(All page references: Rules for Radicals
Reading Alinsky is a lot like riding the Tilt-a-Whirl — feeling jerked around by a combo of systematic and random forces between moments of crazy spin and crazy calm.
While his star pupils (Obama and Hillary) may be all artifice and sangfroid, Alinsky’s voice — even as words on a page — is refreshingly clear and passionately authentic, without a wasted word. In a political world corrupted by Orwellian doublespeak — net neutrality, affirmative action, health care reform — Alinsky’s cut-to-the-chase chapter three, “A Word About Words,” is refreshingly direct. You may not agree with his principles, but at least you know what they are.
Alinsky’s methodology is based on a naked understanding of power. And to preserve the power of the word itself (and of others discussed in the chapter: “self-interest,” “ego,” “compromise,” and “conflict”), Alinsky insists that we avoid euphemisms, which will “dilute the meaning … dissolve the bitterness, the anguish, the hate and the love, the agony and triumph attached to these words, leaving an aseptic imitation of life.” (p. 49)
Power is simply the “ability, whether physical, mental, or moral, to act.” Sinister overtones aside, the word has no real moral basis. Corruption doesn’t come from power but from those who wield it. The word itself is morally neutral.
But fascinating:
Power is an essential life force always in operation, either changing the world or opposing change. … Power, or organized energy, may be a man-killing explosive or a life-saving drug. The poser of a gun may be used to enforce slavery, or to achieve freedom. (p. 51)
See what I mean about the Tilt-a-Whirl? The words “organized energy” grabbed me with the centrifugal force of one of those wickedly random spins.
Because “organized energy” is the pivot of Alinsky’s model for the revolution which has already taken place in America, installing the authors of Alinsky’s “hope and America-better-change” in the White House.
Make no mistake. Though Alinsky claims to love America, he loves it only in the Pygmalion sense of the word — for what he is able to sculpt from the raw material through his own efforts or those he is organizing through his Rules for Radicals methodology.
Keep in mind Alinsky’s background. Coming out of the Depression, moved by the misery of Chicago’s poor/working class, he threw himself into “organizing energy.” Then, in 1940, he established the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) to duplicate his community organization model throughout the United States. The IAF, still headquartered in Chicago, today has affiliates in 21 states and the District of Columbia, plus Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
The IAF trained Obama. One wonders what Alinsky would make of today’s political scene, where the leader of the free world operates not as a leader or a statesman, but as a community organizer-in-chief, seemingly incapable of decisive action and always in campaign mode. Treating the country like an ACORN stomping ground. Riling up the “have-nots,” dissing the “have a little, want mores,” and sticking it to the “haves.” (All this while pumping up a new class of “haves” — himself and his political cohorts. It’s a modern remix of Animal Farm.)
Pygmalion succeeded in realizing his vision, but could Alinsky’s methodology possibly result in anything of beauty? Today we are experiencing the results of a cynical and exploitative political vision.
It’s about power, organizing, and an understanding of “means and ends” as a purely subjective construct. Bottom line: “Does this particular end justify this particular means?” (p. 24)
It’s all in your perspective. As Alinsky points out:
To us the Declaration of Independence is a glorious document and an affirmation of human rights. To the British, on the other hand, it was a statement notorious for its deceit by omission. (p. 27)
He also writes:
Ethical standards must be elastic to stretch with the times. (p. 31)
He then uses Sam Adams and Abraham Lincoln as illustrations, to counter:
[The] strangely unreal picture of a static unchanging world, where one remains firm and committed to certain so-called [so-called!] principles or positions. In the politics of human life, consistency is not a virtue. (p. 31)
Another Tilt-A-Whirl moment:
To me ethics is doing what is best for the most. (p. 33)
Such a simplistic philosophy could easily be used to justify euthanasia, infanticide, genocide. The stomach clutches, the mind reels.
Another Tilt-A-Whirl moment: “To me ethics is doing what is best for the most.” (p. 33)
This begs the questions “how do you define what’s ‘best’” and “who are ‘the most’” and finally “who’s qualified to decide the answers to either?” Living in the world of instant polling, we see daily instances in which numbers can be sliced and diced in a myriad ways to prove any number of points. This is open-ended utilitarianism. Most Trekkies will recognize it in the statement “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”
“You do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral arguments.” (p. 10) Wow. Although Alinksy makes mention of social contracts vis-a-vis Rousseau, I would never want to live in the state of chaos that he advocates. I would never want to live in a world where using people (be they Haves, Have-Nots, et al) may freely be treated as a means to any end. In such a world, you could never trust anyone else. In every encounter, every transaction, you would have to ask yourself what the other person’s ends are and how you might be the means to those ends. I’ve had this kind of dealings with so-called former radicals and Alinksyite wannabes. I’ve heard them talk about goodness and compassion and tolerance to the oppressed and then watched them cold-heartedly and dispassionately step on those lower down the social scale then themselves. I’ve been on the receiving end of the brilliant, important achievers upon whom society supposedly hinges: you’re useful to them as long as you advance their careers, their reputations and their goals. Then, they chew you up and spit you out. In the end, you may be beaten with the same stick that you used to beat the Haves, just after the Radicals close the doors of dissent and revolution to you that they allowed themselves (“Eight months after securing independence, the Indian National Congress outlawed passive resistance and mad it a crime.” p. 43). Alinsky may as well be asking us to regress back to Hobbes’ state of nature in which life is “nasty, brutish and short.”
