Rules for Radicals: A (Negative) Book Review (on Effective Activism, etc.)

rules for radicals by Sol lynskey is a
book that some people hate some people love and some people fear it presents itself as a manual with guidance you can follow in the pursuit of political change I think it's in precisely that sense that we have to say the book is a failure I'm going to read you a couple of excerpts examples as to why my views differ fundamentally from the book even on the level of pragmatic action but also on the level I suppose of philosophy or analysis or what have you I'm going to talk a little bit about the context surrounding this video being made in the last few days of 2016 December 2016 as to why this book is so controversial so much discussed now and I'm calling this video part 1 because much much more could be said about this book I think much more could be said in criticizing the unexamined assumptions of left-wing radicalism that have crept into ecology that have crept into veganism that have crept into some of the political struggles of our times unquestioned an unexamined most of this advice for us now is bad advice it's terrible advice but I think there's a romantic memory of the 1960s just very much the error of this this book Hales room by the way as a romantic echo of what 1960s radicalism was that many people still aspired emulate so I think they look back on a book like this frankly with rose-colored glasses they're wanting to ignore what's what's wrong with it right quote page 100 the job of the organizer is to maneuver and bait the establishment so that it will publicly attack him as a dangerous enemy the word enemy is sufficient to put the organizer on the side of the people to identify him with the have-nots but it is not enough to endow him with these special qualities that induce fear and thus give him the means to establish own power against the establishment here again we find that it is power and fear that are essential to the development of faith so he means the faith of the followers the organized close quote um do you think that's how gay rights became one of the most successful political movements of the 20th century and one of the most successful of the 21st century gay rights in many countries around the world but for example in Canada has been astoundingly successful there were laws they wanted abolished and they want they abolished them there were new laws they wanted past for example gay marriage and they passed them okay gay rights is now so successful in a country like Canada that it is no longer a protest driven movement it's no longer organizing to oppose the establishment they can basically celebrate because they've they've won those victories do you think that gay right let's let's say let's say back in the 1960s do you think that their strategy was for homosexuals to try to be regarded as a dangerous enemy by the establishment it to be regarded as a dangerous enemy by this time do you think that's how they made progress do you think that they wanted to be regarded with fear by the established that they wanted more homophobia that they wanted to be more dehumanized whether as leaders you know leaders of the movement or the community I think the exact opposite of what he says here could be argued much more persuasively on a solid foundation of empirical examples and with real-world implications for how we organize activism or political dissent pursuit of political jinja today I think the exact opposite of what he said here you know and to spell it out I think that homosexuals did not want to be feared they wanted to regard it as normal human beings they had to fight against a real phobia real fear of the a dehumanizing tenancy right I can say the same about black the black civil rights movement I think african-americans were not pursuing the okay so I got a few debt i shouldnt generalise i think the successful long-term elements that helped african-americans improve the situation the united states was not trying to get this edgy reputation as being a dangerous enemy of the establishment i think on the contrary it was earning a higher level of respect from the establishment not not a higher level of fear from the establishment but a higher level of trust yeah if you're if people are too afraid of you to interview on the nightly news what does that get you and there are there are some leaders to that that's that's what you want to pursue so I mean whether we apply this to what tactics were actually successful in the 1960s or what tactics would be actually successful today I think many of you would read a passage like this without without any alarm bells going off but for me this is 180 degrees wrong this also brings me to another issue I guess I'll jump ahead and I will digress there is another video on YouTube by a very well-known commentator on politics sargon of akkad and in his review of this book which is really just praise for the book I don't even fault him for that he wanted to counter sort of hysterical tendency to demonize this book he felt he wanted to give it a fair airing and he does a video that's nothing but praise which gives you a kind of survey of the highlights of the book he claims that this book never endorsed his violence it never says she reserves about and never even indirectly suggests that never alludes to it and on the contrary I think that Sargon simply does not have enough of a background in in politics and political science to understand this book does repeatedly allude to an endorsed Islands even even if it is indirectly it is not that indirect now a passage like this inducing fear from the establishment okay so you can you can say this is nonviolent there is one passage in this book that uses the pretty obvious metaphor of killing rats the actual wording is that he faults other organizers Alinsky faults weaker lesser organizers for only getting rid of four-legged rats whereas he Olinsky and people like em Olinsky and the students he's trained