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This is a long one, but it's worth reading. It's an excerpt from the book How Can I Help? by Ram Dass and Paul Gorman. And it seems to me to be in exactly the spirit in which Illosopher posed the initial question in this thread.
THE WAY OF SOCIAL ACTION
Sometimes it’s enough just to share information with others: the number of nuclear warheads deployed and poised; the wage rates of women compared to men; the unemployment statistics for minorities; how many children starve to death in a single day. We trust these situations to speak for themselves. Injustice will strike others as injustice has struck us. We’re appealing to collective understanding and compassion. It’s Us talking it all over, seeing what We need to do.
But much of the time we come into social action – knocking on a door with a petition, addressing a meeting, writing a pamphlet, showing up at a demonstration, or just talking informally – and we’re just a little self-righteous. We’re convinced we’ve got something to say, something we’re “correct” about. We’ve got our ideology and our scenario: here’s how the situation really is, and the facts to back it up; if you’d take the time to read them, and if we all don’t do this there’s going to be that, so you better get started, and right away, right now.
Some of the time this attitude is blatant; at other times it’s more understated. But at some level what we’re communicating is the feeling that we know, others don’t, and we’ve got to Change Minds. Changing Minds is a tricky game, especially when it’s being fed with urgency and self-righteousness. There’s often an air of superiority in what we say. People instinctively back off. They feel like they’re being told, being “should” upon. Social action, they understand intuitively, ought to be fully voluntary if it’s to have power and endurance. But we’re not quite leaving them enough room when we set about trying to change their minds. We don’t have the inclusiveness, the steadiness, the real willingness to listen that is critical at the outset of any action. It’s not quite Us – it’s this one trying to move that one.
In that environment, concerned as we are with results, we call on tactics of persuasion, appealing to states of mind that get people going. We begin to manipulate consciousness. Play to anger. Go for fear. There’s always guilt. These basic states of mind are always lurking about, looking to be fed. They find plenty of nourishment in the world of social action: anger at oppression, guilt at being “better off,” fear of violence and the greater power of others. They make a good case for themselves, pointing to all the provocation and evidence right here at hand.
Sometimes these feelings get us going – just the kick in the pants we may need. And we can keep them in check, in fact work with them. We can turn anger at injustice into cool, steady resolve. We can flip fear of war into greater reverence for life. We can find in feelings of guilt a call to greater moral sensitivity and alertness.
Yet left to themselves, fear, anger, and guilt are unwholesome states of mind. How many of us have them fully in control in our private lives? They pull us into a cycle of reactivity and feed on themselves. We begin to lose sight of the conditions that might have provoked them in the first place. In addition, they tend to be addictive and toxic. History is filled with examples of how these attitudes, which initially may have stirred people to action, went on to poison and destroy well intentioned movements for social change. These are powerful states of mind we’re playing with. Intentionally set in motion, their effect is usually incendiary.
Moreover, these states of mind blur our judgment and blind us to tactics that might be more reliable sources of action. Caught up in these emotions, we lose our timing and make mistakes. Our hearts grow cold; we turn people off. We’re too worked up to hear our own inner voice, let alone trust anyone else’s. What benefit in that?
They also prevent us from calling upon deeper human virtues that often move us all to act. In anger, we may lose sight of love. In fear, we may sacrifice trust and courage. In guilt, we may deny self-worth and obstruct inspiration. Do we really want to lose access to all these? If we really care about social change, can we afford to sacrifice such sources of commitment and strength? Are we serious or not?
We need to explore ways to reach one another and get started that don’t set us off on the wrong foot. The handbill that announces the first meeting of a local parents group… the fund raising letter that seeks support for famine relief … the mood of the crowd as it awaits the outset of the march … the way you phrase a question to a city councilwoman who’s a little astonished at all these people who’ve shown up at her office … these aren’t incidental moments or trivial matters of presentation or public relations. We’re communicating the spirit behind the initiative. That’s usually the message people react to first of all, if not most of all. What spirit will it be? How will we come forward? We can share information and conviction: here’s our passion, our sense of urgency. But if “people don’t like to be should upon, they’d rather discover than be told,” then our invitation will probably be most effective when it communicates trust and respect. And honesty as well: We have to stay conscious of the ways in which our own lives still lack integrity and consistency. We’re strongest when we act from what we have in common. We usually have to listen for that before we can really begin to act. Even the slightest bit of self-righteousness can get in the way.
Peace.
~ ~ ~
All meetings end in separation
All acquisition ends in dispersion
All life ends in death
- The Buddha
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Every hundred years, all new people
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