Method

2002-11-02 - 1:12 p.m.

The biggest problem with being a socialist, or an activist, is that you have to set priorities. You have to set priorities and those priorities all suck.

Because how do you say that the environment is more important or less important than fight corporate abuse? Or animal rights verses human rights? Are you an active feminist or an active marxist? A leather bear or a vegetarian?

It's likely inevitable: there are a lot of worthy causes but so few resources available. It seems like a losing battle in some cases, and when you feel strongly about something it's difficult to look on other struggles and think anything other than "those resources could have been used for our fight. If we had had those extra people/dollars/ideas, we might be a little further along."

I've been thinking about this stuff a lot, mainly because I really, really dislike it. These priorities (or lack of them) get shoved on leftists during debates to weaken their argument ("How can you demand more money for Africa when there are people starving right here in your own city?"), and they leave these diverse movements weaker than they need to be. I have a lot of respect for the people who've tried for coalition activism - tying several similar but unique movements into one, uniting them based on common goals, though such movements tend to be short-lived, I think, or else ineffective. The sort of meta-activism that I like to see is still in it's early stages.

Another thing I've been thinking about is Pookie's "Methods in Theology" book, by some guy named Lonergan. Very interesting book, from what I've read. Lonergan talks about how theology, if it's to grow and improve, needs a method (wow! What a revelation, eh?), one that looks beyond dogma and law, and one that allows for learning, for change, for an increase in the body of knowledge.

He points at science, and opines that science is so effective because it has the scientific method. And while scientific method wouldn't work for theology (how do you witness God objectively? What sort of a hypothesis do you make about holiness?), it -does- work for what it needs to do. There's a repeatable set of steps that can go on forever, but that continually lead to a greater body of knowledge. A good method must be like a spinning wheel, maybe. The wheel goes around, and doesn't change, but the longer it spins the more fabric piles up behind it. You observe, you hypothesize, you experiment, you observe again, and always, if you've been true to the method, you end up with more knowledge than when you began.

I'm toying with the idea that maybe social activism could do with a method. I need to read Pookie's book before I start thinking about what that method might look like (I've only ever really known the scientific one from a learning angle), but I think the problem with finding priorities, assigning resources, choosing battles could be solved by having a reliable base of past experiences to look at, as well as a workable way to analyze the past and predict the future.

The reason why 'socialism' seems to be a bad word in the states is in part because, while the left flounders, the right has already begun to make use of method. Economists have an entire department in universities to show them how to think about the economy and captialism. They're trained about old pitfalls, mistakes, errors in judgement that other economists have made, and so are able to avoid the most common or obvious ones.

Of course, we all know that there are -dozens- of problems with capitalism that aren't being addressed to right now...but economic method also trains people to work around those problems, or to ignore them, or to think of the world as if they don't exist. That's why you can see a liberal get trounced in a televised debate by a conservative: the conservative already has the ways he needs to think about things. He can give soundbytes so easily because he doesn't have to wade through the bog of ambiguity. While the liberal is struggling to avoid being racist, classist, or sexist while talking about inner city decay the conservative is already preparing his next remarks.

It's not a losing battle because the liberal is wrong, it's a losing battle because the conservative has been trained in the art of this kind of war, knows the landscape, knows where all the sinkholes are and how to avoid them.

Activists need to learn about their patch of knowledge. We need some sort of a method. It can't be the scientific, or the theological, or the economical method, because each of those are tools designed for a specific purpose, and adapting them for activism would leave us with flawed tools. We need a reliable, repeatable way to accumulate, absorb, analyze, and use the experiences, the abilities, the uses of all of us.

Of course, I have no idea how to start on this. I'm just an idea man. Okay, stop looking at me now.

Cheers,

The Magus

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