(See A Proposal for a slightly revised version of this post, followed by an extensive elaboration of its various components)
To advance the cause of Reason and Goodwill, I propose a project, or movement, that is comprised of three parts: 1) a policy analysis component; 2) an information dissemination component; and 3) a community organizational network component. While I conceptualize each of these in somewhat novel ways, in the context of grass roots political activism, it is the third which is perhaps the most innovative and crucial component, and so it is with the third that I will begin.
Currently, grass roots activism by those who claim the mantel of advocacy of Reason and Goodwill is almost entirely focused on electoral politics and public policy as generated through governmental mechanisms. As such, it is very easy for the opponents of this movement to dismiss these activists as people who want to take the opponents’ money and give it to others. One aspect of this conceptualization is that government is not considered an agent of the people, but rather an external entity which imposes itself on people and deprives them of their liberty. The arguments for and against this conceptualization are irrelevant for my present purposes. There are clearly many people who do indeed adhere to this conceptualization, and that fact is what’s relevant.
George Lakoff in The Political Mind talked about the need to activate the frames and narratives in all of us that are empathy-based, if we want to be successful in implementing empathy-based public policies. There are few people of any ideological stripe who oppose community involvement, and most actively support it. Many conservatives are involved in their communities through churches, civic groups, and PTAs, for instance. Such involvement is where their empathy-based frames and narratives reside, along with, in many cases, a notion of “family values,” some aspects of which are also empathy based. By increasing the association of these activities with what is currently referred to as “the progressive agenda” (though avoidance of the word “progressive” might be crucial to the success of this project), we can increase the value of the (possibly renamed) brand, attracting more people to it, including some who never imagined that they might be attracted to it.
History is replete with examples of the persuasive power of those who “walk the walk.” Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. are two examples of “progressives” in their day, fighting to advance particular causes (Indian Independence and African American Civil Rights, respectively), whose examples were so compelling that few today would denounce what either of them stood for. They were “political entrepreneurs,” mobilizing “charismatic authority” in service to humanity. We can’t all be such giants, and we aren’t all willing to make the sacrifices it requires, but we can all make more modest sacrifices and rise to more modest heights, demonstrating the sincerity of our convictions and, by doing so, making the power of our message that much more irresistible.
There are already many who invest a great deal of time, energy, money, and personal commitment into advancing the progressive agenda. If some significant fraction can be persuaded to invest some increased portion of that time, energy, money, and personal commitment into increased, non-partisan community involvement, they will contribute greatly to increasing the association of the policies they advocate with the spirit of goodwill in service to mutual benefit. And by being direct agents of reason and goodwill in their communities, the public policies such activists favor are given a human face; rather than being easily conceptualized as the impositions of a remote overlord, such policies can be plainly seen to be the sincere preference of some good neighbors and community members who believe that the spirit of community can be expressed not just directly, but also through our government acting as an agent of our collective will.
I describe this component at greater length in several posts on my blog, Colorado Confluence. The post with the most concise and focused treatment is “The Power of ‘Walking the Walk'”: http://coloradoconfluence.com/?p=1540.
This community-strengthening component isn’t only a laudable end in itself, but it also serves the second component I mentioned: Messaging. The cause of Reason and Goodwill is a powerful one, one which few would explicitly claim opposition to. The most pronounced failure of those who are its political advocates is the failure to connect the political expression of Reason and Goodwill to the widespread individual aspirations to be reasonable people of goodwill. One aspect of addressing that failure involves modeling what it means to be reasonable people of goodwill, and cultivating the commitment to it that might eventually translate into increased popular support for public policies that are expressions of reason and goodwill.
More generally, the messaging has to rely less on academic or legalistic argumentation, and more on resonating with the frames and narratives that form people’s minds. We need to reach people where they live, finding their own empathetic frames and narratives, and connecting the set of well-reasoned public policies which are empathy-based to those frames and narratives. Therefore, the second component of the project I am proposing is the continuing and focused development of a cognitively sophisticated system of disseminating not just “progressive” ideas, but doing so in ways which resonate with non-progressive mindsets.
