Interest, expectation: 3D. GET REAL: clarify expectations

3. INTEREST, EXPECTATION, RISK & ACTION :
Apply understanding to action.

3D. GET REAL: Clarify our expectations.
• Reconsider our expectations.
• I have been to the mountaintop: envisioning democracy.
# We make the path by walking and imagining.
# Keep our eyes on the prize, hold on.


3E. GET SERIOUS: Clarify our self-interest, goals, and strategies.
• Talk about our own self-interest and the risks of change.
• Distinguish survival choices from long-term commitments.
• Practice taking responsibility.
# Bring hidden decisions to light.
# Tell the truth about what we want.
• Track our progress.


3F. GET TOGETHER: Compare expectations, coordinate strategies.
• Identify expectations we share, and draw some conclusions.
• Focus on the big goals, over the long term.
• Recast the language of altruism to emphasize acting together responsibly.
• Tackle the trust issues.
# First of all, let’s don’t sell ourselves short.
# Don’t underestimate the neighbors.
# Make the rules we need; change them when we need to.
# Speak for ourselves.
# Don’t blame others when it’s really our own fears we are acting on.
# Examine the roots of our distrust.
# Don’t assume gangsters will act as we would.
# Give each other one more chance.
# Fragments of conversations about dis/trust.


To complete Table of Contents

* * * * * * * * * * * *
INTEREST, EXPECTATION, RISK & ACTION : Apply understanding to action.

Thinking and talking about self-interest is a necessary part of our political work. We can use our understanding of self-interest to strengthen organizing and democratic resistance, by fine-tuning and coordinating our expectations, goals and strategies.

Probably the lengthy conversations I propose could take place only among people already committed together; but we can make very short enquiries in more casual circumstances. First, let’s



3D. GET REAL: Clarify our expectations.

Let's be bold about learning the world and how we can live in it.

Our expectations are so much a part of the fabric of daily life that they become the assumptions and standards by which we judge what’s good and normal. It’s easy to forget where we got them, and how; or even that they are not the same thing as the world itself.

Sometimes these expectations are hidden, so we end up talking way past the people we want to work with. Sometimes they’re just plain wrong. In any case, they matter a lot to what we think we can do politically, and they are hard to change.

So, before we set out our goals and strategies, we can first reconsider our expectations. Then we can check around to see if there are others that might be both more realistic and more hopeful.


• Reconsider our expectations.
I admit it, I’m one of Mattuck’s “procedural knowers,” the folks who trust established learning routines to correct or compensate for the largely predictable shortcomings of our perceptions; no different really than turning on the headlights when we come to a tunnel. When we understand that we see the world through assumptions, we make time to unearth and examine them. Procedural knowing is not what Mattuck and her co-authors value the most, but it’s what I turn to a lot. It can help us take a second look at our expectations. We can do it in a very systematic way, in groups, or more casually, over time, with friends and co-workers.

Maybe a place to start is to look at the common assumption that our own lives are typical of most people’s-- and our shock and anger when they won’t agree with us. Questions like, What's a normal breakfast? or, What's a normal family? might help us think about how we derive assumptions and expectations.

We can pose questions about very basic political expectations, such as, Do you think a long-lasting peace is possible? Can we all make a living without stealing from somebody else? Can we get what we need without fouling the planet beyond repair? Can we get along without bosses and jails? Or we could ask people to prioritize: if you were drawing up the federal budget and had to choose between cheaper health care for all, or an overseas army, how would you decide? (What are the biggest threats to you and your family?) The point here is not to develop policy proposals at this point, but to share what we really think is possible, and why.

Some questions about government and power: Is it true that all politicians are liars, and all bureaucrats are power hungry? What about your Congressperson? What about your mail carrier? Did Clinton have it right when she said President Johnson was as important as M. L. King in bringing about the Civil Rights Act? What's the best way to achieve political change: persuasion or confrontation?

More questions about class and the economy: What does it mean to Buy American, and what would happen if we all did? The CEOs at some top companies make 400X the wages of their average employee. What’s a fair way to set wages? Does everyone have the same opportunities? Where do the differences come from? Are businesses more efficient than families or government? What does "efficient" mean?

