This is actually TWO questions - just count the question marks! So the flip answer is: Yes, by being more accurate. ;-)
Here are my short answers to these questions: Q #1(a): Do progressive activists need to improve how they relate to others? Answer: Yes.
Q #1(b): If so, how? Answer: Any and every way they can!
Here's what I _feel_ about your question: 1. It's a great provocation to thought. 2. "Progressive" and "activist" mean different things to different people. 3. We need to define what _we_ mean by those terms - both what they denote and what they connote. 4. We need to be sure that we don't self-label with these terms just to give ourselves an ego boost through our positive connotations for them. 5. We also need to define what "relating better" (and also "communicating better") really mean to us in operational terms. Do we want the other to be able to repeat our thoughts back to us, preferably paraphrased in their own words? Do we want them to agree with what we say? (So often, we tell people they don't understand us because they don't agree with us.) Do we want them to act on what we say? (So often, we tell people they don't understand us because they don't want to be led or controlled by us.) Do we want them to listen to us patiently and objectively? And if we do, have we thought what we might give them _first_ that _they_ value? (Paying it forward, not paying it back. Serving, not manipulating.) Have we thought why they should give us their attention and time? 6. Unless we are prepared to be clear on the meanings of our terms, our questions are largely meaningless and are thereby inconsiderate of the other, because they will be wasting our listener's time and effort. 7. I'm confident that you, Wade, are very clear on your meanings, but I know that you have posed your questions without making them clear to me _while posing it_. Yes, I've read plenty of your writing, but I wonder whether you expect me to reread all that material to understand your point of view on, or connotations of, those terms? (Or whether you even thought about the need of some of your readers for such definitions.) I feel that (if you do expect that) that's asking more of my time than I can spare. Please note I'm trying hard to be honest here, and if I sound a bit angry, it's because I felt that way; that you _had_ been inconsiderate of your readers. But then, I thought, how could you have done (i.e. written) better? To meet _my_ needs for extreme clarity of thought, by giving rigorous definitions and descriptions of connotations, you would thereby automatically have been denying _other_ readers' needs - for brevity! So I do realise I was being unreasonable, and I'm sorry for that. :-( 8. Arising from the last point, we see that not all audiences are created equal. So how do you write for an audience of more than one? Right now, I'm just writing to you, so my job is relatively easy: just say what I mean as clearly as I can. But you don't write "Wade's Weekly" just for one reader, but for hundreds or thousands. The traditional actor's answer to the question: "How do I reach the whole sudience?" has always been: "Just play to one member of it." And given our very human similarities, such an approach will ensure that, provided that member is chosen to accurately represent many of the others, communication with the majority will succeed. But there is also a pragmatic realisation in this answer: you can't please everybody (and it may be folly to try).
Whew! Well, I hope that lengthy answer goes some way towards helping you (and, of course (always at the back of my mind in writing an open letter), others) answer your original question.
To summarise my main points: a. Be clear about your own intentions. b. Be clear in your expression. c. Be careful of the other's needs.
On other platforms, others offered the following responses:
Question #1 Responses
1. Become more instructive and less accusatory.
2. I think both progressives and arch right conservatives have to improve their empathetic listening skills, be more open and less mired in their own beliefs.
3. what...stop talking?
4. Yes. The righteous indignation tends to turn people away. The ego, the judgement. a progressive activist (or any activist, I suppose) needs to not invest so much in immediate results, immediate rallying - but, be patient and be in it for the long term. Activism is a long and slow process without many immediate rewards, at times. Pretty soon after the rallying cry it can turn into "You're not doing it the way I want you to do it and I started this thing..." kind of stuff. Factions and splits form and - soon after - abandonment of the process. Patience is a virtue in leaders, and many social activists don't have a lot of patience to spare. In my experience of giving up on working with progressive activists...
5. suggest Stephen R. Covey's book the Third Altenative, and no you don't stop talking , but you listen to everyone's ideas before inflicting your's on others.
6. I remember when people started describing themselves as progressive I myself did a fellowship for the Center for Progressive Leadership which is now non existent. At that time I would describe progressive as trying to make progress in our society from the two party system as well as the box that people live in the political system in this country. That they cannot think outside the two party box and they themselves can't provide a solution to move this country forward and make progress.
7. frame the debate and go on the offensive rather than react to right wing obfuscation.
8. Yes, of course. We need to listen more, insult less, and focus on positive visions that resonate and provide hope in addition to endlessly critiquing the many negatives. Progressive activists need to tell more stories, get ourselves and others to laugh more, celebrate more victories, build broader coalitions, stop cannibalizing our own as much, and never quit. We have truth, morality, and history on our side, but nothing is inevitable or automatic; we have to go out and help make it happen.
9. Yes! Be Fair, Firm and Calm.
10. Progressives should move beyond their ideology and towards a view that values diverse perspectives as a source of collective wisdom when handled well - and to advocate a social-political agenda that practices and institutionalizes productive conversations among such diverse perspectives (especially in jury-like minipublic councils that embody the diversity of the community concerned) to generate wise public policy that benefits the whole community or system over the long haul. I suspect that such a we-the-people-in-creative-conversation approach would result in far more legitimacy and far more public policies that reflect current progressive values than continuing to invest activist energy in left-wing partisanship.
