Another icon bit the dust recently.

            Back in the 1970s and 1980s, I worked among people who revered Saul Alinski. They took the side of the underdog – any underdog, it seemed. For 40 years, Alinski made a name for himself organizing those underdogs, particularly among the working-class areas of Chicago.

            Alinski summed up his ideology in a book called Rules for Radicals. He offered 13 rules. They included these:

Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.

·      Whenever possible go outside the expertise of the enemy.

·      Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.

·      Ridicule is your most potent weapon.

·      The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.

·      Develop operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.

·      Pick a target, personalize it, and polarize it.

A contrary voice

            I got prodded into taking a second look at Alinski’s principles by a blog from Seth Godin. Godin’s goal is marketing, not opposition or organization.

            Godin noted that Alinski’s single-minded focus was “to discourage and defeat enemies.” Indeed, with the wisdom of hindsight, I can see now that Alinski’s underlying principle was to create an enemy. He recognized that people will unite against a common enemy. All an organizer has to do is to find and define that enemy – the people will do the rest.

            But there’s an inherent flaw in that process.

            In Godin’s words, “This approach tears away at civil discourse. When you're so sure you're right that you're willing to burn things down, it turns out that everyone is standing in a burning building sooner or later.”

            Uniting for a common goal is good. But when that common goal is to defeat an enemy, what do you do after? What now is your goal, your purpose?

            Chances are, you don’t have one.

            As a marketing guru, Godin has no interest in creating enemies. He would rather create friends. Even if he calls them clients or customers. He offered his own 13 principles. Among them:

·      Challenge people to explore, to learn, and to get comfortable with uncertainty.

·      Don’t criticize for fun. Do it when helps educate, even if it’s not entertaining.

·      Don’t make threats. Do or don’t do.

·      Disagree with institutions, not with people.

·      Treat others the way you’d want to be treated.

            Now where have I heard that before?

Co-opted by the other side

            Alinski died in 1972, a year after Rules for Radicals was published. But his ideology lives on after him.

            He started out as the darling of the leftists who wanted to raise the underdogs. In the strange ways that social change evolves, he ended up as the darling of conservatives who wanted to keep the underdogs under. The Tea Party distributed Rules for Radicals to its members. Donald Trump built his entire presidential campaign on personalizing an enemy. Or enemies.

            What the left initiates, the right will eventually co-opt.

            While I may now question Alinski’s tactics, I think he got it right in his prologue: “We are dealing with people who are merely hiding psychosis behind a political mask.”

            Alinski’s greatness was his ability to get people to unite in a common cause. His tragedy was that the common cause had to be an enemy.

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Copyright © 2017 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups, and links from other blogs, welcomed; all other rights reserved.

            To comment on this column, write jimt@quixotic.ca

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YOUR TURN

Tom Watson recognized that the “old axe” in last week’s column was metaphorical.

            Tom wrote, “Speaking of old axes, and I'm using the term literally here, you've likely seen a double-bladed axe. Here's a legend from my youth. Johnny, a man from up the road from our farm, used to talk about the days when he worked in a lumber camp. He claimed to have been able to cut two trees at a time with a double-bladed axe on a rope handle. Actually, it occurs to me that the ‘double bladed axe on a rope handle’ is really no more fanciful than some of the other axes we persist in keeping.”

“Change is slow, but it is,” was Isabel Gibson’s response.

Bob Rollwagen: “I can’t believe you have a new handle and axe head and still call it the same old axe!

            “In the 16th century, Protestant and Catholic leaders knew what an axe was for. The power brokers in each denomination used it to cut off the heads of members of the other group -- or if no axe, burned them at the stake. Now in the 21st century, look at the world’s areas in crisis where religious belief is at the core. The age of international media has allowed every citizen to understand what in earlier centuries was not possible. Hard to have faith when you can see where it leads.

            Bob connected the “axe” metaphor to congregational change: “In local congregations that are closing, you will probably find senior leadership fighting change to the end -- which means they were there when a few members wanted small changes. They thought they had a new axe but it was still just an axe.”

Jean Hamilton managed a few words: “There's something there about new wine in old wineskins, but it will have to wait for the spirit to move me to respond [more fully].”

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PSALM PARAPHRASES

Rather to my surprise, I find I have never written a paraphrase for this Sunday’s Psalm reading: Psalm 103:1-3 & 17-22. Sorry about that….

For paraphrases of most of the psalms used by the Revised Common Lectionary, you can order my book Everyday Psalms from Wood Lake Publishing, info@woodlake.com.

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TECHNICAL STUFF

If you want to comment on something, send a message directly to me, jimt@quixotic.ca.

            To subscribe or unsubscribe, send an e-mail message to jimt@quixotic.ca. Or you can subscribe electronically by sending a blank e-mail (no message or subject line) to softedges-subscribe@lists.quixotic.ca. Similarly, you can un-subscribe at softedges-unsubscribe@lists.quixotic.ca.

            I write a second column each Sunday called Sharp Edges, which tends to be somewhat more cutting about social and justice issues. To sign up for Sharp Edges, write to me directly, jimt@quixotic.ca, or send a note to sharpedges-subscribe@lists.quixotic.ca

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PROMOTION STUFF

To use the links in this section, you’ll have to insert the necessary symbols.

            Ralph Milton ’s latest project is called “Sing Hallelujah” -- the world’s first video hymnal. It consists of 100 popular hymns, both new and old, on five DVDs that can be played using a standard DVD player and TV screen, for use in congregations who lack skilled musicians to play piano or organ. More details at wwwDOTsinghallelujahDOTca

            Ralph’s HymnSight webpage is still up, http://wwwDOThymnsightDOTca, with a vast gallery of photos you can use to enhance the appearance of the visual images you project for liturgical use (prayers, responses, hymn verses, etc.)

            Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. <http://wwwDOTchurchwebcanadaDOTca>

            I recommend Isabel Gibson’s thoughtful and well-written blog, wwwDOTtraditionaliconoclastDOTcom

            Alva Wood’s satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town -- not particularly religious, but fun; alvawoodATgmailDOTcom to get onto her mailing list.

            Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at tomwatsoATgmailDOTcom or twatsonATsentexDOTnet