Anarchist Black Cat

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Understanding motive forces and the motors of change

In almost any training session on how to organise, the concept of whether to pick a campaign (for organising purposes), and the merits of different campaigns, and what criteria to choose the most important campaign for organising purposes is examined. Almost every activists knows (well, almost every activist SHOULD know), whether they are active in a trade union or workplace organisation, or residents association or community organisation, or whether they are trying to kickstart such organisation, that a successful campaign must be winnable. That is an interesting concept and one that the more impressionistic left will argue contradicts 'anarchism's' or 'socialism's' need to demand the impossible. While of course this particular objection is mere rhetorical moralising and impressionistic, it is an interesting question in that it posits the conflict between our need as a class seeking our own emancipation, and the possibility of pathways to victory which require us to take steps that at present are not winnable. We would do well then to examine what we know about ladders of engagement, critical mass, conformity and leadership dynamics, as it is important for revolutionaries to frame our actions not solely in the here and now of campaigning necessity, but also to visualise how this work moves our class forward towards revolution, and how best to optimise for this outcome in the here and now.

Hip marketing guru Seth Godin outlined in a recent best-selling book the concept of project dip. The idea is a simple one: there comes a time in the life of a project where enthusiasm begins to fade, challenges are reached, and the possibility of success begins to seem like a more uphill struggle. It's a dynamic anyone involved in a long term campaign has faced, and it's one that can bedevil many people. Godin argues that successful leaders are able to assess whether it is worth staying the course, and toughing out the tough times to win big rewards by getting to the end. He thinks leaders need to take hard-headed assessments about whether this dip that they are experiencing is the dip to tough out, or whether the rewards would be greater for those who quit and toughed out some other dip. This is a useful concept and one that dovetails neatly into discussions of critical mass. The tipping point, a book which sought to codify what caused exponential critical mass to develop in the life of campaigns, sales drives and projects and initiatives by means of outlining the type of people who helped generate this critical mass, is worth bearing in mind when discussing these ideas. Author, Gladwell, argues that three principles underlie this; three types of people are critical to a successful spike in critical mass, Gladwell argues: connectors (people who bring people together), mavens (people with expert knowledge in abundance), and salespeople (who sell the idea to others); the context or environment in which this happens is important. So too, how sticky the message is, is seen as vital. These two concepts, project dip and 'the tipping point' (where critical mass can crescendo into exponential success), are actually unitary, insofar as they remain a helpful metaphor rather than just buzz; they are helpful because we must come to understand what it is that motivates people, and how we can motivate people to make things happen. The barriers to victory are more psychological than they are empirical. In truth our class holds all the weapons. The ruling class only commands the ability to issue orders. When it comes down to it, with anything in the world, our class makes it happen. And that includes our own oppression. That is not to make some existentialist etienne-de-la-boete-esque rant; subjective factors create objective manifestations. But mass pscyhology is the crucial factor in determing whether something is winnable or not.

In the organiser model, the organiser is encouraged to view individuals not as personalities and pals, but as a dynamic within the struggle. Organisers are taught that they should analyse the social interactions of groups, and look at people's personalities. Leaders in social groups may be vital to get onside in an organising campaign. And it is vital that the campaign is led from the inside. So it is vital that skills, commitment and capacity are audited, and that, as far as possible, those involved are pushed and facilitated to take on responsibility. What is also understood is that those who take on some responsibility, will be apt to take on some more. More apt than those who have yet to take on responsibility. There is a truism: if you want something done ask a busy person. As socialists that truism seems to cut against the heart of what we are about. Mass democracy requires mass participation. How can we seem to rely then on only those who have become reliable. This is where the concept of a ladder of engagement becomes absolutely critical. The organiser in this model maintains a spreadsheet of all of their contacts. On this spreadsheet is a map of personal development, broken up into stages. Individual contacts have been assigned stages in their progress towards autonomy and autarkic campaigning. This sounds mechanistic to the usual ad hoc methods of socialists today, but if we think about it, it is just a codification for what we already understand. In general we recognise that someone who signs a petition for the first time, will not tomorrow be D-locking themselves to the ministry of defence buildings. There may be some exceptions, but it is generally understood that for people to commit to a project, and take personal risk, and personally involve themselves, they need to attend some meetings, get into the swing of things, meet people, form relationships, take some personal sacrifices which encourage those people to get more bought into the goals of the movement before they are willing to take some more (and bigger) ones.

