A Provocation.

A Provocation.
Here’s the proposition. I’m going to sketch out some of what we know about how we construct our explanations and cling to them or change them when we’re under stress, because how we learn affects what we learn. I’ll outline what our stories do for us, as individuals and in groups. I’ll touch on some of the common elements to many stories, such as how we deal with uncertainty and responsibility, how we understand bosses and subordinates, our models of individuals and social systems. I’ll explore some stories that bind us to Halliburton, and some that help us cut the chains. I’ll write a little about what it means to be doing this project-- I’m looking for a Story, too.

I’m going to suggest what all this might mean for political education work (see the "Apply . . . " sections). Appreciating how we make stories helps us better understand our neighbors, nurture political conversations and community stories, and solve problems together.

I’ll argue that tiptoeing around the wedge issues is not the pragmatic response but a sure road to defeat. To build a lasting mass base for democratic change, we cannot put off challenging the core of the corporate ideology, as risky and expensive as that will be. To change the rules of the power game, first we’ll have to change the terms of debate. I have no intention of suggesting that words and stories are the same as power (if that's your thing, just tune in to the Visualize Your Wealth! scams on late night TV). Rather, we need the right words and stories to organize, analyze, strategize, and coordinate.

This is not going to be a review of the mass media or an analysis of the political forces. Lots of other folks have already written about these things, some very well. I think it’s beyond dispute that criminals still control many important institutions and that we have to build the democratic movement in spite of that. That makes it all the more urgent to mobilize the resources we do have: people and the ideas that can hold us together, structure our work, shape our strategies and prepare us to govern. As I read this to myself, it seems crazily ambitious. But I don't know that we have a choice.

This is my database: the stories I tell myself; conversations with friends and colleagues and the people in my classes; lots of books on psychology and politics. My experience is very limited. I’m a straight single aging still healthy white guy with no kids, a good income and many fears. I worked for political groups for a few years. I’ve tried to stretch my brain beyond these boundaries but there’s too much I don’t understand and can’t even imagine. So I hope readers can point me and each other to the universes I’m missing and misreading. I have to start in ignorance or not start at all.

I can’t point to a single idea here that is original. Nor is this an academic study. I'm not trying to prove a new discovery. Rather, I'm trying to encourage a practice. I want to bring together a mass of related information, as confirmed or contradicted in my limited experience, and suggest ways to apply it to our political understanding and action. A very great shortcoming, I’m embarrassed to admit, is that in the process of writing this I have consulted only one colleague; so this draft will have to serve as the provocation for feedback from many.

My first goal is to push discussion about political education, with particular attention to this key element that I call Story. I hope most of all that educators would read this, and other people doing political work. I’d really like to hear back from readers, including the many who will disagree with my conclusions. I hope to review a lot of research in ways that can be brought to bear on education and organizing today.

The Christian theorist Augustine outlined one kind of research project: “We should, finally, inquire as to what it is that makes one a heretic so that, in avoiding that with the Lord’s help, we may avoid the poison of heresies . . . ” (Bosmajian 41).

My questions lie in the other direction: How can we spread the heresy of democracy? How can we bust up authoritarian lies and make our own stories more truthful? How can we foster stories that lead to collective political action? How can I learn to look after my neighbors and stand up to the gangsters? This is only a part of the work we need to do, but it underlies the rest.

A friend and colleague challenges me to write something practical, something we can really use in our political work. Gee whiz! Is that all? But yes, that’s my goal, too.

I hope that our work teaching and learning will not just slow the corporate juggernaut, will not just recover a few feet of ground lost over the past 40 or 400 years. I’d like us to change the terms of debate and build a broad, deep and lasting popular base for democracy.

I hope experienced activists, organizers and political educators will read and discuss this, and anyone else who practices democracy.


A note on terminology.
You’ll see that when I refer to politics or political work, I don’t mean just parties or voting. For me, politics is almost anything we do that affects other people. Democratic decision-making is something I’d like see prevail throughout our communities.

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" . . . I had better explain first what I do not mean by socialism . . . . What I really mean is a more genuine democracy, where the citizens of our country have more direct access to all the decisions that affect us, not only in the political but also in the economic arena” (Segrest 242).
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I don’t think we have a fixed, monolithic ruling class. I don’t think Georgie was the main player in the Bush Administration. I think we have been ruled for years by a succession of murderous cliques dominated by wealthy investors acting through many institutions, and “Halliburton” is my shorthand for the 2000 - 2008 coalition, as well as for the company itself. That the regime in the U.S. is not so brutal as elsewhere gives me no shivers of gratitude; Halliburton is just a local name for worldwide institutions that require theft and murder on a grand scale. In a very direct sense, our relative comfort here is paid for by many people in other countries. But here I’m not concerned with exactly who done what to whom. I also call the people in power parasites, death-dealers and other unflattering but all too true descriptors. I hope that doesn’t make this harder to read.*

I don’t know enough yet to venture to characterize the Obama government, and probably the main players don’t either. It’s no surprise to see many of the same old faces and interests.

Readers may be confused by the inconsistent way I use “we” in the following pages. By “we” I mean me and other people in our many capacities as learners, educators, nurturers and killers. It’s clumsy but I don’t know a better way to put it. My perspective is unmistakably limited by my experience as an old straight white guy of the U.S. middle class, but I know that other folks here and overseas have paid the highest price for gangster rule. The struggle for democracy is as transnational as Halliburton and Al Qaeda.

I refer to people with politics similar to mine as do-gooders, lefties, liberals, radicals, pinkos, or progressives. There are important historical and current differences in what these words have meant, but I don’t know much about them. For my purposes, the bar codes are less important; here I’m concerned mostly with methods.


Please comment.
I’m still trying to figure out the best format --I’m very clumsy at bloggery-- but there are slots for comment throughout this series of essays.


* I don’t want to assume too much. In case you’re not sure who I refer to so rudely, I mean the people who could make good health care available to all, but do not; who could build affordable housing, but do not; who could arrange safe working conditions for their employees, but do not; who could shelter refugees, but do not; who could give food to the hungry, but throw it away instead; who could live plentiful lives without wiping out whole ecosystems, but do not; who claim women and children as property; who set neighbor against neighbor fighting for crumbs; who could help their neighbors but instead rat them out; who bully the least protected people in our society; who recruit children to fight their wars; who routinely rape, torture, starve, assassinate and bomb in order to boost their prestige and profit margins; who walk past the bodies unseeing, and act surprised and annoyed to find spatters on their shoes . . . do you get the idea? Do you know who I’m writing about?
Some of my friends prefer not to dwell on such unpleasantness. With all the problems, the world is slowly getting better, they would tell me (before 2008, anyway). We can download movies on demand! We have so many ways to treat cancer now! Look at all the Indians who have moved up into the middle class! I think their optimism would be dented a bit if they had to live a week in that desperate “middle class”, or on the front lines of the resource wars, or in the ever expanding urban and rural wastelands on every continent. We can’t assume the world somehow magically gets better by itself. We have a lot of work to do.