Introduction

“Organizing is about turning self-interest into collective concern” (Rubin and Rubin 2008:15)

Progressive social change, according to Rubin and Rubin (2008) involves economic and social justice, civil liberties, and concern for the environment.  It is also about speaking truth to power and ameliorating or even eliminating obstacles to the goals mentioned above. This is also point behind liberation sociology. It “is not just research the social world but to change it in the direction of expanded human rights, participatory democracy, and social justice.” Feagin & Vera 2008:?

Who is involved with social change? Individuals, of course, but Rubin and Rubin mention social action and economic and social development organizations. Also, there is network, support and national advocacy coalitions. All together, these entities possess the “capacity to cause change.”

In Do It Anyway by Courtney E. Martin describes several youthful activists and found some commonalities that are common sense but often overlooked. She pointed out failure will happen, but even if we fail, helping one person, a neighborhood, etc. is good. We need to be empathetic and see that others are truly suffering. We need to treat each person with respect and dignity. We need to learn from the past but not dwell on it–look to the future. We should aim high in our ideals but be pragmatic in our deeds. We need to understand our strengths and weaknesses. She stressed the importance of community. Finally, she urged us not to dawdle and to be resilient.

How do social organizations and even more broadly social movement work? There are two broad approaches used by social organizations: social mobilization and social production. Direct action, that in-your-face method is social mobilization. Economic and social development methods fall into the social production model. Either way, the key to social organization and community development is identifying the problem and figuring out solutions.

Why do individuals and communities need change? Many of the personal issues that people experience are pervasive and do not just affect individuals. Feagin and Vera (2008:vii, 191) write “As Mills put it, this theorizing involves a sociological imagination that allows people ‘to grasp what is going on in the world, and understand what is happening in themselves as minute points of the intersections of biography and history within society.”

Another reason is that the game is stacked against those who don’t have power. In other words, those who have the gold make the rules. There is also the issue of disempowerment that can be internalized too. When confronted with a large problem, people may think “…but what can I do? I am but one person.” This way of thinking makes it harder for progressive change to occur. People fall into the dominant way of thinking—Gramsci’s intellectual hegemony. This is where the fight is—over gets to call the shots.

Oftentimes, we are wired as Americans to think of our personal circumstances as a reflection of our individual choices and actions. This outlook creates a “blind spot” when it comes to structural problems such as poverty, all the “isms,” etc. The point is, many Americans are loathe to involve themselves. The reference to Paulo Freire on page 14 of Rubin and Rubin is important: “the personal is the political.”

If you have an idea of what disempowerment is, empowerment is “both a means through which organizing is accomplished and a core goal of organizing and comes about by orchestrating battles to enable ordinary people to obtain power as—the ‘have-nots’ battle the ‘haves’” ((Alinsky 1969:?) in Rubin and Rubin 2008:13). Basically, empowerment is letting people take charge of their lives.

Empowering people is what democracy is all about. Democracy is not some wishy-washy ephemeral idea. Democracy demands that citizens are informed and action-oriented. Democracy demands that we have a sense of empathy and a care about future generations—what psychologist Erik Erickson called generativity. To strive towards democracy requires that we use our sociological imagination to see how things actually work in society, who is really behind the curtain pulling the levers, and who benefits from the social arrangement. For instance, who really benefits if health care reform legislation is struck down? The Tea Baggers? Pharma/Health-for-Profit?

Regarding democracy, Feagin and Vera (2008:143) quote Alinsky: “Democracy is a way of life and not a formula to be ‘preserved’ like jelly. It is a process—a vibrant, living sweep of hope and progress which constantly strives for the fulfillment of its objective in life—the search for truth, justice and the dignity of man.” Like any other process, democracy does not just happen.

Just as we may be geared towards progressive social change, community organizers should be aware that the opposition is doing the same. I find it ironic that the extreme right to include the Tea Baggers despise Saul Alinsky, yet closely follow the strategies he laid in Rules for Radicals. I will quote these rules verbatim—please review them carefully. We will continually refer to them throughout the course.

• Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.
• Never go outside the experience of your people.
• Wherever possible go outside the experience of the enemy.
• Make the enemy line up to their own book of rules.
• Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.
• A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.
• A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.
• Keep the pressure on.
• The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.
• The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure on the opposition.
• If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside.
• The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.
• Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.

Much of what we are going to cover in this course is quite relevant for thinking about today’s political and social environment in the United States. Look at the quote at the top of page 11. Consider the term astro-turf which means corporate/well-heeled sponsorship of social change versus grass-roots which means activism at the individual and local level. Much of the opposition to health care legislation seemed to be from local people but what the mainstream media continually failed to do was show how corporate lobbyist and pharmaceutical/health-care for profit folks had financed and took care of the logistics at these events. We need to continually ask ourselves, who benefits?

Sources

Alinsky, Saul. 1971. Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals. New York: Vintage Books.

Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. 2010. “ACORN.” Homepage. http://www.acorn.org/.

Brint, Steven. 2001. “Gemeinschaft Revisited: A Critique and Reconstruction of the Community Concept.” Sociological Theory 19:1.

Bulmer, Martin. 1985. “The Rejuvenation of Community Studies?  Neighbors, Networks and Policy.” Sociological Review 33:430-448.

Delanty, Gerard. 2003. Community. 1st ed. Routledge.

Ervin, Elizabeth. 1999. “Academics and the Negotiation of Local Knowledge.” College English 61:448.

Feagin, Joe R., and Hernan Vera. 2008. Liberation Sociology: Second Edition. 2nd ed. Paradigm Publishers.

Freire, Paulo. 1993. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 20th ed. New York: Continuum.

Industrial Areas Foundation. 2009. “Homepage.” Homepage. http://www.industrialareasfoundation.org/.

Martin, Courtney E. 2010. Do It Any-Way: The New Generation of Activists. Boston: Beacon Press.

Mayfield, Loomis. 2001. “Town and Gown in America: Some Historical and Institutional Issues of the Engaged University.” Education for Health: Change in Learning & Practice (Taylor & Francis Ltd) 14:231-240.

Warren, Mark. 1992. “Democratic Theory and Self-Transformation.” American Political Science Review 86:8.