Gandhi, Self-Improvement, and Mutual Support

The lack of commitment to self-improvement among progressive political organizations in the United States mystifies me. Not even Gandhian advocates of non-violence reflect the personal-growth principles articulated by Gandhi, which has been summarized as: “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

The “Principles, Practices and Beliefs” section of the wikipedia entry on Gandhi begins:

Gandhi dedicated his life to the wider purpose of discovering truth, or Satya. He tried to achieve this by learning from his own mistakes and conducting experiments on himself. He called his autobiography The Story of My Experiments with Truth. Gandhi stated that the most important battle to fight was overcoming his own demons, fears, and insecurities.

In his words, Gandhi stated:

Prolonged training of the individual soul is an absolute necessity

The greater the spirit of passive resistance in us, the better men we will become.

One of the reasons for my departure to India is still further to realize as I already do in part, my own imperfection as a passive resister and then to try to perfect myself….

This requires a detached state of mind, and it is a state very difficult to reach.

God helps when one feels oneself humbler than the very dust under one’s feet….

If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change.

The broad range of these comments indicates a critical, key characteristic of self-improvement – namely, it is open-ended, involves the whole self, and can engage any aspect of the self. The self is freewheeling, unpredictable, uncontrollable, and boundless. The goal of self-improvement is to become a better person, whatever that might mean for each individual, not merely develop pre-defined skills.

If the aim is narrower, like to become a better activist, then restricting oneself to a specific curriculum makes sense. But if the aim is to become a better person, then one must be open and responsive to whatever emerges. Any kind of change may be prompted.

Another key characteristic of self-improvement indicated by Gandhi’s life and teachings is that the honest acknowledgement of mistakes, failures, and shortcomings is essential. As the Dalai Lama said:

There are two things important to keep in mind: self-examination and self-correction. We should constantly check our attitude toward others, examining ourselves carefully, and we should correct ourselves immediately when we find we are in the wrong.

This willingness to be vulnerable is best not left to chance. Without commitment, intentionality, and accountability, one can easily avoid the disciplined effort needed to evolve.

A third lesson we can learn from Gandhi is that personal growth is a social affair. As one who rejected Western hyper-individualism, Gandhi recognized that what one can achieve alone is limited. So he established communal ashrams, or modest residential communities, as places to foster ongoing self-development. Concerning the Sabarmati ashram, he said, "This is the right place for our activities to carry on the search for truth and develop fearlessness.” With a particular emphasis on developing self-discipline, these residential centers nurtured “better men” who practiced nonviolence in all situations.

In Join the Club: How Peer Pressure Can Transform the World, Tina Rosenberg documents the power of peer learning and mutual support. As summarized by the publisher:

She identifies a brewing social revolution that is changing the way people live, based on harnessing the positive force of peer pressure. Her stories of peer power in action show how it has reduced teen smoking in the United States, made villages in India healthier and more prosperous, helped minority students get top grades in college calculus, and even led to the fall of Slobodan Milosevic. She tells how creative social entrepreneurs are starting to use peer pressure to accomplish goals as personal as losing weight and as global as fighting terrorism. Inspiring and engrossing, Join the Club explains how we can better our world through humanity's most powerful and abundant resource: our connections with one another.

A book just released by Berrett-Kohler, True North Groups: A Powerful Path to Personal and Leadership Development, pursues the same theme. The publisher offers this summary of the content:

All too often, we find ourselves forced to confront life’s challenges on our own. What we need is an intimate group with whom we can examine our beliefs and share our lives. For the past thirty-five years, Bill George and Doug Baker have found the answer in True North Groups—small groups that gather regularly to explore members’ greatest challenges. These groups provide opportunities for the honest conversations essential to develop the self-awareness, compassion, emotional intelligence, and authenticity required to be inspired human beings and inspiring leaders.

Gandhi, Rosenberg, George, and Baker all suggest that it is important for peers to honestly face one’s mistakes and provide mutual support to avoid them in the future.

Yet I still know of no progressive political organization that is clearly dedicated to helping its members support one another in their efforts to become better persons (which would also enable them to be more effective activists).