they move on to getting rid of two-legged rats that passage I don't know how you can read it without thinking that this is about killing people getting rid of a rat in modern English these people aren't vegans they're not going to trap the rat and non non-violently release it in the while there's something it's completely clear I think that's talking about violence against people two legged rats there's another passage that sticks in my mind because I've studied recently studied the history of Russia under Lenin and so on where he endorses and praises Lenin's pragmatic view that democracy only matters when it's convenient for you and then as soon as you take over the guns as soon as you take over the means of Milan so that's the army or just your your revolution your rebel group gets guess armed then suddenly democracy doesn't matter anymore now that passage it does not explicitly say violence is good but that's not to interact it's really not I think someone like Sargon reads that he just he doesn't know the history that's being alluded to the reality is that what Lenin did was both dishonorable and immoral in holding elections when he lost the elections because he did lose the Bolshevik Party lost lennon should not have been the leader of Russia on a bit elections and who won a rival left-wing party the left-wing party that one was called the socialist revolutionary party they're also pretty far on the left but not as Extreme as the Bolshevik Party right so Lenin should have handed over power to the leader of the socialist revolutionaries because they won the elections and the Bolsheviks should have become a minority party in their house of parliament he didn't do that Lenin shut down the house of parliament and hunted down and persecuted and executed hunted down and killed the members of those other parties and and even the supporters thousands and thousands people sorry obviously adds up to millions the violence Lenin was engaged in not Stalin Lenin many people want to imagine that Lenin represents the good old days before things got two valleys unbelievably sickeningly door to door house searches is persecution of the worst kind very few people today seem to belong it's I guess this is the 100th anniversary right 1917 2017 very very few people read the history of what happened 100 years ago in that first period of communism but it's incredibly brutal and this book is endorsing violence in alluding to it in that passage so these are these are two examples so i just say on that specific issue Sargon is wrong Sargon claims that the book doesn't there's violence nor does it indirectly endorsements I think that in a passage like this you are indirectly alluding to the loot of the use of force and I think in the other passengers I mentioned such as talking about getting rid of two-legged rats talking about Lenin talking about discarding democracy as soon as you have access to guns as Lenin did that's pretty directly endorsing violence and you have to be pretty ignorant of political science not to get it when you read that now however I mean those might be more salacious or controversial passages it's not why I personally fault or disagree with this book if this book had useful advice despite its failings I would say so I don't think this book has useful advice I think that on the contrary this is based on an illusion an illusion that back in nineteen sixty had some we to it an illusion that all that radicals have to do all that critics of the establishment have to do is turn the tap on the seething discontent of the masses that the masses are just going to rise up to support you you know as soon as you reach out to them now certainly in the 1960s specifically with African Americans United States I know why he would feel that way I mean it must have felt to him that all he had to do was go to these ghettos and reach out to people and positive least you know one of his examples he gives many is go into these ghettos and talk to people about how bad their housing conditions are and then try to organize them to protest against their landlord and you seem to be able to harness this tremendous discontent and you know poor black neighborhoods of Chicago or what one of these Rochester I get believe it's Rochester New York but you know there were these slums and slum Lords landlords and the slums and there were these kinds of very clear social struggles where all the organizer had to do apparently was show up and talk to people and you could start you know harnessing seething discontent well the vast majority of political struggles are not like that okay um gay rights was not like that it was not the case that organizers go around our people and leaves you know but even though gay people definitely were dissatisfied with some laws and with forms of prejudice against dads Linda struggle for was a real struggle and they were you know dissatisfied with you know religious attitudes towards them and so on many many social struggles they can't just harness seething discontent instead they were addressed to a public which is largely a pathetic largely indifferent to the issue and satisfied if you want people to stop using coal power and switch to using solar power everyone's happy with their electricity can you even tell if you travel from city to city of in America and Canada in Australia ok lets users tralee as the example Australia has one of the worst coal power plants in the world's a famous react reactor so famous power plant burning coal in Australia and it's on the list when you get the top 10 list of the worst polluting power plants in the world that's normally somewhere in the top five one of the worst if you drive a car from city to city in australia can you tell when you're in a city that has coal-based electricity as opposed to another form of electricity generation you can't tell and the people are just as happy the radio works the same the air conditioner works the same the internet works the same people