Maurice Mitchell's viral essay on what progressive organizations have been getting wrong

[Professor Emeritus]

This is an interesting article. He purposely keeps the whole thing detail-oriented, tries to avoid calling anyone in particular out or start fights, but saying a lot of shyt that needed to be said. If you're looking for a "gotcha" or something to argue about there isn't a lot there, but if you're looking for good advice on how to help a group of people navigate the current organizational and political climate there are a lot of gems.

Building Resilient Organizations | The Forge

Toward Joy and Durable Power in a Time of Crisis

forgeorganizing.org

This has been getting passed around and talked about for three weeks now. Yet to see how much of it gets effectively acted on.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

Bill Moyer's "The Eight Stages of Successful Social Movements" is a good 35 years older, but very relevant in context:

Bill Moyer | The Movement Action Plan

 

[mastermind]

just started, I thought it would be like that article about workplace issues at progressive orgs from earlier this year. I’ve made this point on this forum several time. The US government has convinced a lot of people that change was going to happen with labor, race and gender thanks to benevolent politicians when that didn’t come close to happening:

Our current movement is ideologically underdeveloped and uneven. History can help us understand why. There has been a one-sided, often government-initiated effort to defang movements for justice: the brutal terrorism following Reconstruction, the Red Scare following the Bolshevik revolution in 1917, the dismantling of Pan-African nationalist movements in the 1920s, McCarthyism in the ’50s, COINTELPRO in the ’60s, and the war on militant Black liberation organizations well into the early ’80s. Leaders have been jailed, killed, or co-opted; organizations have been invaded, dismantled, or neutralized. We have inherited this traumatic and often bloody legacy.

As a result of this rupture, over the past 50 years, many of our leaders have prioritized hard skills and pragmatism over developing their ideological orientation or running transformative campaigns. Other organizations have an ideological analysis but lack the skills to develop an effective strategy and execute a campaign in a way that builds large bases.

You don’t ask the government and hope they do what you request, you have to make their position untenable.

 

[mastermind]

Great point here:

Maximalist thinking is particularly pernicious when it is used to justify not doing the basic work of organizing: talking to lots of different kinds of people on the doors, in their homes, and in their workplaces. We need to meet people where they are, build relationships, and move them into action. The work of organizing and base building also disciplines our tactics by grounding them in the needs and demands of our people.

 

[mastermind]

It’s easier to use language and cultural references that signify an ideological inclination than to actually study and practice a particular framework. However, such loose ideological signaling can lead to incoherence. This practice can devolve legitimate frameworks, concepts, and language into tools for individuals to virtue signal or provide weight to an argument that does not stand on its own premises. It should be noted that it is popular to borrow catchphrases and quotes from Black feminists, theorists, thinkers, and collectives in particular. This is especially pernicious when the arguments those thinkers developed are hijacked and flattened by those seeking personal benefit or legitimacy.

The profligate and unexamined use of social media has amplified this particular trend. These platforms—owned and controlled by megacorporations—reward us for our ability to articulate or reshare the sharpest, pithiest, pettiest, most polemic, or most engaging “content.” There is no premium on nuance, accuracy, and context. There is little room for low-ego information sharing or curious and grounded political education. These platforms are ideal for, and give immediate reward to, uninformed cherry-picking, self-aggrandizement, competition, and conflict.

We are learning the damaging lesson that the performance of profundity can supercharge our arguments and points of view while obscuring scrutiny or accountability. In the worst cases, such practices weaken our work. At the same time, the instinct to reach for a high-minded theory when a simple request will do can overlook the power we have to set personal boundaries. For example, “I need to take personal time” is a complete and worthy statement. We are enough, and our desires and boundaries matter on their own.

indeed

 

[Professor Emeritus]

Great point here:

indeed

Both of those are great, the first one in particular is one of the more controversial statements he made in terms of how certain people just want to refuse to do it or refuse to believe it can lead to anything positive.

There are a lot of statements in the essay that are relatively uncontroversial even though they're not being practiced enough, like practical advice for better leadership, better interactions with leadership, better hiring, etc. But the list of ten "Common Trends" and why he notes as fallacies is where he's really going to ruffle some feathers. And necessarily so.