The largest current nonviolent action project is the October2011 Movement, which will be convening in Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC on October 6 to demand the creation of a just and sustainable world. Its website lists “fifteen core issues the country must face.” None of these issues refer to the need for mutual support to foster self-improvement. And the site’s definition of “nonviolent resistance” says nothing about ongoing self-improvement.

The only resource the October2011 site lists under “Nonviolence Resources” is the downloads page of the Metta Center for Nonviolence. The wallet card highlighted there does include a quote from Gandhi that advocates “a change in human nature.” But the principles and strategies included on that card do not affirm open-ended self-improvement. The card only includes, “Do not yield to threats…. Renounce that and you are free.”

Neither does the Metta Center website, with its valuable, extensive collection of resources, affirm the cultivation of inner peace. It does advocate “the conversion of a negative drive, such as anger or fear, into constructive action [which] can be cultivated systematically.” But that emphasis is on channeling negative energies into action, rather than developing a peaceful state of being, which precedes action and is the heart of nonviolence.

Moreover, the site says nothing explicitly about the need for critical self-examination and it offers no concrete methods for providing mutual support for such introspection. Rather the site emphasizes intellectual study.

In the section “What can I do to learn about nonviolence?” the site does recommend forming small supportive groups to engage in study, provide constructive social service, and build alternative institutions. Though a great starting point, this strategy fails to include the need for an explicit commitment to self-improvement and mutual support with regard to that effort.

Perhaps one reason for the general reluctance to fostering self-development is the risk of oppressive authoritarianism. It’s far too easy for charismatic individuals with a vision of a new world to build cults to actualize their vision. But despite those perversions, the impulse to advance human evolution remains valid.

One way to proceed constructively is to insist that each individual define his or her own self-improvement goals, as is the case with the draft format for personal-political support circles. My conversations with my taxi passengers indicate that most people are already aware of how they would like to evolve. And they have sensible notions. But most of us could use more mutual support in our efforts, if only to remind us to stay focused and to hold us accountable.

Regardless, one way or the other, the need to clearly, consciously facilitate both self-improvement and mutual support seems compelling. The dehumanizing forces of modernization are extremely powerful. Countering those forces effectively calls for conscious, disciplined, skillful effort.

A Personal-Political Support Circle

Contents:
· A Personal-Political Support Circle
· True North Groups
· “Fooled by Science” Excerpt
· Readers' Comments

A Personal-Political Support Circle

On September 9, I sent the following ”An Invitation to Experiment” to about 60 friends and associates:

Can you help test the following format for a “personal-political support circle” Saturday, September 17, 2-5 pm, at 1280 Laguna, #6-J, San Francisco? Please let me know if you’re interested.

Participating in this experiment involves no ongoing commitment. It could be a one-time event.

If you can’t come Sept. 17, can we discuss this idea some other time, either in person, online, or on the phone?

The personal-political support circle, which Brandon Faloona and I designed, is intended to be a simple, user-friendly tool to help political activists become more effective by supporting each other in their self-development efforts.

With no trained facilitator, a wide range of individuals and organizations could conduct circles either just once or on a regular basis. An existing organization could convene a circle at the beginning of their meeting(s). Three or more members of a particular organization could do so separate from their routine meetings. Or friends and/or relatives could gather informally.

Eventually a network of circles might affiliate with one another, share reports on their efforts, and occasionally gather with members from other circles for fun, fellowship, and sharing.

With those thoughts in mind, the proposed format follows:

· Break Bread (informally share a meal, perhaps a potluck, or special snack while enjoying each others’ company).
· Silence (one minute to meditate, pray, reflect, or relax).
· Check-in (going around the circle, individuals report on how they feel at the moment).
· Self-Development Report (going around the circle, individuals report on their recent efforts to be a better person, if any, as well as their thoughts about future such efforts).
· Political Action Report (going around the circle, individuals report on their recent communication with an elected official or public administrator concerning a possible change in public policy, if any, as well as their thoughts about future such efforts).
· Open Agenda (the circle engages in open-ended conversation and/or decision-making about activities in which some or all members may want to participate; if the circle is held at the beginning of an organization’s meeting, it could proceed with its routine agenda).
· Evaluation (individuals report how they feel about the meeting).