You mentioned “aminal farm”. The one difference is that Orwell was AGAINST totlalitarian governments, both his two largest sellers, ANIMAL FARM and FUTURE SHOCK were best noted for there criticism and red flags against totalitarian governments. Lets not forget, ANIMAL FARM was banned in both the Soviet Union and Red China for over 30 years, MAO TSE TUNG himself had apparently read ANIMAL FARM early in his tenure as leader of RED CHINA and decided this book for “too dangerous” for intellectuals and peasents to read. Saul the Red was the exact opposite of Orwell. Dont forget who originally brought Alinksy to Chicago-Frank “the Enforcer” Nitti-Al Capones sucessor as head of the Chicago crime syndicate. Lots of similarities between the mob and the commies. Only difference is the mob is mostly a crooked business. Alinsky was a meglomanical nut. So are both Obama and Hildebeast.
All I see are a new group of thugs seeking to take as much power as the can, by any means possible. They feel they need not answer to anyone for their actions. they feel they can tell you its for your own good, when in fact, it is for “their” own good & the good of any who support them. The supporters get help & priveledges, so long as they serve a useful purpose. Once they do not or once they actually ask a question or voice an opinion not in line with the new power elite, those supporters become the enemy. Health insurers tried to cooperate at first. Then the realized they had been duped & Obama planned to destroy them. Then they rebelled. Prior to rebellion, Obama & co. said the industry was working with them. Once they rebelled, they became the expendable enemy & taker of obscene profits. Profits for free market companies are bad. Profits for those who are in accord with the new power elite, are good.
Its moral relativism at its most extreme & despicable. Morals, do no harm to others & do not take from others unfairly. Obama takes, & then justifies it by saying he is helping others. All the while, padding his own nest & the nests of those who cooperate. Soros & Gore are cooperators. They will profit. Any who agree to redistribute are good, all others are bad. Yet the haves will not share & all Obama really wants is to install himself & his allies as the haves while taking from those who currently have, by using the have nots. He talks them into believing he will share the have bundle. In fact he will…. but only to a small extent. After that, it belongs to the new haves who now have, the power!
“In a political world corrupted by Orwellian doublespeak — net neutrality, affirmative action, health care reform — Alinsky’s cut-to-the-chase chapter three, “A Word About Words,” is refreshingly direct. You may not agree with his principles, but at least you know what they are.”
How right you are. You are one of the few writers at this blog (maybe the only one) and most other traditional western-affirming websites who actually point out (i.e., deconstruct, in progressive intellectual-speak) the weird stylistic contrivances of the left. Try reading discussions at, or better yet participating in, Wikipedia for real mind-bending, word-torturing sentence construction. The innuendo, the double talk, the patient, soul-destroying misunderstanding of straightforward argument – there is nothing better.
Saul Alinsky claimed that he was wary of dogmatism of any kind including Marxism. Fervent Communists were considered reactionary if not downright scary. Alinsky seemed to perceive himself as nothing more that an effective activist committed to democratic principles. He apparently failed to realize that institutionalized class warfare was inherent nihilistic. Alinsky perhaps unwittingly embraced the Marxist doctrine that the established order must be eradicated. A beautiful utopia would supposedly arise from the ruins—although nobody bothered to figure out what it might look like. Alinsky simply took it for granted that anything would be better than the present regime.
The things that we can use from Alinsky’s book are; especially, the advice about words – after all, Sarah Palin shot across the Dem’s bow when she didn’t mince words, but called it like she saw it: “Death Panels”. Cut right to the chase, and take no prisoners.
That’s why I use words like “Traitor”, “Socialist”, “Marxist”, “Narcissist”, “Spoiled Child”, etc., whenever I talk about the current resident of the White House.
I also found it quite interesting (and I can’t remember where in the book that I saw it) that Alinsky acknowledged that there is a distinct difference between an effective leader and an effective community organizer, and that if a person was one, BY DEFINITION they could not be the other. I have a feeling that he would no doubt have felt that Mr. Obama was not a good choice to be the President.
In the chapter on the word “power”, I found it interesting that Saul says:”Mankind has progressed only through learning how to develop and organize instruments of power in order to achieve order, security, morality, and civilized life itself ….”. Order? Security? MORALITY???—- Oh, he wants to re-order society, keep that new society safe, and impose a new morality. He obviously was channelling Robespierre much more than Tom Paine.
“To me ethics is doing what is best for the most. (p. 33)” … and whose value system do you use to determine best? Does the new “Power” of the former radicals now allow them to determine what is best for who? Sounds like new “elitists” who “know better” will tell us what to do, and it will be, according to Alinsky,in their own self interest. Fas⋅cism –noun — a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism. hmmm sounds familiar. (Think-National Socialist German Workers Party)
“Morality, so called, becomes the continuum as self-interest shifts. (p.55)” …. so morality is always secondary to self-interest? Self-interest based morality? John Adams said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. With Alinsky’s atheism/God=Satan=Self-interest belief system anything goes! This really does come down to a neanderthal “whoever has the biggest club sets and enforces the rules” belief system. Alinsky and followers want to gain power in order to enforce their own morality based on their ideas of what is good for them and for us. They work the system of our republic to gain power to use how they want. The framers of our constitution feared the eventuality of these a-moral people using our system and eventuating its failure. With Obama et. al., we seem to be going there fast.