try something!
we learn through doing, not through critique
After this past weekend’s “No Kings” protests, I’ve read and heard a lot of critique. People are longing for more. They/ we are pushing back on performative activism, questioning how disruptive permitted protests protected by cops, without clear demands, can really be. We are raising the question of: so, what next? I totally empathize— I too am ready for more disruptive actions that challenge business as usual. I too am ready for a general strike.
At the same time— I appreciate the work that organizers did to turn people out, to build more of our collective muscle for coming out into the streets and helping to escalate our calls of descent. We are finding each other, we are getting more and more comfortable doing mass mobilizations, which will be necessary for next steps. Ash-Lee Woodard Hamilton, former director of the Highlander Center and badass movement leader wrote yesterday,
“How extremely out of touch and underdeveloped we must be to spend more time disconnected from No Kings, and the folks from our communities that made it possible, making fun of the very people we’d usually complain aren’t doing anything, and giving uninformed hot-takes, instead of organizing to be the next step or more radical action you swear is nonexistent.
We can yearn for more, and know more is needed, without spending our efforts critiquing each other.
The way to devote that energy of critique is: to try something.
Many of us are used to talking a lot. May we think if we discuss and read and critique enough, we will figure The Perfect Strategy out.
Now, there is certainly much to be learned by studying history and listening to the voices of those who have been in movement space for a long time. It’s wise to get informed about what has been tried. I am steeping myself in histories of resistance from around the globe, and in the voices of leaders I trust every day.
At the same time, all this reading and listening and talking keeps affirming that there is not one overarching strategy that will solve the tangled mess we’re in. Instead, it’s going to have to be all of us trying a million different ideas, strategies, experiments. We must start thinking like an ecosystem: assessing where we each can pop up depending on where we live, our role, our skills, our communities— seizing open niches and growing in them as they become apparent. Simply moving when there is possibility.
I was recently discussing an idea around conflict resolution in intimate relationships with a friend. I was getting pretty theory- heavy, when he replied: “Honestly, it seems like this is the kind of thing that we can talk a lot about— but really this is something we’re going to learn through trying it, not by talking about it.”
We can talk until we’re blue in the face about theory— let’s say, what a gift economy might look like, for example— but until we put ourselves into a position where we are actually dependent on our neighbors, alternately asking for help and bestowing them with gifts, and feel that heft of weight and responsibility, it’s really, really hard to understand it. (Side note, follow Adam Wilson for more about that lived practice!)
The same goes for our strategies to confront fascism and keep each other safe. Don’t just keep thinking and talking about it. Pick a strategy and get inside of it! If you’ve been a person who talks about community building with your neighbors, perhaps you want to text them right now, right this minute, and say ‘I wanna have a conversation this weekend about what would make us safe in our neighborhood, can you and your crew come over on Sunday?’ (Side note: I’m working on a list of questions for sharing soon that you could bring to that dinner to help seed that conversation.)
Rob Hopkins, one of the founders of the Transition Town Movement wrote a book called “The Power of Just Doing Stuff” about how in the face of overwhelm and nihilism we find meaning and possibility by doing— and get filled up by it along the way.
Rumi wrote that “you take one step towards G-d, G-d takes ten steps towards you.” Robin Wall Kimmerer explains a similar phenomenon with healing our ecosystems: we take small steps toward repair, and the earth rushes to heal and provide abundance back to us.
We need to embrace the same ideas with our movement strategy. When we move from conversation into action, we show to our communities and ourselves: I am a person who is willing to put myself out there, to be critiqued, to possibly fail— I’m willing to try on all of our behalf, as it allows space for more people to try, and because our lives depend on us all trying.
The poet Billy Collins said that every person has two hundred bad poems in them— most people just don’t keep writing enough to get the two hundred poems out and find the good stuff. Let’s apply this to our work for change.
Certainly there are and will be crappy strategies, but we will never get through the crap and figure out what works if we’re scared to go for it and begin. No perfect method is coming. No one of us knows the way from here.
So, consider this my permission/ urging/ prayer for us all today: let’s do one experiment— right now! Let it be imperfect! Talk to your friends about it before it’s all fleshed out! Get their input! Get that bar lower! Try again after the first time!
The more we try, the more generous we will be with others as they try. And the more we all try a wide range of ideas, the more we will learn where we do get traction.
LFG!
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Also, I’m experimenting with whether y’all would like it if I share just a couple articles from the week I’m reading or appreciating:
10 Organizing Principles for Defeating Trumpism 2.0. by Arun Gupta
It’s Time For Americans to Start Talking about ‘Soft Secession’ by Chris Armitage