The class struggle as a whole, despite the recent upturn due to the changed circumstances of the market and state balance sheets, is at a low ebb. What this means is that if we are to visualise the dynamics at play, the majority of people of our class are very low down the rungs of that ladder of engagement. There is 27% union density in the UK, and collective bargaining agreements in place at 52% of public sector workplaces, and 17% of private sector workplaces, so in principle we may be down, but we are not out. However in the vast majority of these workplaces this amounts to a membership of trade unions that approaches something like taking out contents insurance. It bears little resemblance to our activist base, and certainly were you to ask a trade union member to go leafleting for their branch (let alone take further action), you'd receive few positive outcomes in many union workplaces. Such strike capacity as we maintain as a class is generally in the passive, 'it's a day off' variety, than having many willing volunteers for pickets. In our communities it is common to hear the retort, when action is asked for, that 'we don't do that.' So when we ask for an assessment that something is winnable, it's in this context. Most of the time it probably just isn't.

A comprehensive programme of reorganisation based on the organiser model, and an understanding of project dip

So the role of an organiser in the organiser model is to map a target constituency for organisation, find out the natural leaders and social dynamics, map the skill-set and ladder of engagement of individuals, and commence a generalised push to develop skills, capacity and buy-in, amongst constituents, adopting campaigns which are chosen to do this. We all know the checklist by now for choosing these campaigns, or if we don't we should and our organisations ought to have already taught us.



It's important to understand then that certain campaigns cannot be won, as much as they might need to be won. For example in Glasgow recently the council has embarked on a school closures policy. In 2006 most of the ad hoc resistance to school closures petered out and the council won its closures. This process was repeated this year with the next wave. Next year yet more schools will be closed. In principle we need to stop schools closures. But in reality we don't have the weapons in our arsenal of collective organisation. So when we fight a necessary, yet rearguard campaign against closures, it's in the knowledge that most communities are not organised. Campaign skills are few and far between. We face a pyschological barrier to organisation in that for most people campaigning is something other people do, not them All this, and in tandem the fact that the council will save real money on these closures, and will get re-elected anyway.

In this context we might be forgiven for thinking that 'winnable' criteria has not been satisfied. But at the same time the issue is a collective one, and one where ordinary people are willing to take action. So our involvement in this campaign (because few campaigns spontaneously motivate to the extent that 'hot button' issues can) is a given, but the outcome that we are seeking has also be tempered with hard headed realism. If we are to succeed in a revolutionary struggle, our workplaces and communities must be collectively organised, and the grassroots experience of democracy must be tempered with a grassroots ambition and drive for something better.

An example from the life and times of famous community organiser Saul Alinksy is often used to illustrate this particular point. Alinksy had been organising a block of flats where the landlord meant to put the rent up, and where repairs were not being carried out and tenants faced a variety of problems and difficulties. Initially tenants were sceptical that anything could be done to resolve their plight. Everyone was brought together and started to meet to find areas of common concern; no rent rises was seen as the point to focus on. As organisation began tenants came to see small victories which led to other small victories. As this process took off tenants went from being resigned to rent rises and cockroaches, to wanting to shoulder the landlord out of the picture and run the block for themselves. As one Glasgow comrade explained this example from me, tenants went from asking for hamburgers, to demanding steak. It's just an example to illustrate but the point is clear. We become subjectively aware of our own power when we begin to exercise it.

