Posted by
Phoenix Lady on Monday, February 09, 2009 1:58:17 AM
According to Saul Alinsky, the ideal elements an organizer must have in order to be effective are as follows:
- Curiosity
- Irreverence
- Imagination
- A sense of humor
- A somewhat blurred vision of a better world
- An organized personality
- Well-integrated political schizoid personality
- Ego
- A free and open mind & recognition of political relativity
- The ability to communicate
While it's highly unlikely any would-be organizer will have all of these items at full strength (although it could be argued that Jesus did--I know, he wasn't a community organizer), a good organizer will have most of them at some level. Mr. Alinsky goes into a lot more detail on these items in the chapter "Education of an Organizer," pages 72-80, and "Communication," page 80 and on. I'll just make a few comments based on his notes. I'll cover the first three elements tonight, and the rest in later posts.
Curiosity: If you aren't curious about why things are the way they are, why would you have any interest in changing them? Curiosity is inherent in everyone of us as babies and young children. Unfortunately for many people, expressions of curiosity scare the dickens out of most adults, particularly parents, who tend to squash curiosity in their children because a.) it was squashed in them by their parents, and/or b.) because they feel they have no time to answer (much less help the child find the answers) the incessant "Why?" Especially since there is no final answer to that question with regard to anything within this life (and probably not in the next, either). Asking the question why can also lead to the question "Why not?" as in "we don't like things the way they are, so why not work to change them to something more to our liking?" While it's true Mr. Alinsky mainly worked with have nots, from a relatively socialist angle, probably because he saw this as the best way to break up the status quo, there's nothing about curiosity that limits it to the folks on the left side of the aisle. In fact, they are the Haves to a much greater extent than the folks on the right side of the aisle right now, so we need to start asking questions and figuring out how to use the same elements for our own purposes.
Irreverence: Where curiosity asks "is this true? Is this the only way things can or should be done?" irreverence sees nothing as set in stone. While Reality is Truth with a capital T, we are such tiny parts of the Truth that we can only perceive Truth in terms unique to each of us, and therefore relative to everyone else. The ideal organizer detests dogma, defies any finite definition of morality, rebels against any repression of his free and open search for ideas, no matter what. Most people have irreverence squashed out of them as children right along with curiosity, because it threatens the structures people create to contain Reality lest they run screaming from the Infinite and Eternal Reality so far beyond their ability to comprehend that they must deny it for the sake of what they define as sanity. As Mr. Alinsky puts it, ""irreverence is rooted in a deep reverence for the enigma of life, and an incessant search for its meaning." Only one who has this reverence for the Infinite and Eternal Reality can have reverence for others, "for their freedom from injustice, poverty, ignorance, exploitation, discrimination, disease, war, hate, and fear." He makes it clear that he wouldn't even undertake to teach someone unless they had that kind of reverence.
Imagination: Curiosity and irreverance can't exist without imagination, and the three of them are the triumverate of creativity. Imagination, coupled with curiosity and irreverence enables the organizer to "work outside the box," to look at what is and envision what it could be. Imagination is also a necessary part of empathy, the ability to put oneself in the shoes of another, to understand beyond the words one hears how the other person feels, and what he or she really needs or wants. In this way, he shares the plight of those in need and becomes motivated to help them learn how to identify and solve their problems--and his imagination also helps him find ways to help them identify and solve those problems. Also, as Mr. Alinsky points out, "The organizer knows that the real action is in the reaction of the opposition. To realistically appraise and anticipate the probable reactions of the enemy, he must be able to identify with them, too, in his imagination, and foresee their reactions to his actions."
Clearly the elements of curiosity, irreverence, and imagination are hardly unique to those on the left side of the aisle. GunnyG (
Anti-Liberal Zone) is possessed of all three to a much greater degree than our current president (and has clearly spent pretty much his whole life using them in his work). Perhaps once upon a time, very long ago in childhood, Mr. Obama might have as well, but all three elements got squashed out of him by his life experience. Now he's a prisoner of the worldview he's built around himself. He's afraid to admit he could be wrong, and therefore dares not ask why, much less why not. He may revere Mr. Alinsky, but it's clear that he doesn't understand him in the slightest. And he has no imagination, otherwise he wouldn't have told Nancy Pelosi to draft the Porkulus Bill. All he's given us so far is old, failed answers instead of imaginative ways to address the issue. And he has no empathy for the needs and wants of any of the people he professes to serve. He can't imagine why any of us on the right side of the aisle are so frightened of what he's trying to do that we are buying guns and ammo like there's no tomorrow. If he did, he wouldn't be trying to convince us the sky is falling unless we pass the Porkulus Bill right this second.
As I've said before, if Mr. Alinsky were still among the living, he would give Mr. Obama an F- as a community organizer. Even more to the point, he would shake his head over Mr. Obama's complete lack of reverence for anyone besides himself and would refuse to take him on as a student in the first place.
Next post, we'll look at the next three elements on the list: a sense of humor, a somewhat blurred vision of a better world, and an organized personality.