Ground rules:
· All comments are kept confidential.
· When going around the circle, participants may choose to pass.
· Each person defines his or her own self-development goals and methods.
· If all participants belong to the same organization, they may coordinate their political action; otherwise each person may define his or her own political action goals and methods.
· When going around the circle, others offer little or no feedback; the emphasis is on listening and being heard.
· Time limits can be established as needed. Apart from the breaking bread and open agenda items, the rest of the circle might take a total of two minutes or so for each participant.

What do you think?

Yours,

Wade

In response, eight women and one man have expressed strong interest. One said, “I am very interested in your process and see it as an important step in the support and development of activists.” Another said, “What do I think? It's great. AND, per usual, how do we get activists and want-to-be activists to participate and essentially ‘break with habits’…”?

Only two respondents, both men, expressed negative comments. One said, “I don’t entirely share your orientation toward personal growth and self-development.” The other said, “What you've come up with is not my bag.” I’ve asked each to elaborate, but have not yet received a response.

Another reason why I believe something like this approach could be helpful is that it could be a way for activists to recruit individuals who aren't currently engaged and support them in acting on their concerns, even if only by communicating with one elected official once a month. Then, after their toe is in the water, more involvement becomes possible.

Unfortunately, however, it is proving difficult to findi time for those who are interested in a “personal-political support circle” to meet.

Despite the strong responses to “Why Compassionate Politics” (see below), the lukewarm feedback thus far to the support-circle idea leads me to suspect that this project may not get off the ground. It may not be a good enough of an idea as currently formulated. The cultural forces militating against it may be too powerful (it’s interesting that most of the affirmation has come from women). Or I may not have the skills and capacity to initiate it.

I’ll continue to test it a bit longer. We do have a small meeting set for October 1 to consider these and related ideas. Only four people are confirmed for that meeting at the moment, but more may join in between now and then. Regardless, I’ll reevaluate everything at this meeting and afterward (after reading True North Groups, which I’ve ordered and is discussed below).

In the meantime, others are welcome to experiment with the “personal-political support circle” format. If you do, please let me know how it goes. Perhaps you can move this idea along.

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True North Groups:
A Powerful Path to Personal and Leadership Development
by Bill George and Doug Baker
Berrett-Koehler Publishers

•By the author of the best-selling True North (150,000 copies sold)
•Offers an innovative way to develop a confidential support group that helps us develop as people and as leaders
•Filled with practical resources to assist in every aspect of creating a True North Group

All too often, we find ourselves forced to confront life’s challenges on our own. What we need is an intimate group with whom we can examine our beliefs and share our lives. For the past thirty-five years, Bill George and Doug Baker have found the answer in True North Groups—small groups that gather regularly to explore members’ greatest challenges. These groups provide opportunities for the honest conversations essential to develop the self-awareness, compassion, emotional intelligence, and authenticity required to be inspired human beings and inspiring leaders.

“At various times,” George and Baker write, “a True North Group will function as a nurturer, a grounding rod, a truth teller, and a mirror. At other times the group functions as a challenger or an inspirer. When people are wracked with self-doubts, it helps build their courage and ability to cope.”

Drawing on recent research in psychology and sociology, George and Baker explain why these groups are so critical to our personal and professional success. They cover every detail from choosing members, establishing norms, and dealing with conflicts to evaluating progress and deciding when it’s time to restructure. True North Groups provides a wealth of practical resources, including suggested topics for the first twelve meetings advice on facilitating groups, techniques to evaluate group satisfaction, and much more.

For the millions of people who are searching for greater meaning and intimacy in their lives, this book will help them to grow as leaders and as people—and to stay on course to their True North.

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From “Fooled by Science,” H. Allen Orr, New York Review of Books.
A Review of The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement
by David Brooks

…Second, most of these biological facts don’t matter, at least for Brooks’s purposes. What of our view of humanity changes if, when parents achieve an “attunement with their kids,” the molecule that “floods through their brains” is schmoxytocin, not oxytocin? The salient fact is that some molecule or some part of the brain underlies various aspects of consciousness or unconsciousness. But this is hardly news. As the philosopher Jerry Fodor once quipped, it’s been clear for a while now that mental processes occur north of the neck. The rest is a sort of biological bookkeeping that, while significant to the specialist, seems to provide the popular writer only with a long list of factoids. It’s not that these facts are wrong or unconnected to the higher-level phenomena—lust, emotional uplift, or insight—that Brooks discusses. They’re just superfluous.

