A quick response to Scott Napalos’s recent piece What went wrong with the organizing, from John J. at the Seattle Free Press.
Recently, the IWW’s Scott Napalos put out a piece covering revolutionary politics and their relation to our projects, and which – by way of explanation - also touched on broader issues of motivation and obstacles to our organizing.
I don’t know Scott, and I’m also not familiar with the recent activities of the Miami IWW. So I suppose I should start by giving them the benefit of the doubt by saying that they are probably speaking from some experience, and that they honestly intend to move the ball a little further along in our organizing work by putting this piece out.
That being said, I think the article was crap. Apologies. But the piece reinforces an awful trend amongst organizers today – not simply in the IWW, but across many self-described radical organizations – that excuses away our losses as anything but losses.
How many times have we heard it before? Sometimes when we didn't get our demands met, we didn't lose because we “raised consciousness.” Other times, we didn’t lose because we “took a stand.” In Scott’s piece, his union’s strike wasn’t really a failure because “[Some] co-workers went on to become active in unions and more committed to working in their industry.” Several Recomposition authors even have a term for it: “winning by losing.”
No. Garbage. Stop it.
We chose to take on the fight. We agreed to the demands. We organized the campaign. If our demands weren't met, good practice dictates that we move forward as though there were only two reasons why: either we didn't organize effectively, or we shouldn't have taken the fight on to begin with. The fact that some people happen to stay after a loss is the consolation prize, not an important facet of our organizing to take into account when thinking about our strategy!
Ok… That’s a bit hyperbolic. Of course we are not masters of the universe – things can and will go bad in our campaigns which are outside of our control. But that doesn't change the fact that the alternative way to proceed is completely corrosive.
“Organizing,” Scott writes, “involves sinking more of one’s life into something that makes you miserable with little prospect for big successes, and more than likely you may end up worse off.” That sounds fucking terrible! If I believed it were the case that organizing would make me worse off, especially in the short-term, I would lock the doors to our meeting space and be done with it, and I should hope for everyone else’s sake that they would do the same.
Of course organizing isn't easy. We do often put in long hours. We do face violence from the police, from our bosses and landlords, and we often do risk our livelihoods and safety for the sake of our fights. But the point of organizing, of fighting back, is to find joy in this struggle, and strength in each other. When we win, even small demands, we build that strength and joy – and, more to the point – the people who might have stayed regardless of the victory are more now much more likely to be accompanied by others.
This is plainly the political climate we live in – and most people in this climate are routinely (and rightly, in my view) unwilling to stick with organizing that doesn't show results.
The “political mood” Scott refers to, then, is not the product of some alien “ethic” which has mysteriously infected our coworkers, but is more or less the expression of our real power, here and now.
The problem, in other words, isn't just that people “think” there’s no option to organize for them - the problem is there really isn't any option to organize for them. Any claims to the contrary are entirely speculative.
Our job then is not to imbue people with “revolutionary politics” (whatever that means) by talking about it with them, but to impart that radical dedication to our projects by showing them they work.
The extent to which people today do not share my politics is neither a reflection of their ignorance, “false consciousness,” or “lack of exposure,” but is likely rather due to my politics’ lack of relevancy to their lives, or at least my inability to concretely demonstrate it; and I hold it against no one who honestly thinks they have more pressing issues in their lives to deal with – even the “more pleasant things they could be doing” – than to come to one of my boring meetings.
So by all means, talk to people about your politics – do it to your heart’s content. But for the love of god, lets not “change our expectations” of success – at least not insofar as our expectations today (a lofty assumption, I know) are that we do what we say, and that we try our best to take on only what fights we can win.
Comments
I'm assuming Scott's article
I'm assuming Scott's article hit a bit close to home, as I would never think of engaging someone I didn't know in an article by throwing around insults, but anyway....
I haven't had time to give Scott's article a serious reading, but I sometimes thinks he strays into "the time isn't ripe" type stuff a bit too much, but there's some truth to the situation we find ourselves in. But I think this response strays too far into another dangerous territory...basically that we can will ourselves into a win and that all agency is directly on us. I've seen this come up time and time again, it is not inherent to any tendency or organization, it's just a trait that is shared by people wanting to better this world. However, I think it easily leads, at best, to burnout, and at worse, to a messianic activist complex that is more interested in doing things for people, rather than with people. I don't agree at all that all losses are our fault and I do agree with the 'winning by losing' concept. I mean, fuck losing, but sometimes we have gained committed people and good experiences in losses and in some wins we have gained nobody and have had seedling campaigns wither immediatly. It's just a fact of life. Not everyone is motivated by bread-and-butter stuff, sometimes the factor of morality comes into play and is a more important element in how people change their view of the world.
Juan, I do not think you
Juan, I do not think you understood the authors critique, or at best the nuance in his critique. For one, when we look historically at "winning by losing" attitudes on the left, we have examples that support the authors critique, such as that as the communist party during the rise of nationalist socialism, for whom the "winning by losing" attitude meant they supposed that "after the nazis there will be us." Of course this is an extreme example, but the attitude that loses are good for us because the blinds will fall from peoples eyes and they will thus come to our side is what has plagued parts of the radical left that lack political criteria for the means of their actions for decades, for example insurrectionists.
Another historical example that supports this author's critique is that of how the working class sympathized with communists during the Mcarthy era. Despite the fear propaghanda that was spread against anarchist and communist during that era, the working class sympathized with the radicals on the basis of their victories, in which people said "Who are the communists? The state says that they are terrorists, but from what I understand is that the communists are the people who carry my furniture back into my house after I am evicted". So, a major part of radicals gaining legitimacy with the class that we are organizing is based on our ability to demonstrate victories that can be seen as victories for the class as a whole, as the author is saying.
Now, this winning by losing concept seems to me to be an existential, self soothing technique that we use in order to deal with the seemingly impossible weight of being revolutionaries; it should be seen as an emotional coping mechanism more than as a structurally and historically evaluative basis for strategy. This is what I believe the author is saying.
I am on the subway, so if this is an incomplete comment my apologies, Barucha
Some final thoughts on some
Some final thoughts on some replies to this piece which have been floating around: people are reading too much into this article. It was meant - and I thought this was fairly plain - only to criticize two things. 1. Excusing failed campaigns instead of figuring out why they failed and moving forward from there and 2. placing the blame of our failures on a lack of some more formal (or at least more overt) "political education."
Any other conclusions people drew from the piece, beyond a fairly straightforward discussion of good organizing practice, are just that.
However, just to clarify, I in no way believe, or at all want to push the idea that there exists some sort of linear, exponential path of "victories" that lie between us and "the revolution."
I just wanted to point out that insofar as those of us who still think there is something worthwhile in organizing amongst our coworkers and neighbors are going to continue doing so, we ought to do so in such a way that actually attracts our co-workers and neighbors. I don't believe knowingly pushing them to take on things that will, in Scott's own words, "[make us] miserable with little prospect for big successes" does this. And that's the main point.