can be contented and indifferent the form of social change to trying to pursue so if your goal is a strictly ecological goal you want to motivate people to be concerned about the burning of coal and Australia this book the whole approach is going to be useless to you it's just not the case that you can walk into a neighborhood this way and organize people and have seething discontent uprightly there is there is no CD discontent yep people are immediately mildly curious or interested when you explain to them look you know in our city we use this coal power plant the next city over they may be are using a slightly better form of electricity generation we need to talk about this we need to talk about government policy continue you know the idea that he says you know okay read another little sample here quote establishing once credentials of competency is only part of the organisers first job he needs other credentials to begin credentials that enable him to meet the question who asked you to come in here with the answer you did he must be invited in by a significant sector of the local population their churches Street organizations social clubs or other groups close quote okay I understand the scenario this is written for in the 1960s but do you think anyone today can operate that way do you think that a gay rights activist could even wait for that kind of invitation do you think that a vegan activist an animal rights activist can wait for that kind of invitation well you know that there are pre-existing civil society organizations that would invite someone in that you're not going to go to them and educate them and NC and says I'm hey look here's something you've never thought about before whales are really mistreated in theme parks whales are really being mistreated in SeaWorld it's there's no seething discontent in the bubble is not like the masses are frightening up it's not like you can say oh I'm going to wait until I'm invited in by the local church groups or unions or what have you it's ridiculous it's just not applicable and one question I have not seen addressed anywhere in the book maybe it's in here and I haven't found it yet um I've read this on the airplane and at the airport I really do wonder if I missed it but nowhere I was really looking for it nowhere could I see an honest discussion of the finances of organizing right maybe I should leave that for a separate video to talk about who do you think is paying the organizer to do this so again union organizers civil words who is paying your bills the reality is the 1960s we now know was it was debated for a long time we do know that left wing organizers of this were paid by the Soviet Union were paid by Moscow and he used to be there was debate about it before the Moscow or archives open you know so after 1989 for some years scholars had independent access to the archives for the Soviet Union and they confirmed actually many many things that people suspected were true in the Soviet era they were able to confirm really were true so yes in order to create more social contradictions in the United States Soviet Union actually did pay organizers to rile up black discontent the United States now whether or not that had good outcomes or bad outcomes is another question but actually the Soviet Union did pour money into funding this type of activity nobody is going to pay you to operate this way in 2016 and this whole concept of the the professional organizer having a career and a devote dedicated education and an income from this kind of organizing you know I feel that this is describing a world that is over and it is a world that was based on the unique circumstances really primarily of the Cold War really primarily of communism and anti-communism including money coming from the Communist side and to some extent you know unique challenges like the experience of African Americans in the 1960s so sir I can read a passage on that the education of an organizer requires frequent large conferences on organizational problems analysis of power patterns communication conflict tactics the education and development of community leaders and the methods of introduction of new issues [Music] for an organizer time is meaningless meetings and caucuses drag endlessly into the early morning hours the marriage record of organizers is with rare exceptions disastrous closed code this is describing a whole world of devoted professionals with an education and a career just in organizing like Sol Sol Lansky himself ad for several decades that worlds over what you what do you think if who is who is going to pay me to go and get a masters degree in this or attend conferences or live this life nobody I mean the other thing that's great is that the cost of organizing is dropped dramatically we can have a conference on Google Hangouts tomorrow no problem or via skype or you know these internet based methods it's wonderful that now for almost nothing people can have a conference or a meeting but what he is describing which is genuinely people like himself getting on an airplane eating in a restaurant staying in a hotel attending conferences that go on for days and days and smoking cigarettes the whole time at world is over know about anyone who is proposing a methodology of the pursuit of political change that relies on this professional class of organizers is giving terrible advice for the 21st century and this whole book is built on that premise so the whole book even if it was only for that reason you could say it's terrible advice I'm now going to reduce your passage that is maybe the least controversial thing in the whole book and many of you would read this without thinking twice about it for me I think it shows how far my views are and my pragmatic approach to organizing political dissent is from from Saul Alinsky's so quote not only does a single-issue organization condemn you to having a small organization it is axiomatic that a single-issue organization won't last close