In any case, surely what matters most to us about human nature typically takes place at a more macro level. In the language of biology, human nature is a phenotype—a trait or set of traits that is observable—and the underlying mechanics are a different matter altogether. (By analogy, imagine that an accountant opens a spreadsheet on his computer and unexpectedly announces that you have ten million dollars in your account. It’s true that, when the file was opened, this and that line of code in the computer program was executed. But it would be odd to conclude that this is the level at which something interesting just happened.) This kind of argument can be taken too far but Brooks at least owes us an explanation of why all these biological details are supposed to matter to his project.4

But perhaps the biggest problem with much of the science in The Social Animal is that it doesn’t tell us anything that Brooks’s narrative hasn’t already said. Most of us learn about human nature from experiences in real life or from the lives of those portrayed in fiction. And that’s probably as good a way to learn as any. When we begin to see, in Brooks’s story, that the adolescent Erica will never get far if she doesn’t master her anger, it doesn’t help to be told that, during times of stress, epinephrine surges or that self-control in children is a good statistical predictor of success later in life. As many have noted, our folk psychology differs from our folk physics in that, while the latter is notoriously poor, the former often seems remarkably good. Indeed, as Noam Chomsky famously suggested, when it comes to revealing what makes people tick, a scientific psychology might never outperform the novel. I have no idea whether this is true, but The Social Animal certainly makes one take the possibility seriously.

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Readers' Comments

Readers submitted the following comments in response to Why Compassionate Politics:

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i really like what you said and i totally agree - will have more time to think on these things in a little while.....will contact you from mexico. thanks for keeping on wade -- you're a good man.

loving blessings,

Gail Keene

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This is fabulous. You are definitely on the right track.

JaneAnne Jeffries

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One of the best WW yet!

Mary Hudson

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Hi Wade, Take a look at The Watchman's Rattle by Rebecca D. Costa. Good insight into this problem from a different perspective. How complexity leads to over load and the loss of cognitive skills which are replaced by beliefs that are not looking for working solutions. Her book foreshadows the Rep./Tea Party obstructionism with no proposed solutions.

Robert Kourik

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I just read your posting to Shared Purpose. Your statement -- “To my mind, to transform our social system, we must simultaneously change our institutions, our cultures, and ourselves.” – prompted me to wonder if you had read any of the works of Ken Wilber, specifically about his AQAL model – which explains why your statement is exactly on the money.
If you have not heard of Ken Wilber, please let me know, and I will describe the AQAL model for you.
Thanks for your thoughts about this important subject…..

Lynne Monds

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Good morning, Wade. Thanks for this message. I think your interview of the disaffected activist is very telling. I want to forward your message to another project, because I think it makes some strong points.

This question – of why activism – informed and truly insightful activism – is so difficult – is a very tough question.

Personally, I think the answer has to do with all the points your respondent mentioned
“Yes. Self-righteousness. Seeing everything in black and white. Taking the hard line.”
And maybe a few more – like complexity and the exploding interdependence of issues – and what I like to describe as “bandwidth limitations in human cognition”.

Put another way – there is too much going on, it is moving too fast, and we don’t have a way of understanding it that can keep up with the pace of change. We don’t have a vision, we don’t have a comprehensive framework to understand what is happening.

So – we revert to simplistic models with strong self-righteous tendencies – assume that we ourselves are the good guys, and the other guys are at best the unknowing dupes of some evil power (corporations, lobbyists, whatever).

Just for a simple-minded example – Obama was forced by our existing framework to choose “healthcare” rather than “jobs” – because in this current framework, he could only hope to take on one at a time. Is that his fault? Probably not – but an answer – a way forward, a way to overcome this problem – has to come from somewhere.

And I think that “somewhere” is going to have to come from spirit – the normal human link to broadband deep intuition and holistic perspective. We have to find a way to “get integral” – to somehow formulate a model that includes all the simultaneous forces – which are currently blowing us away and leaving our congress in something like static gridlock.

