live cautiously.

But the fear of the storm? We build our shelters, and weather what we must. All further concern is masochistic.

Now I am not a fearful sort, as a rule. I see the harm fear does, the madness and misrule it inspires, and whenever and know that courage is the first virtue – without it all the rest fall silent. So, I strive to overcome fear to master it, lest it master me.

But all of this is preamble, aside from my main point. Consider the phenomena of a gamma-ray burst. When a star dies and goes nova, a burst of high energy gamma rays shoots out from the star as a ray traveling at the speed of light. Such events are uncommon, even on an astronomical scale, and if it were to happen in our galaxy there is only a minute chance it would hit us.

But if did hit us, we would not see it coming, since the radiation travels at the speed of light, and it would be as if we microwaved the whole earth on high for half an hour. The atmosphere would burn off, the seas would boil, and on the whole surface of the earth and in the deepest depths there would not remain a single living thing or trace of our civilization. The entirety of the human race, all our works, the whole humanity’s history and our homeworld could vanish in instant, without and forewarning or chance of survival. What do you when there is no shelter from the storm? Take a moment to think on this.

When I first learned this , I was afraid. But I overcame that fear – it was the most useless of fears. I got on with my life, in doing so I learned a subtle truth: That safety is an illusion - there are only different levels of risk. The risk of a gamma-ray burst is small, and not my efforts or the efforts of the whole human race could reduce that risk one way or the other. It is simply there. Something to be endured.

And this comes back to the madness and misrule of fear – fear drives us to seek safety, but there is no safety. The politics of fear is that of promising safety (impossible!) or more accurately of promising to make people feel safe. And I don’t know what to do about that. I would like for voters to wise up, to overcome their fear, to accept that to live is to be at risk, to understand that safety is an illusion, and that the reduction of risk is never done without cost. But it is easier and more profitable to terrify than to reassure, so I expect nothing will change in this regard. We will frighten each other, and cook in our own fear until its softened our brains to the point where we’ll support anyone who promises to make us feel safe.

First Impressions

My earliest political memory is of the shitshow that was the aftermath of the 2000 election. I heard the words “Florida” and “Supreme Court” together so many times that 8-year-old me assumed that that was were the Supreme Court was located.  Growing older and looking back on the mess, on the miscarriage of democracy that was Bush’s victory in the Elector College, on the Supreme Court shutting down recounts of a razor thin margin on strictly partisan lines. I’ll say it plainly: I think the 2000 election was stolen by the Republicans. If democracy means anything it means that the people’s most preferred candidate wins. Not the candidate with 5 votes on the Supreme Court.That they were willing to steal it, and that having stole it defended their actions, and that American people didn’t hate them for this – all cements in my mind the conviction that even in America – perhaps especially in America – democracy isn't some fixed feature of our civilization, but a value system (an ideology!) that needs to be defended.

My second political memory is of 9/11. A teacher came in and said “there’s been an attack”, and everyone stopped and waited and watched. You could the tension with a knife, all the adults, and because of the adults, all the children were poised to flight, flee, or freeze. And I remember thinking: “An attack where in Bloomington?” and later: “We are in Bloomington, Indiana. New York and DC are far away. Why is everyone afraid?”. I’ve kept thinking that to this day – that the terrain of the terrorist is our psyche, the objective is to provoke stupid anger or paralyzing fear, and that overcoming them is as simple (and difficult!) as having courage and carrying on. But Americans were afraid, and vengeful, and foolishly they lashed out - invading Afghanistan, (and then Iraq). Children who were in that 2^nd grade class that day are now old enough to die in that graveyard of empire. I write this in 2018, and there is no prospect for withdrawal prior to 2019 – at which point someone born on 9/11 will be old enough to die in Afghanistan. All this – because vengeance drove us to war, and hubris keeps us fighting an unwinnable fight.

My third political memory is of a two-page spread in Newsweek. This was in the run up to the Iraq War, when Saddam let in UN inspectors to demonstrate that he didn’t have WMD’s, and the Bush Administration and the media weren’t willing to let a little thing like facts get in the way of war-fever. This was a two-page spread showing how Saddam could have hid is chemical weapons from UN inspectors using mobile labs and storage facilities. It was fascinating to a child. How intricate, how clever! But like many schematics that charm children, the notion falls apart at the slightest consideration of practicality. Why build mobile labs so far in advance when you didn’t anticipate inspectors? Wouldn’t transporting chemical weapons be very dangerous, and vulnerable to theft and attack? Why would and oil-rich dictator run his chemical weapons program out of facilities out of the equivalent of an RV meth lab?

Few at the time bothered with such questions. And those who did were derided and ignored. The Bush Administration lied – no not a lie, but rather fed us Frankfurtian bullshit with an utter disregard for the truth, and the media believed them, and people believed the media. And so, we piled up a trillion dollars in the desert along with tens of thousands of lives– and then set the whole heap on fire. How many among them apologized, or admitted their mistake – not just the politicians but the pundits and the rest of the chattering classes? How long has our endless war in the middle east gone on, without sign or hope of victory?

Especially among the right, those responsible, whether by negligence or malice, have lost little prestige, credibility, or readership and still linger in our national life. Time smooths rough edges and cools hot anger. But my first impressions of the Republican party, its policies and partisans, has given me an anger as cold and slick as ice.