Some important reminders of history and the reality of our society’s power structures in this thread from @seachanger:
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Paul Cantrellreplied to Paul Cantrell last edited by [email protected]
Contrast the job of •activist• with the job of •politician•.
An activist’s job is to change people, to change society — starting with people’s worldview, with what they see and what they believe and how they inhabit their lives.
A politician’s job is also to change the world — but to use existing structures to reify worldviews that largely •already exist•. And yes, the bully pulpit matters! Oratory matters!…marginally. Fundamentally, the job is about achieving •concrete, near-term• gains.
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It thus follows that politicians and political parties are •lagging• indicators of change.
There’s an old saying that “politics is the art of the possible.” So is activism! But:
Activists look to the •hypothetically• possible. Politicians look to the •currently• possible.
These roles are complementary. Both are crucially necessary. And when they overlap, look out world! But they are fundamentally different jobs.
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yup. most don't care about actual solutions. they just want to be seen as doing something about the problem. they want to figure out the status quo/consensus opinion, then adopt that as their opinion du jour.
we, as technologists, can't just educate them, explain the risks, explore potential solutions. we also have to spoon feed them the "spin", the message they can use to show that they "did something" and are "on the right side of the argument". without that spin, they'll never care.
when we can both give unbiased, real info and also help them spin it, we will get what we want more often.
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Paul Cantrellreplied to Paul Cantrell last edited by [email protected]
It’s easy to make category errors about these different roles.
It’s a category error to expect activists to be politicians. Lecturing protestors about how, oh, say, “Black lives matter” is impolitic because it makes white people uncomfortable?? My dude, making white people uncomfortable is their •job•! (And yes, for those who’ve forgotten or were born yesterday, that exact lecture ran rampant when the slogan first appeared.)
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It’s a category error to expect politicians to be activists. Honestly expecting politicians to say out loud the idealistic and just and good and just fundamentally •true• thing, even if saying it plainly loses key voters? loses the election? loses the election and ushers a fascist into power and ends democracy? My dude, you are asking the politicians not to do their job!
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Those protestors outside the DNC making a stand for Palestine, making this crushing collective suffering heard where hearing it is uncomfortable? I see them as doing their job.
And the DNC organizers carefully calibrating who is on stage and what the message is, what lines and what framing and what elisions will win this election? I see them as doing their job too.
And the activists naming those elisions? And the politicians eliding anyway? All doing their jobs.
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@paul_ipv6
I wouldn’t be •quite• that harsh about them “not caring about actual solutions.” I do think that many politicians, far more than we generally, truly want things to be better and truly believe they are helping with that.It’s more like they want to adopt one of the possible consensus opinions as their own, the one that moves in the direction of a desired outcome.
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Overall, I have been impressed with the DNC. But disappointed in the lack of acknowledgement of the suffering and loss of life of innocent Palestinians -- especially children.
I hope Harris can at least acknowledge that, even if she avoids pointing out US funding of it for political calculations.
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Activists are looking at the map, watching the route. Politicians are looking at the ground, watching their step.
Without the former, we’re lost. Without the latter, we fall flat on our face in the mud.
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When it works — and it’s a big “when” — the two roles of activist and politician work in concert, a two-stroke engine of change.
Consider post 5 upthread: less than 10 years ago, the phrase “Black Lives Matter” was radioactive. Now we white people put it on lawn signs to show we’re the Good Ones. That shift has brought things into the realm of possibility for politicians that simply were not before — like, say, Keith Ellison getting convictions for the officers who murdered George Floyd.
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My request — of you, of myself, of activists, of politicians, of everyone who cares about the world getting better — is to recognize the existence of these different roles,
to recognize the necessity of both,
to recognize which situations call for one versus the other,
and to nurture both in the places where they’re doing good, however much they may vex and enrage us at times.
/end
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@inthehands Some years back, I recall Sanders getting some guff online from some leftists about being friendly with McCain at some event or another and it’s like, my dudes, literally that is part of his job. It’s awful and exhausting and probably mostly pointless and he has to try anyway — in democratic politics, you win when you get a voting majority for your thing. Of course you have to lobby folks you don’t like, find common ground with them!
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"Dear Dr." ionizedgirlreplied to Paul Cantrell last edited by
@inthehands this is a lot more well said version of what I've been saying: "everyone around here acting like they just realized politicians are bad"
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yeah. probably more "actual solutions are pretty low in the priority queue". it's not that they are against fixing things. it's just not what they put as a top goal.
that's why if we can give them a "story" they think they can run with to go with actual solutions, we'll get more actual solutions.
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@inthehands This is a really important distinction that it would be helpful if more people understood and you've done a great job outlining it. I am someone who is sometimes activist and sometimes politician and am slightly disappointed that more people don't seem to understand the jobs and wind up indignant about whatever it is that I am doing.
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@paul_ipv6
I still think you’re giving politicians far, far too little credit. It’s this:partial solutions for which there is consensus > better solutions that don’t have consensus
Your fixation on giving politicians a “story” isn’t about convincing •them•. It’s about helping them convince others. And for some actual solutions, no story is going to create the consensus in the current moment. That’s where activism comes in.
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@vashbear
I share this frustrations. Harris’s job is to find an avenue for speaking as much of the truth of the genocide as she can while not costing herself the chance to do something about it. She had spoken quite forcefully about the situation in the past (https://hachyderm.io/@inthehands/112855326366406933) and I hope she finds a way at the DNC. But I also understand the tradeoffs she faces trying to embed that in what is fundamentally a giant infomercial. -
@donaldball
Part of what leftists like about folks like Bernie and AOC and Omar (my rep!) is their solidly left-leaning constituencies mean that they can simultaneously be politicians at home while being activists on the House/Senate floor. And I do really appreciate them speaking my truths into the congressional record! But we need to recognize that being national activists the way they are is simply not a choice available with every congressional constituency. -
"It thus follows that politicians and political parties are •lagging• indicators of change."
i think that's a crucial part of understanding where politicians are in the process of substantive, systemic change.
they are the original "no one ever got fired for buying X" folks.
you're right that politicians don't build consensus. they don't even lobby hard for it. they concede to consensus when they believe it's consensus.
the reason they need a story is to understand how what they're trying to do matches that consensus opinion.
politicians are sales folks as much as they are legislators.
what you call activists are the startups, the market disruptors, the visionaries.
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Paul Cantrellreplied to "Dear Dr." ionizedgirl last edited by
@ionizedgirl
One of my brings-the-knives-out opinions is that politicians are on average far better human beings than we generally imagine. (And yes, many are grifters, con artists, sociopaths, reprehensible humans — but far fewer than we imagine.) There’s a whole lot of decent and well-meaning people in politics; it’s the job itself that’s a bastard.