On my sharedpurpose.net system, we are just beginning a conversation on Thomas Friedman’s new book, “That Used to Be Us”. If you had the time, maybe you and I could talk a little bit about how “compassionate politics” could play a critically important role in the emergence of something new. Personally, I think it’s the only way. We need “the power of the spirit” reaching out in every direction – in the form of “community weaving” – pulling all the simultaneous contingent forces into one holistic/integral framework, almost certainly coordinated over the internet – bringing everything into one framework – in a way that follows that simple model of the NoLabels.org motto – “Everybody AT the table, everything ON the table…”

That conversation on sharedpurpose.net is right here:
http://sharedpurpose.net/groups/forum.cfm?tq=579379&login=100803
If you got the time, I think your comments on “Compassionate Politics” would reach an interested audience – many in the Bay Area.

Thanks Wade – hang tough, keep banging.
Bruce Schuman

Why Compassionate Politics

From time to time I ask total strangers about their impressions of the progressive movement. Thus far, without exception, their concerns about certain weaknesses in that movement echo my own.

Last week a young woman got into my taxi and asked what had just happened with the weekly Monday-night protest about the recent killing of a man at a BART subway station by a police officer. I reported that the organizers of the protests had decided to stop disrupting BART service and instead simply distribute leaflets. She replied with a comment about how such disruptions are no way to gain public support.

I said, “Yes. You wonder why it took them so long to figure that out. But when I was young and stupid I took that approach myself.”

She responded, “So did I when I was in college.”

“What issues did you work on?”

“Issues related to education.”

“Are you still engaged in activism?”

“No. I’m not.”

“Do you wish you were?”

“Yes, I definitely do.”

“What might prompt you or encourage you to get engaged?”

“I’m not sure. That’s a good question.”

Then after a long silence during which she seemed to reflect on that question, I asked, “Is there something about the approach taken by activists that discourages you?”

With strong feeling she immediately responded, “Yes. Self-righteousness. Seeing everything in black and white. Taking the hard line.”

I then told her about my own work on these issues and she thanked me profusely for asking her those questions. She then talked about having volunteered in a program for homeless children but having got burned out after devoting several hours a week to that stressful project.

As she left my taxi, she thanked me again for my questions and said she’d be thinking about them.

Two nights later, another passenger initiated a conversation about the Sixties. She commented on how there is less activism today and people seem more “self-protective.” She said she was still somewhat active.

When I asked her if there is something about how activists operate that discourages non-activists from becoming active, she quickly said, “Adopting a very angry and antagonistic stance, rather than one that is positive and proactive.”

Those interactions reveal real problems with traditional activism and touch on tensions that are difficult to resolve. On the one hand, passionate true believers with a hard line can recruit enough people to launch a project and get media attention. Soon, however, they reach a plateau and find they need more support from the mainstream in order to change public policy, but their militant methods alienate the mainstream, whose support is critical.

My interest is with encouraging the development of new strategies that could attract disaffected concerned individuals like my taxi passengers and greatly increase the number of people engaged in activism. My goal is not to persuade militants to change. They have a role to play. Liberals and radicals need each other.

Recently I’ve focused on “compassionate politics” with an emphasis on achieving long-term systemic transformation through steady short-term incremental reforms. To my mind, to transform our social system, we must simultaneously change our institutions, our cultures, and ourselves. This process therefore necessarily involves ongoing personal growth, which many consider spiritual.

One form of self-improvement that seems critical to address is the arrogance to which my taxi passengers referred.

It is my belief that activist organizations need to consciously foster the growth of supportive communities that are clearly, explicitly dedicated to self-development as well as political action.

But finding progressive-minded people with whom I can collaborate on these issues is not easy. With their focus on the outer world of public policy, progressive political activists largely ignore the inner world of spirit and feelings and build organizations that are impersonal machines. They seem to think that their passion and their ideas will suffice.

And individuals who are engaged in personal or spiritual development shy away from politics.

So I’m beginning to seriously wonder if I should shift my methodology somehow. I’m definitely open to new ideas.

In the meantime I’ll continue to discuss these concerns with friends and associates and I’ll participate in the Take Back the American Dream summit October 3-5, where I will talk about these issues when I can. Since Van Jones, founder of the American Dream Movement, shares at least some of my unease with the progressive movement, his project may eventually promote personal as well as social and political transformation.

Many political activists are becoming more open about their dedication to personal/spiritual growth. Perhaps some day these seeds will bloom and caring progressive communities dedicated to both personal growth and political action will flourish.