Wade,
ReplyDeleteThis is actually TWO questions - just count the question marks! So the flip answer is: Yes, by being more accurate. ;-)
Here are my short answers to these questions:
Q #1(a): Do progressive activists need to improve how they relate to others?
Answer: Yes.
Q #1(b): If so, how?
Answer: Any and every way they can!
Here's what I _feel_ about your question:
1. It's a great provocation to thought.
2. "Progressive" and "activist" mean different things to different people.
3. We need to define what _we_ mean by those terms - both what they denote and what they connote.
4. We need to be sure that we don't self-label with these terms just to give ourselves an ego boost through our positive connotations for them.
5. We also need to define what "relating better" (and also "communicating better") really mean to us in operational terms. Do we want the other to be able to repeat our thoughts back to us, preferably paraphrased in their own words? Do we want them to agree with what we say? (So often, we tell people they don't understand us because they don't agree with us.) Do we want them to act on what we say? (So often, we tell people they don't understand us because they don't want to be led or controlled by us.) Do we want them to listen to us patiently and objectively? And if we do, have we thought what we might give them _first_ that _they_ value? (Paying it forward, not paying it back. Serving, not manipulating.) Have we thought why they should give us their attention and time?
6. Unless we are prepared to be clear on the meanings of our terms, our questions are largely meaningless and are thereby inconsiderate of the other, because they will be wasting our listener's time and effort.
7. I'm confident that you, Wade, are very clear on your meanings, but I know that you have posed your questions without making them clear to me _while posing it_. Yes, I've read plenty of your writing, but I wonder whether you expect me to reread all that material to understand your point of view on, or connotations of, those terms? (Or whether you even thought about the need of some of your readers for such definitions.) I feel that (if you do expect that) that's asking more of my time than I can spare. Please note I'm trying hard to be honest here, and if I sound a bit angry, it's because I felt that way; that you _had_ been inconsiderate of your readers. But then, I thought, how could you have done (i.e. written) better? To meet _my_ needs for extreme clarity of thought, by giving rigorous definitions and descriptions of connotations, you would thereby automatically have been denying _other_ readers' needs - for brevity! So I do realise I was being unreasonable, and I'm sorry for that. :-(
8. Arising from the last point, we see that not all audiences are created equal. So how do you write for an audience of more than one? Right now, I'm just writing to you, so my job is relatively easy: just say what I mean as clearly as I can. But you don't write "Wade's Weekly" just for one reader, but for hundreds or thousands. The traditional actor's answer to the question: "How do I reach the whole sudience?" has always been: "Just play to one member of it." And given our very human similarities, such an approach will ensure that, provided that member is chosen to accurately represent many of the others, communication with the majority will succeed. But there is also a pragmatic realisation in this answer: you can't please everybody (and it may be folly to try).
Whew! Well, I hope that lengthy answer goes some way towards helping you (and, of course (always at the back of my mind in writing an open letter), others) answer your original question.
To summarise my main points:
a. Be clear about your own intentions.
b. Be clear in your expression.
c. Be careful of the other's needs.
Thanks for reading!
Yahya
On other platforms, others offered the following responses:
ReplyDeleteQuestion #1 Responses
1. Become more instructive and less accusatory.
2. I think both progressives and arch right conservatives have to improve their empathetic listening skills, be more open and less mired in their own beliefs.
3. what...stop talking?
4. Yes. The righteous indignation tends to turn people away. The ego, the judgement. a progressive activist (or any activist, I suppose) needs to not invest so much in immediate results, immediate rallying - but, be patient and be in it for the long term. Activism is a long and slow process without many immediate rewards, at times. Pretty soon after the rallying cry it can turn into "You're not doing it the way I want you to do it and I started this thing..." kind of stuff. Factions and splits form and - soon after - abandonment of the process. Patience is a virtue in leaders, and many social activists don't have a lot of patience to spare. In my experience of giving up on working with progressive activists...
5. suggest Stephen R. Covey's book the Third Altenative, and no you don't stop talking , but you listen to everyone's ideas before inflicting your's on others.
6. I remember when people started describing themselves as progressive I myself did a fellowship for the Center for Progressive Leadership which is now non existent. At that time I would describe progressive as trying to make progress in our society from the two party system as well as the box that people live in the political system in this country. That they cannot think outside the two party box and they themselves can't provide a solution to move this country forward and make progress.
7. frame the debate and go on the offensive rather than react to right wing obfuscation.
8. Yes, of course. We need to listen more, insult less, and focus on positive visions that resonate and provide hope in addition to endlessly critiquing the many negatives. Progressive activists need to tell more stories, get ourselves and others to laugh more, celebrate more victories, build broader coalitions, stop cannibalizing our own as much, and never quit. We have truth, morality, and history on our side, but nothing is inevitable or automatic; we have to go out and help make it happen.
9. Yes! Be Fair, Firm and Calm.
10. Progressives should move beyond their ideology and towards a view that values diverse perspectives as a source of collective wisdom when handled well - and to advocate a social-political agenda that practices and institutionalizes productive conversations among such diverse perspectives (especially in jury-like minipublic councils that embody the diversity of the community concerned) to generate wise public policy that benefits the whole community or system over the long haul. I suspect that such a we-the-people-in-creative-conversation approach would result in far more legitimacy and far more public policies that reflect current progressive values than continuing to invest activist energy in left-wing partisanship.