The First Step

We begin with the deficit between our personal priorities and the political and economic  agenda of our state. When we  choose to reshape our culture and society, for the common good or not, we  arrive at a set of choices. We can take this deficit and the related frustration as an opportunity for problem solving, or we can submit in several ways. One possible choice  is to re-invest in the conceit of world views that obstruct change in the name of social stability, order, and reform.

In considering the choices among the models for social movements, “successful” has to be accepted as a temporary rather than a permanent condition. “Success” also needs to be measured against the degree of cultural change that is accomplished, rather than by assimilation into the established cultural paradigm. In response to the short comings of various would-have-been “social” movements, there have been many prescriptions about what defines a “successful” social movement. Most of these suggestions have lacked an historical and an appropriately ideological base. Several focus on public relations, technical and administrative proposals, and most continue to not produce the promised major changes for a variety of reasons.  Even so, each proposal probably made for an applauded speech to the assembled faithful. When we  re-consider the received versions of our history, of our assumptions about social movements,  and of what seems to establish significant change, a different model becomes possible. Until such reflection, the common assumptions and ideologies about social movements will continue to obstruct a practice based discourse.

Historical social movements have been narrated as the primary means for accomplishing the societal changes required in nearly every era. Yet the establishment of a social movement only becomes necessary in the absence of regulatory processes to control societal drift toward usury, and in the absence of leadership sensitive to systemic and injurious inequality. Without discussing  the nature of formal leadership, politicians will often rise to take credit for what has become politically acceptable. The primary populations pressing for social change expanding democratic values have often been in stark contrast to those participating in the formalized discourse about social movements, or to the formal leadership of nominal “social movement” organizations.  These same “social movements” have also become a way of obstructing and resisting societal change.

The  baseline of social movements is that they represent organized challenges by those who are harmed under the  power and privileges of the predatory elites. In describing social movements the tendency has been to accept the  “popular” and elitist interpretations with their associated truisms of conventional wisdom. Declared “social movements” can also include anti-social agitation favoring the reversals of the practice of democracy and social causes that lack most of the identifying elements of genuine social movements. This has been particularly the case since the  institutionalization of public education contrary to a culture of self directed or activism based education and engagement. This could be described as a form of “trained incapacity.”1

The current context in the US strongly suggests that we address why self nominated “progressive movements” here have been so frequently ineffective over the past thirty years. The diagnostic term “ideological paralysis” seems apt. It makes a certain sort of sense that an “anti-war movement” of the present era would want to repeat the never undersold  success of the US Anti-Vietnam War Movement. It seems less clear why would-be social movements would not choose to model their efforts after the US Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's into the 1970's, probably the most successful social movement in recent times.  There are two prevailing summaries of the US Anti-Vietnam War Movement, and they share an unexpected similarity. This period in the US also had a ferment of resistance and counter-cultural activities, which makes it difficult to neatly summarize. The two main movements of the period also shared some participants, though not their primary leadership. Even so,  it is the summaries that seem to remain as the basis for strategies and “activism.”

Many of the  nominal leaders of the US “Anti-Vietnam War Movement” were glad to take credit for ending the Vietnam War, if for no other reason than those credits assisted in inflating their self importance  and coverage by the media. In addition to the adrenaline surges side benefits included publishing books, speaking tours, a few dissertations, and the launching of a few political careers. The reputed success of the Vietnam Anti-War Movement has persuaded many contemporary activists to earnestly replicate those imagined successes. In spite of the long standing acceptance of this interpretation, its use  as a model has produced little. There should be serious concern  about why the recipe is not producing  the foretold “successes,” short of  conceding to the vanguardists blaming “the masses” for not arriving upon command..

      One piece of history that weakens the credibility of the US Anti Vietnam War Movement features how in general it refused to work in collaboration with the US Civil Rights Movement through the initiative of Martin Luther King Jr., winner of the 1964  Nobel Peace Prize.  The decision was made within the US Civil Rights Movement to participate in the planning for the  planned major anti-war demonstration in New York City for the spring of 1967. At a meeting of the 40 or so organizations involved, the decision was made to use the context of that demonstration of some 600,000 people as a showcase for the different participating organizations. Used as an educational opportunity, people could have returned to their communities with material and insights that they could use to advance  their local efforts. The choice to operate as a showcase  allowed each representative 3 minutes to speak at that demonstration.

The refusal to act together in other than a superficial sense included ignoring the history and real successes of the US Civil Rights movement, the possibility that the US anti-Vietnam War movement could learn from the organizing skills of the US Civil Rights movement, and the probability that together the two efforts would be stronger and could address the deeper effects and causes of both warfare, racism, and poverty.2 To the extent that this superficial collaboration was the anti-war standard it barely qualifies as a social movement. This is a description of ideological paralysis, a declaration favoring change paralyzed by an ideology that obstructs change by its anti-social assumptions.