This project, therefore, involves not only increasing popular positive associations with progressive policies by modeling a progressive spirit of mutual goodwill, and forming increased positive social connections with people who do not self-identify as “progressives,” but also involves communicating that same message in ways that are precisely tailored to most effectively resonate with those who are currently perhaps only marginally inclined to be attracted by it. The community involvement becomes the most important conduit for the message, communicated with increased credibility, and couched in increasingly effective ways.
Finally, the first component of this project involves reducing the arbitrariness and exclusiveness of what is assumed to be those policies which advance the cause of Reason and Goodwill. Rather than a traditional policy think tank with an ideological bias, this component of the project would have to strive to map out the entire range of public policy ideas and options, guided only by a commitment to reason in service to the public interest, acknowledging legitimate debates and ranges of uncertainty (such as, for example, between Keynesian and Chicago School Economics, and the associated policies of economic stimulus through public spending v. “fiscal conservativism”).
I envision this component as a very ambitious social institutional analogue to “the human genome project,” in which the social institutional landscape is mapped out using available analytical tools (e.g., microeconomic analysis, network analysis, legal analysis, meme theory, etc.), comprising a coherent complex dynamical systems paradigm, and then, within this context, all competing ideologies, policy ideas, proposals, and analyses are cataloged and evaluated, controlling as much as possible for ideological bias, simply subjecting the universe of human social and political thought to the crucible of methodologically rigorous reason.
Two important dimensions of this project need to be highlighted: 1) These three components are not mutually segregated, but are rather integral aspects of a single coherent effort, reinforcing one another, and creating a powerful synergy of progressive thought, communication, and action; and 2) An enormous amount of work has been done in all three areas, under a variety of organizational umbrellas; utilization and integration of the product of those efforts, and of the existing social institutional material that has been generated from all quarters, is a large part of what this project would be about. The community involvement component would actively seek out partnerships with churches and other religious organizations, civic organizations, PTAs, park districts, non-profits, local businesses, and all others who have already developed a community infrastructure to work with and through.
We would, through this synthesis of focused analysis, focused communication, and focused action, weave the spirit of reason and goodwill into the social fabric as it currently exists, and contribute to the ongoing evolution of that social fabric in ways more conducive to the cause of Reason and Goodwill.
I believe that this project would have to avoid direct political advocacy of any kind (a function already addressed by other organizations) in order to preserve its legitimacy, and to reduce the obstacles that explicit partisanship creates. Its purpose would be to explore the social institutional landscape with as little bias as possible (but with an explicit commitment to advancing the public interest through the advocacy of reason in service to mutual goodwill), and through a combination of direct involvement in our communities and well-designed (cognitively targeted) messaging, disseminating that understanding as widely and deeply as possible. This would “soften the ground” for traditional political advocacy, and would also increase the quality of what we are advocating for (by decreasing ideological presumption and increasing openness to all ideas).
I am currently looking for any and all feedback, assistance, direction, and referrals to others who might offer the same. I can envision this as either being a directly funded project that I oversee (or merely participate in), or as a project that finds a home in an existing organizational context. I am completely amenable to these, and any other, possible paths of implementation. Please email me at steve.harvey.hd28@gmail.com
No Comments »
Buy my e-book A Conspiracy of Wizards
The bulk of my posts aggregate to inform A Proposal for a social movement, one which combines devising the best policy analyses in service to humanity with the best and most innovative and cognitively sophisticated messaging in order to attract an ever-widening range of the public to the agenda of Reason and Goodwill. The element that may be most novel and most powerful, however, is not this combination of the essentially familiar ingredients of policy analysis and messaging, but rather the one that can be a game changer, the one that may prove to be an irresistible force: Organizing not to change government or implement particular public policies so much as to create a simultaneously personal and social commitment to one another, by actually “walking the walk” of goodwill, of mutual interdependence and support, associating with “the progressive agenda” the attraction of a lived commitment to other people’s welfare.