There are two ways to learn a concept. You can learn the thing in principle, the theory. And then you can learn the thing experientially, in practice. Some people are capable of rationalising theory into theiir own practice. But many aren't. Leftists expect working people to hold internally consistent ideas, and for the logic of one argument not to contradict the logic of another argument. Time and again however, when this perception is tested, people prove that they can hold onto competing theories which directly contradict each other at the same time. Knowledge which is derived experientially is a powerful motor of future action. We see this played out in addictive behaviours, in people doing things which are not rational but have always been done (eg in Zapatista communities nutritionalists have been ellucidating the idea that soya beans contain around 50% protein, but traditional black beans hold only around 7% protein; without major price differentials most peasants continue to eat black beans, because that's what they know). Tied to knowledge acquired experientially, as the example also illustrates is that people are creatures of habit. Those who have eaten white bread and have positive associations with white bread, may be reluctant to suddenly start eating wholemeal rye bread with sunflower seeds. Likewise in the 1970s, one out, all out was not just a theoretical idea, it was a working class cultural principle and something that was understood, and inculcated in practice, experientially. Further, it also illustrates another principle. Marx observed that people are creatures of habit, but in the 20th century psychologists further observed that people have a desire to conform socially. The Milgram experiments demonstrated that people would literally kill each other to avoid breaking with their emotional need to socially conform. Far from being a depressing series of observations, these three general principles are actually the deadliest weapon in the hands of the organiser.

Seth Godin advises us that what distinguishes change-making leaders from the rest of us is their abiility to sense when it is a good time to battle thru the project dip we see in most initiatives, and when it's a good idea to quit. Now if we understand that at the moment many of our goals are just not winnable with the personnel we have, but we also know that in order to get people more bought-in to a campaign or initiative we must take them along a ladder of engagement. We know that this is best effected with collective grievances and collective responses to collective issues. We also know that people learn, grow, understand more thru experiential knowledge than purely theoretical knowledge. Further we know that the desire to conform is a big social pressure, and that social groups have individuals who can define their direction and are listened to more than others. Further too, we also know that people are creatures of habit. They will do what they have done in the past before. We know too that maintaining an audit of current skills, comptenancies and actions undertaken by individuals across a constituency can allow us to manage all of this process.

Now if we are to connect this to the context of critical mass, we also know that we can short-circuit some of this process (if we get lucky and the conditions are right, or we focus hard on development), when there are people who connect people to people, bring important information to bear, and sell ideas well. These people are the leading dynamic elements. Because we know this we should be on the lookout for those sorts of people, and we should be trying to develop these skills and capacities.

Critical mass then, is a question of levers. Generating it, and motivating people, is a question of taking people along a journey. Critical mass in itself is not the motor of change, but obviously it can be helpful for sweeping people up along a ladder of engagement. The anti-war protests of 2003 created a large number of political activists for example. A new workers movement, and a new labour movement needs to apply these lessons developmentally. If project dip is to be overcome, we need consistent mapping, data analysis, and a focus on human resources, that understands that people will do what they have done already to some extent (in Alinsky's rules for radicals the author argues vociferously that introducing news ideas works best when they are couched in easily understood old ideas; this is the same principle), and they will do it best when the social motor of conformism is propelling them to take this action. This is the best way to move people along a ladder of engagement.

Against Impressionism: Towards Science.

If we are to understand the strength of our class as the strength of institutional motors, conformism, and our experiential knowledge base, aside from issues of finance and strategy, we will be moving further and further towards a generalised understanding and appreciation of 'operations' and a revolution in political activism which might actually move us forward. There is no more powerful drive for social animals, than the power of our social conditioning mobilised to encourage others to take steps along a personal journey. Once those steps have been taken, they will be remembered, and the next time they are taken, they will be less uncharted and those workers taking them will do so in greater confidence. If we want to repair the power of our class and begin the process of facing the enemy and tearing lumps from that fatty capitalist edifice, we have to understand these social motors, and we have to be serious, hard-headed and empirically driven in our quest to turn the struggle around. Presenting ideas is never as motive a force as living those ideas and seeing their validity written in the personal schema of one's lived experience. Ideas shift, but old habits die hard.

Isn't it time we abandonned impressionism and focussed on the motive forces of our class? We need comprehensive re-organisation and re-orientation. If socialists aren't going to lead that process from the front, no-one will and we will be defeated, and defeated more comprehensively than in the bloodiest defeats of social partnership. There is no option left to us now than to focus on the hard science of marketing and mass psychology, and anything less hard-headed is not optimised for victory. As such it is optimised for defeat. We must be optimised for victory; we need no more failure to evidence the abject impressionism of our weakness. We face the annihilation of a century of gains in a decade of austerity. There is no more time for messing around, and no more time for careworn romantic nonsense.