quote so I think that's false and I think Saul Alinsky is lying to you when it really counts empirically speaking do single issue organizations achieve results do single issue organizations last Mothers Against Drunk Driving single issue organization arguably mothers against drunk driving is the single most successful civil society organization in the United States of America amazingly durable amazingly effective they've achieved their goals they have a budget that keep getting donations they do public education all the schools has there ever been a communist party in the United States of America as successful as Mothers Against enjoy makassar solans he is he has a communist even though he's a small C communist he's a he's a critic of communist orthodoxy but he still has a communist what empirical basis is there for claiming that single issue organizations are small and not durable or ineffective this is a huge question within veganism animal rights in ecology right now in 2016 is the the moral above supposedly moral opposition to single issue causes so let's stick with mothers against drunk driving for a minute do you think Mothers Against no driving would be more successful if instead of being a single issue cause a single issue organization and sit here if they didn't just talk about drunk driving they also talked about feminism and they also opposed abortion and they also talked about I don't know what other she's good let's say let's say they didn't just oppose drunk driving let's say they also wanted to eliminate people drinking alcohol they want higher taxes on alcohol for everyone not just drunk drivers we can throw in a bunch of other issues here let's say they're involved with labor unions there's a particular labor union they support or something they're their own vault let's say the bus drivers labor unions they're involved in there the more issues you throw in so it stops being a single issue because for one thing you're alienating more and more donors who wants to donate money to mothers against drunk driving now that they're involved with feminism and they're opposed to abortion and maybe they have religious views maybe they're involved with five or ten different causes now so fewer and fewer people are donating to them because fewer and fewer people can support ethically what this organization is in pursuit up furthermore you're having more and more internal division within the organization I mean Mothers Against Drunk Driving I assume some of their members are left-wing and some of them are right way probably a lot of their members are feminists but some of them are not probably some of them are conservative when a new opposed drunk driving and also don't much like feminism right so if you have a background in political science you can see a lot of things that are wrong with this but it ain't rocket science it's not hard to see why this is terrible advice on the Kadri one of the reasons why Mothers Against from driving is so effective so successful and so durable is that it is a single-issue organization so is Saul Alinsky interested in empirical reality or not the book tells you openly that it's trying to manipulate you that it lies to you there's an interesting part of the book talks about manipulation and lying he talks about lying to your followers and why lying a manipulation are part of political organization which is interesting to hear I think this is an example of him lying where it really counts and not being honest about the fact that actually the more issues you bring in the more you alienate people outside of the organization and the more conflict you create within the organization I say this is not a compendium I could very easily do a sequel or a number of sequels talking about more issues that are raised in the book whether specifically related to veganism animal rights or more generally I think i should say briefly that i'm recording this in the last few days of 2016 after the election of Donald Trump during the election this year 2016 there was intense interest in this book a lot of it kind of historical interest kind of exaggerating the evils of this book because this book was linked very strongly to the life and beliefs and career of Hillary Clinton so Hillary Clinton as a young woman was a big proponent of this book a big fan of the author and so on and I think some people want to use this to try to attack Hillary Clinton as secretly being more of a radical than she really is because the word radical was in the title and some people maybe wanted to criticize Hillary Clinton to show how far she'd drifted away from her roots in radicalism okay and I do sympathize I think the reason why sargon aback had made this video links below this one just praising just giving a one-sided praise of this book is going to think he wanted to counteract the hysteria which is basically linked to Hillary Clinton that was demonizing this book out of all proportion to to its merits or its faults or what have you um I think it's important to criticize a book with an awareness of what its pretensions actually are this is not a cookbook um this is supposed to be a manual for organizing a political movement to militate for social change to galvanize descents however you want to put it and considered as such a manual considered from a pragmatic point of view I think it's terrible I think the book is a complete failure and saved by no means but no means even covered half of what I think is wrong about this book from that private matic perspective I think also I mean for one thing it's hard to give advice to people who don't want to hear it and comments on that too actually or in the relatively early pages of the book the the great difficulty of giving unwanted advice um I think it's very difficult to be alive at any point in history of the world and to recognize what are the factors that sheet my own life the shape my own perspective that bias my outlook what are the factors that are really unique