As I wrote in The Ultimate Political Challenge, a single Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. captures the imagination and, in time, wins over the hardened hearts of much of the opposition. They both knew the power of their goodwill, of their personal commitment to it, and acted with the discipline to turn that goodwill into a social force. These two “political entrepreneurs” mobilized their “charismatic authority” in service to specific issues within a Progressive world view (Indian Independence and African American Civil Rights, respectively). What we lack today are similarly compelling political entrepreneurs, mobilizing similarly dedicated charismatic authority. And the step that hasn’t yet been taken is to mobilize those forces not to address a single issue, but to address the underlying issue of being a people dedicated to reason and empathy.
Today, there are many progressives angrily striving to implement progressive policies, but too often doing so with little or no internalized, personalized, and dedicated goodwill toward fellow human beings. It is just another blind ideology in their hands, not a commitment, not something they’re willing to sacrifice for. I challenge each and every one of them –AND MYSELF– not just to talk the talk, but also to walk the walk, to be, to some small degree, a tribute to those who were willing to give their lives to humanity, by giving some portion of our own. I challenge us all to strive to be “political entrepreneurs,” to strive to invoke our own “charismatic authority,” to demonstrate that individual initiative does not have to be mobilized only in service to the accumulation of individual wealth. I challenge us all to do good by being good, and by being good, vastly increasing our credibility as advocates for public policies aligned with that spirit.
The Tea Partiers, and other extreme individualists, who have managed to rationalize an indifference to the suffering of others and a denial of the responsibilities to others that come with the blessings of good fortune, are able to dismiss Progressives as people who want to spend other people’s money against their will, because, in fact, that’s all they see. But what if they saw instead the people who organize to mentor neighborhood kids, to help out those who are facing a crisis, to counsel and assist people in need, to be what they preach we as a society should be, and only in conjunction with that lived commitment, only as an auxiliary to it, are struggling to create a government that facilitates what they are already doing every day, in every way, as a natural part of our shared existence? Can you imagine the force of such a social movement?
All reasonable people of goodwill, who want to promote reason and goodwill, need to do so on the ground, in daily life, independently of government, if they want the advance of reason and goodwill to prevail. Those who can’t summon enough commitment to model for others what reason and goodwill look and feel like need to recognize that they are no better than those they oppose, no more than a bunch of people trying to impose their will on others without being willing to live up to the demands they themselves have made. No wonder the Progressive Movement is making so little headway! Who can trust armchair altruists, who talk a good game but live lives no more noble or generous than those they condemn?
I passionately want for us to become a kinder and gentler nation, a nation of people lifting one another up, a nation aspiring to realize the potential of the human spirit. There is one clear path to that end: For all of those who want the same to commit themselves to its realization, by becoming the kinds of irresistible beacons to reason and goodwill that Gandhi and King were, that each of us can be, even if to some smaller extent. By as many of us as possible striving to do so, we will give the Progressive brand a reputation for sincere goodwill that ever fewer will be able to deny. And the future will increasingly belong to what is best and most admirable in human beings.
This is what a commitment to Progressive policies demands of us: A commitment to personal progress in service to social progress, to being as individuals what we are advocating that we become as a society. Striving to rise to that challenge is the greatest gift we could give to our children, to their children, and to ourselves.
No Comments »
Buy my e-book A Conspiracy of Wizards
Martin Luther King, Jr, (apparently borrowing from an earlier Christian philosopher) said that “the arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.” John Maynard Keynes (later plagiarized by Winston Churchill, directing the reference toward Americans in particular) said that “[people] will do the rational thing, but only after exploring all other alternatives.” What these quotes illustrate, aside from the prevalence of plagiarism among famous orators (John F. Kennedy got his “Ask not…” line from his prep school, whose motto it was, substituting “your country” for “your school”), is the combination of optimism and cynicism that characterized these two quite different but equally visionary thinkers. In both phrases, the short-term is frustratingly full of injustice and irrationality, but the lathe of trial and error, and the impetus of the human soul, tend to sort it out in the long-run.