That is why we must focus on the organiser model, remembering that people are creatures of habit, conformity is a social force, and that people are driven not by the many, but by the law of the few, and that we need to inculcate those leadership characteristics into the whole of our class thru experiential development with a managerial focus that puts the capitalists to shame. It is time we stamped a generalised theory of organisational operations onto the mind of every socialist, experientially, and ridiculed the ideas that have gotten us nowhere, for the ossified 19th century communications strategies that they are. Suchlike 'strategies' (such as they are) are more than ever are a source of our failure, and a barrier to progress. Let's stamp our movement with the mantle of hard science, and start winning hard victories, that move us forward to hard power. That's how we will forge a workers movement stuffed with hard-headed socialists. This is no time for dalliance or defeatism. It's time for tangible popular victories. It's time for the hard science of class struggle.

So basically what you're saying is, to sum it up 'Widely felt, deeply felt, winnable, and with tangible results'?

I agree of course, and I think we need to write a proper organiser guide for anarchists and the like - because they must be the building blocks of any campaign.

Yes. And systematised. It's all very well having a theory, but the movement needs to be much more managerial than it has been. Effectively we have abandoned organisation to those who take it seriously, because put simply, we just don't, and we don't have the data, maps, or the people doing the pushing in any kind of systemic way. Without that we add up collectively to far less than the sum of our class, and we have nobody to blame for the failure of our class to make gains this past thirty years but our own inchoate organisation, failure of leadership, and risible ad hoc jokery.

I agree we need to be pushing every newcomer to the socialist movement thru some sort of training to inculcate these practics experientally. There is no excuse to continue with the present failures any longer.

Professional historians describe and report the past - amateur historians are rebels who act in order to change the future course of history. Serious rebels try use every tool available in order to change the course of history - including the less dramatic scientific findings.



However, the winnability of campaign is depending on its aims. Sometimes, the bringing of a subjects to the focus of social discourse is a worthy result even when the concrete changing aim fail. Some time the resistance itself - even without substantial results is kind of victory over passivity...

An hot polemics between Chinese historians reveled the effect of repeated uprising of slaves that all of them defeated, expedited the abolishing of slavery.



"Demanding the impossible" is posited as contradiction to the reformists and other "realists" who ask only what is clearly easy to get. Blaming for "Demanding the impossible" can be a worthy criticism when the demands are suggested as possible to be obtained immediately.

The demand for equality between the genders within the capitalist system is "Demanding the impossible". However such a demand is empowering even if only small gains are achieved.

The general remarks of Dundee are stressing important strategic points:
"but also to visualize how this work moves our class forward towards revolution, and how best to optimize for this outcome in the here and now."

This is the difference between serious rebels who want more than just vending their anger and these who just "celebrate" their anger.

People who get the wider historical picture are less influenced by the depressing "dips" and can interwoven in the long "Marathon" towards the abolishing of class society.



Social psychology and marketing/advertising psychology discovered lot of findings relevant to successful influencing of public opinions. The above are similar to the findings about non formal grass roots leaders of public opinions - functioning each in hir specific spectrum of influence.

In a way, the findings supports our objection for formal and non formal general leaders.




May be it was not meant to be so, but it seems to be a linear or nearly advance according to accumulated results of wise political activity.

My claim is that the accumulated results of class struggle we contribute to are more sublime than what is usually claimed. If you just pay the attention to the relevant signs you can often discern on the surface the expression of the important subterranean developments. (The subterranean processes that will result in the revolutionary eruption at 'the tipping point' - "no body expected even few months before".)



Understanding mass psychology can direct where to invested our efforts. Processes found in research of mass psychology can chart for us the limits of options in a certain period and place. However, like whether prediction which is easier to predict, the application of mass psychology finding to determining whether something is winnable or not is limited and they are just rules of thumbs to be used in heuristic approach.

Any way, as I printed above achievements are not limited to obvious/substantial victories - as shown by Pyrous Victory on one side and the uprising no one expected on the other.




Machiavellian approaches never payed in our movement. The adoption of findings processes is worth... but only when adjusted to our basic solidarity among comrades. (Mechanical/objective "best" can not be the optimum we need for viable collectives of activists.)



If you replace in the above the 'organizer' with the 'collective of activists' it may be adopted...

We become subjectively aware of our own power when we begin to exercise it.