More fundamentally: What kind of system do we live in, closed or open? In other words, are economic resources limited or indefinitely expandable? Can a rising tide raise all boats, or are we playing what’s essentially a zero-sum game: any advance you make comes out of my share? What about technology? What about art? What about cooperation?

Questions about us: What do men (women, Christians, low income people . . .) want? What does Halliburton want? Are those the same things you want? Is it true that I can make my dreams come true, that I can be whatever I put my mind to?

Underlying the political questions are assumptions about what we can and must do for ourselves, individually, and what takes a group or community-wide effort. Getting health care, getting information, learning skills, paying the bills, protecting yourself, raising kids, resolving disputes . . . what do you need help doing? Who do you ask? For the folks who say they don't need much help, we can ask how they might get a particular task done. Sometimes we don't notice the social infrastructure we depend on, and may not count it among our vested interests. Other times we might not see all the policies that make our lives harder, and end up blaming bad luck or ourselves rather than organizing to build something better.

Because our religions strongly inform our basic expectations, it helps to review those. But here I think nothing could be more useless than studying scripture a la Stephen Prothero. He writes that, to understand each other, we should all learn the names of each book in the Bible, the 4 Noble Truths of Buddhism, and the core doctrines of the other high-market-share religions-- almost another version of the Great Books program.

We do need to know about the different knowledge systems. But it's not so much the Ten Commandments --the taboos and thou-shalt-nots-- that shape what we do, as the assumptions and expectations which underlie the rules, such as: women and children are property; evil and suffering in the world trace back to the first woman choosing knowledge; the Almighty loves us; wealth is the result and mark of virtue; nature is diabolical and must be conquered; sex is filthy; we are immortal; and so forth. Every “should” adorns or implies an “is”-- take an eye for an eye, for instance, because, unlike me, you all respond only to punishment. Christianity has the long flirtation with Platonic idealism and “natural law” to justify its ethical claims. A more recent movement mines scripture for verses that seem to prophesy Marx. Every tradition sketches its own not very consistent explanations of what the world is like. (As with race, there are much greater differences within traditions than between them. They offer something for everyone-- precisely why they are so adaptable and persist so long.)

Prothero’s idea that we should study the formal dogma is comparable to trying to understand Stalin by reading Das Kapital, the centerpiece of Marxist ideology. It’s much more to the point to ask: What did the Bolshies learn in the jails and terrorist cells of Czarist Russia, and in the war against Western invaders? (Pretty much the same thing the mullahs learned in the Shah’s torture chambers: do unto others. Now where Don Rumsfeld learned his secrets of success, I couldn’t say. Prep school, maybe. Great minds think alike?)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The same pattern is to be found in all origin myths: they describe both the origin of the people and the nature of their world. Explanation is both descriptive and prescriptive. It provides a framework for life" (Leakey 308).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The wagging beards can chart the 14 heavens or legislate the 14 kinds of underwear, but these are irrelevant to how we act in community. Sacred cows or profane pigs, those rules don’t generate democratizers or suicide bombers. How one rises to positions of authority in various systems, that’s significant. If I believe the cosmos rewards me more for feeding a monk than a starving child, that behavior changes the world. If I classify the people of my clan or village as people, and every other creature as soulless prey, right there I’ve got a conclusion much more fundamental than whether angels sit on our right or left shoulders. And even though religious communities have supposedly gone to war over doctrinal trivia, does anyone think those were the real issues? Religious wars are no different than any other wars: they are about power. We choose our values and our politics based on how we think the world works; what our expectations are.

So with all our political expectations, it helps to recall how we developed them in the first place. Where did we get our first ideas about success, or gender, or what it takes to survive? Who says we are all at the mercy of our greed and addictions? Who says men can’t raise kids, that the U.S.A. has a sacred mission, that the rules of society somehow exist above and before society, that we have to lie to kids to protect them, that the surest road to love and respect in our communities is ripping off outsiders . . . ? We can to look at these trainings and label them by origin-- family, school, church, political movement, X-Box; whichever.

Turn our own assumptions into questions, and we’ve got a tool to find out what our neighbors are thinking. I don’t think we can or need to cover all the bases to get a good idea of where we stand with respect to each other, and where there are big gaps.

When we’ve understood how we built our models in the first place, we can begin to see how to change them.