Neither of them were counseling complacency, however. Both were counseling perseverance, and commitment to bending the arc more sharply toward justice, accelerating and abbreviating the exploration of all those irrational alternatives. We who believe in reason, who believe in justice, who believe in the shared responsibility to be our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers, and in the woefully underrealized potential we have to intentionally and conscientiously improve the human condition, are called upon to be the agents of reason and justice in an irrational and unjust world, not as glassy-eyed fanatics pursuing emotionally gratifying caricatures of the two, but as patient, committed, and good-humored agents of what is good and decent about humanity.
The question that forever presents itself, and that is never more than partially and inadequately answered, is: How do we best confront that challenge?
There is no one answer. Yes, we need to keep generating the best ideas, most disciplined by reason exercised through reliable methodologies, most inspired by focused imaginations, most dedicated to the highest ideals and tempered by humility and dispassionate lucidity. Yes, we need to be pragmatic, political realists, working within that which currently exists to create that which might someday be. These two demands upon us cannot be denied: We must both generate the best ideas, and fight within the political arena to see them implemented to whatever extent possible, by whatever legal means possible. But these two demands, which dominate our attention and seem to exhaust the scope of our obligation, are missing the most vital component: We must reunite the two, so that the best ideas about how to govern ourselves become the means for their own political success. We must create a center of gravity comprised of reason and goodwill, a moral and intellectual force that few can resist.
The two great historical figures I quoted above both did just that, as have others: Martin Luther King, Jr., like Gandhi before him, made passive resistance in service to simple justice a very compelling force, one that few could stand against in the long run, though many stood against it in the short run. John Maynard Keynes helped inform a fiscal and economic policy that remained almost undisputed for over half a century, informed the most massive and rapid economic growth the world has ever seen, and continues to be the certainty of last resort in a fiscal crisis, when “we are all Keynesians.”
My favorite movie line of all time exhorts us all to rise to the level of such leaders, by being followers who honor them by identifying with them: “I am Spartacus!” (This line is in the news again, as supporters of a fellow in England who was arrested for Tweeting a joking bomb threat at a Northern English airport are now tweeting joking threats of their own, with the tag line “I am Spartacus!”). We are all Spartacus; we are all Martin; we are all Keynes; we are all capable of asking the most of ourselves in service to one another, and of doing all that we can to bend that arc of justice more sharply, to abbreviate that exploration of irrational alternatives to whatever extent possible.
Martin, in fact, “was” Gandhi, became Gandhi by emulating Gandhi, as any one of us can become Martin by emulating Martin. Who will be the next to stand up and lend their name to that nobility of spirit that resides in each of us, something we all aspire to realize, something we all struggle to untangle from the baser elements within us that hold it back and keep it buried? It may well be you.
But what does it mean to find that soul of justice and reason, of courage in service to these virtues, of commitment to stand on their behalf and resist the temptation to simply find a quiet refuge to escape their demands (and even, as the Tea Party has now done, create an ideology which justifies and exalts yielding to that temptation)? It means not just submitting to the discipline of reason and goodwill, but also dedicating oneself to making them inexorably attractive forces, striving to give them a voice and an incarnation in each of us that others cannot deny, just as the many could not deny reason and justice expressed through Gandhi and King.
The project I have proposed (A Proposal) is an attempt to give a new philosophical and programmatic life to this ideal. We need to work harder at connecting that place in our soul that can’t hide from the message insisting upon social justice when expressed with the undeniability of a Martin Luther King, Jr. or a Mahatma Gandhi with the efforts we make to reassert that same forgotten commitment to reason and social justice that so languishes today. Few of those Tea Partiers who are, unbeknownst to themselves, spitting on the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr., would ever suggest that they aren’t an admirer of his. We need to spoon-feed them that inconsistency, gently but assertively, and force them to work through the cognitive dissonance it provokes. We need to make them face the fact that they are not reasonable people of goodwill, that they are one of those “other alternatives,” that outward bow in the arc that must be bent back toward justice.
That is the ultimate political challenge. It includes creating the best ideas, and it includes fighting to have them implemented, but it also includes appealing to something inside all of us, something that responds to what’s true and right if it is presented in a way that can’t be denied. The phrase “winning minds and hearts” has become a cliche, but it remains the ultimate political challenge.
Let’s not forget to keep rising to it.
No Comments »