It is long known finding of the 'personal opinions' that people have in their brains lot of opinions related to every activity. Some of the opinions are expressed in one kind of objective/subjective context, others - which can be even contradicted to the previous ones, can be expressed at other circumstances. In spite of scientific pretensions, without understanding the relevant processes of the 'opinions' expression and change, our activities remain on the intuitive level.




The look out for these "unofficial leaders of public opinions" is important. It is not less important that we understand that influencing such people and their rising up are the core of mass rebellion.

In a way, it seems we do not need so much to directly convince the wide masses but mainly do so to these unofficial grass roots leaders of public opinions.



It is nice that activists start to understand the importance of scientific findings of dynamic processes in the masses. However, the knowledge and application of scientific findings of dynamic processes of the 'opinion systems' of the individual human are even more important as this system is the intermediate between the messages of the leaders of public opinions and the mass behaviors of the ordinary persons.




The organizer model as presented by Dundee is expanding the part to play as the whole.
It do bad service for the movement by exaggerating the role of the grass roots leader of opinions and organizers and present/replace our concept of leading of opinions with "the organizer".

(It also present the psychology of masses as supporting authoritarian/hierarchical structures/processes which is not.)

It breaks my heart to see an Anarchist advocate hierarchy in the form of a "ladder of participation."



To me, this is setting ourselves up for failure as we will be called hypocrites. "



Let's review, in Proudhon's words, an overview of government:

Do you think that those of us who possess political and campaigning knowledge have an obligation to try and ensure that this knowledge is shared out, to the best possible effect?

If you knew that a methodology was effective at spreading such information and knowledge and experience (more so than other methods), then how could you justify not utilising it?

Also how can you conflate institutional hierarchies with managing the political development of others? I think you've extended the concept of hierarchy so far as to make any difference in social capacity a hierarchy; as such anarchist opposition to hierarchies, by logical extension, becomes little more than rhetoricism (or self-flaggelation).

Yes I do. I try to engage in that myself, as much as I can.



As long as it didn't violate Anarchist principles, I would be fine with it.



First of all, we're both engaging in rhetoric. But I think you are also attempting to make a euphemism for hierarchy because you are so focused on "winning." We all want to win, but I'm against sacrificing Anarchist principles to get there.

Yes. I see that, but the way you interpret that seems capricious to me. And I don't follow what you are actually saying, because it seems logically inconsistent. You are saying that it is hierarchical to politically develop others, but that you have an obligation to spread your knowledge and understanding as widely and effectively and possible. I don't follow that. Unless what you are saying is that you will not tolerate utilising a structured approach to political and experiential campaigning and tactical knowledge development, because it is having a stucture to the way we go about that is hierarchical. This seems wrongheaded or confused to me.

Here is what I think.

I actually agree that is is important to uphold anarchist principles. The core principle for me is something myself and others would term rank and file control. It is the rank and file control of our institutions that will determine whether they are workers institutions, or co-opted institutions. Clearly if we mean to win the class war, it must be the workers who are in charge, and that comes from us controlling our institutions.

What this doesn't mean is democracy in the abstract.

You see there is another core principle. This principle is the responsibility of association. It is the responsibility that compels us to spread our knowledge and our awareness, and the strength of our class combative tactics and vision for workers control and socialism.

Two key ideas stem from this principle.

One is that we must adopt methods and tactics that are the most ruthlessly efficiently for spreading our ideas and tactics.

Two is that we do not uphold democracy in the abstract. If a union's left is defeated in elections it is not a principle that we uphold a rightwing decision. It is of purely tactical signicance whether we would seek to settle at the prospect of a rightwing victory, or whether we push leading elements to make a complete break. It is our responsibility of association to ensure that we support the left, as without such victories it is not possible to arrive at the conclusion of rank and file control, and any concept of a rank and file control outside of the context of the battle for workers control is factitious ultimately, because of its ultimate conclusions. We are in this to win this. We will not stint to inculcate the leading ideas, within the leaders at the base of our unions, and we must do that on a mass scale and as effectively as possible. Because we want to see direction coming from below, we have a responsibility to make leaders of as many brothers and sisters as we can, as ruthlessly effectively as we can.

In context for me this means that the approach I outline stem ultimately from the conclusion of anarchist principles of mass democracy, and popular voluntarist association and participation and mass vitality of the revolution.