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

white class reductionism

 

[re'up]

I read Michelle Goldberg's column in the times about this the other day, seemed worth reading

She highlighted the "lefts" feverish obsession with purity politics, and how it can take down social justice organizations, but there was probably more to it

 

[Secure Da Bag]

white class reductionism

Honestly article sounds like you wrote it but replaced democrats with progressives.

 

[Hood Critic]

Interesting peak behind the curtains but I thought he was going to get to the fact that issues/agendas diverge from simplicity in his small war and scalability sections.

All of the problems listed form out of agenda items scaling to mean different things to the same people. Voting is a great example of this, if the message and the goal can simply be everyone has a right to vote and it should be effortless to do so, it'd be easier to keep a wide group collectively on the same page.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

I read Michelle Goldberg's column in the times about this the other day, seemed worth reading

She highlighted the "lefts" feverish obsession with purity politics, and how it can take down social justice organizations, but there was probably more to it

That's how I found it too, there was nothing wrong with her article but she is trying to lean into the controversy, while Maurice was definitely trying to lean away from the controversy. I mean no doubt, his essay IS controversial, but he did everything possible to write it as a helpful position paper rather than some sort of news item to get views.

He's basically just acknowledging that a lot of people who entered the progressive movement don't quite know how to work together yet and aren't very good at organizational shyt. Acknowledging that that has to change for real work to get down, his is trying to get some ground rules started in terms of attitudes that have to be taken on and compromises that have to be made for any sort of functioning organization to make progress without tearing itself apart from within.

I think the issues are so obvious by now, and his positions are built strong enough, that anyone trying to dismiss his essay is either a natural contrarian, an agent, or absolutely blind.

 

[Consigliere]

Fallacies

Disproportionality can be a byproduct of uneven training on concepts like power and power analysis as well as a misunderstanding of strategy. This tendency ultimately weakens meaning, dulls analysis, and robs us of the ability to acknowledge and process instances of violence and oppression. If everything is “violent,” nothing really is. If every slight is “oppression,” nothing is.



Traffic violence comes to mind. Matter of fact, this entire piece reminds me of my annoyance with the bike lobby and how they have wrapped themselves in all of these unearned trappings because save the earth.

Good read so far.

 

[ExodusNirvana]

Fallacies

Disproportionality can be a byproduct of uneven training on concepts like power and power analysis as well as a misunderstanding of strategy. This tendency ultimately weakens meaning, dulls analysis, and robs us of the ability to acknowledge and process instances of violence and oppression. If everything is “violent,” nothing really is. If every slight is “oppression,” nothing is.



Traffic violence comes to mind. Matter of fact, this entire piece reminds me of my annoyance with the bike lobby and how they have wrapped themselves in all of these unearned trappings because save the earth.

Good read so far.

They frame it that way because without it, and justifiably so, the average person will tell them to kick rocks because much like the GOP

- Use scary language to bring attention to something
- "Think of the children"
- Tell the people they're only trying to do this teensy tiny little thing and that it's for the good of everyone
- Do far more than that because the goal was to get you to give them the power they need to do what they REALLY want to do

And if you gotta do all that in order to convince people it's a worthwhile cause to support, then you're no different than the nutty ass right wingers

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

Another "why I left, the left" grift

Opinion | The Left’s Fever Is Breaking

Maurice Mitchell on progressive dysfunction.

www.nytimes.com

Lots of these bernie leftists are turning out NOT to be allies

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

They frame it that way because without it, and justifiably so, the average person will tell them to kick rocks because much like the GOP

- Use scary language to bring attention to something
- "Think of the children"
- Tell the people they're only trying to do this teensy tiny little thing and that it's for the good of everyone
- Do far more than that because the goal was to get you to give them the power they need to do what they REALLY want to do

And if you gotta do all that in order to convince people it's a worthwhile cause to support, then you're no different than the nutty ass right wingers

This is why I don't entertain this argument in the slightest.

It's progressives trying to pivot to republican framing for political expediency.

Why?

It'll never work and republicans and right wingers just get reaffirmed that they're right:



If Jordan Peterson is advocating for you, you fukked up. Period.