to this decade or this year or this milieu and what are the factors that I can actually generalize about and can talk to others about I am intensely aware of that I am intensely aware that my experience in Cambodia is not applicable to my experience in Canada truth be told my experience in Cambodia politically is not applicable to my experience in Laos those are two countries right next door my experience in Taiwan is not applicable to hong kong hong kong is not applicable to China may be at the opposite extreme and I'm really aware that even though i've been using them as examples here there is definitely a sense in which you know Mothers Against Drunk Driving so that's the question could a similar organization be successful in Russia right now maybe not you know maybe you have to look at the factors that made mother's gonna start driving a success and maybe they can't be transferred between those two cultures I don't know if the factors that make gay rights okay there's another really the factors that made the gay rights movement so successful in Canada could those be transferred to Russia I mean in the past I mean right now Russia in 2016 maybe not I mean I do think in a country like Russia the struggle for gay rights is still very much uphill whereas in candidates achieved its its aims and you know it in veganism and animal rights we can't look back on a whole lot of success there's very very little but I mean if you want to talk about a success the reforms that were passed by Ronald Reagan the Ronald Reagan government United States the reforms basically still today the fund legislature on animal rights the change of vivisection is done expedition animal is done and that was linked to the founding of petta People for the Ethical Treatment animals I don't know if we can draw lessons from that experience that will really give us guidance that's useful now in 2016 probably not the world has changed a lot in just a few decades I do think there's a lot of deep and worthwhile musing to be done on how the assumptions of left-wing radicalism are inapplicable to so many of the social causes we may be pursuing today by the way I guess it's an irony i have on my desk here this is karl marx that's capital in chinese translation i'm not a Marxist I'm I'm the opposite but for me I'm learning the Chinese language and this is the vocabulary I need to learn in terms of talking about economics and politics and what have you I think I'm a very rare example of someone who is not left-wing boot is extremely well educated and extremely well-versed in left-wing politics and be yummy most of the lessons I draw from that are cautionary there- it's saying look we need to be aware i mean if there are two things that can powerfully warp your perception of the world their success and their failure of the two you can probably learn more from examining a failure ok so i mean you know in some ways you can look back on the black struggle for civil rights which is definitely the major inspiration in this book and you can see the success african-americans have had okay in the unique circumstances of the 1960s united states of america what lessons can you really draw from the success of of african-americans in that situation that are applicable to any political question in 2016 what lessons can we draw from this that would be applicable to the struggle to raise the minimum wage in the united states of america what lessons can we draw from it that are applicable to ecology power generation you know any of these examples have already mentioned in passing the honest answer is damn few there are very few positive lessons we can drive that but I think actually the number of negative lessons we can draw or enormous the ways in which this book is inapplicable to the guidance is impracticable cannot be used and to pursue these other goals that's that's a really long list of lessons we can learn definitely it is just not the case I mean I think this book would lo some people into believing that all they need to do and occluding again I have no idea the finance who would pay you to do it that all you need to do is walk into a community and harness their latent discontent that they're seething with revolutionary further pardon me they are seething with revolutionary fervor if only someone like Sol Olinsky walks in and educates them and harnesses that and that this is not only a force for reform but is a force for revolution that's that's out there in society that's just not true you know least of all is it true in reference to something something like ecology animal rights and veganism I I guess I'll close with that comment you could simply make categorize you could make two categories and categorize on the one hand there are causes there are political movements that are harnessing already existing radicalism already existing discontent with the establishment and there are causes that are addressed to a public that is fundamentally comfortable indifferent but not even interested in the question you're raising I mean how we can improve the conditions of chickens on factory farms it's just not the case that people in the streets of Chicago are ready to tell rise up if you go into their ghettos and explain to them do you know how terrible the lives of chickens are maybe they'll be interested maybe they'll listen to you I mean maybe you can have a conversation about it but it's just ludicrous to imagine that this ultimately communist fantasy based on 1789 1871 based on a very biased and selective reading of a few revolutions in the world's history and you know in Souls case based on his real real life experience to in organizing discontented people maybe we have to talk about you know on the one hand the politics of contentment and the politics of discontent but I mean acknowledging that for me that's only the start of a long list of reasons why I feel the guidance provided by this book is not applicable to and is not useful in our political milieu today