For a long time it has been my belief and my contention that an anarchist revolution would only become a possibility once a majority have had some personal experience of democracy, and exercising popular control over their lives. That means we take creating militancy and popular leadership at every level very very seriously indeed. That means we must exercise the most effective means as possible. Even in the abstract.

And right here, right now, in this time of crisis, with the biggest assault on our class in eighty years now already underway, the possible annihilation of generations of working people's victories, and the prospect of the final crushing of our trade union organisations now firmly on the cards, the demands on our time and our work here are begining to look a little bit sketchy. The concept that we can afford the luxury of not taking this task seriously enough to begin to structure and systematise our approach, because of some misplaced liberal idealism mixed with confusion over what constitutes exercising 'hierarchical' power is doubly difficult for me to understand any such objections.

What is this idea that optimisation for victory is something that we can take lightly? 1 billion starve, and growth in bio-fuels are only going to expand this further. Climate change is not being dealt with adequitely. We face major resource crises on the very near horizon with a shortage of potable water. Every single day 34,000 children will starve to death. In the UK for instance the working class still has a shield. And that shield means we still have social democratic advantages that make our lives fairer and better off than our counterparts in the USA and many second and third world countries. We can however go backwards. Russia after the collapse of the USSR being a case in point. As that country was plundered and privatised life expectancy dropped ten years. I think it stems from the fine tradition of anarchist principle that we seek to put an end to this kind of shit as quickly as we can, because not doing so prolongs misery and death, and perhaps puts our entire species in a position of very great peril.

So you see no danger in creating a continuum onto which people would be placed based on some measure of "how Anarchist" they were?

To me, the resources we gather should be shared, but I'm against instituting a system to evaluate people. The burden of proof is on you to prove that such a system, however "efficient" it is, does not go against Anarchist principles.

Youngcynic: Although I don't always agree with Dundee on everything, I don't think that what he's expressing in this post is against anarchist principles at all. It's just taking our principles seriously enough to actually try to develop and build them through real world praxis. People may disagree with his strategy and tatics, but it's not contrary to anachist principles because Dundee is talking about evaluating where people are at as far as their organizing skills and their political development. These things are a process. The ladder of engagement idea is basically taking people step by step so that they can build their skills based on where they're at. For example, someone just getting involved in an organizing campaign and having never participated in it might not be the best person to speak on behalf of the group in a rally or coordinate a major part of an action or something. You might want to get them involved with flyering and talking to people one on one at first as they build their skills. Then working in a group to develop a flyer, then.... you get the point. If you think that we grow as people, then growth implies going from less skilled, less politically developed to more skilled and more politically developed. The process isn't necessarily linear and the whole time the less skilled or less politically developed should be part of the process of co-creating what the process is for their develop and contribute their ideas to the discussion, etc., etc.... but it's still a process. A recent text applying these ideas from a group analyis is by Brazilian comrades FARJ: Social Anarchism & Organisation: Concentric Circles: http://anarkismo.net/article/14067. I'm kind of tired right now, so I hope this is clear what I'm saying.

This statement is interesting, because I think it shows you're not following what's being discussed. The point is not to evaluate how anarchist a person is, but to chart someone's skillbase and personal involvement, with the aim of building participation, by encouraging people to take on new tasks that push the folds of their personal envelope a wee bit, and doing that in a structured way.



Exactly.

I agree with the principle that people with more skill should take on bigger duties but I don't think we really need a formal, structured system to do that. A system like that might look good on paper but is really just going to turn into a small elite of people running the show and bossing other people around. There will be no sense of community any more.

What about when there is no 'sense of community' and the organiser is external to the workplace or not indigenous to the community (which is the case in about 99% of organising campaigns and initiatives)?



Well one of the frequent problems I observe amongst comrades seeking to organise is that they feel temerity and uncertainty about how to organise others.

When you have a model with clear steps for how they conduct their organising that means more people can get involved in organising activity, it is easier for all to visualise what the steps are, and when something is modelled and the steps that the organiser takes are clear, and clearly understood by all those involved in the organising, then data can be collected about the efficacy of this work, that can guide strategy, and demonstrate to the executive bodies of the organisation which the organisers are working in what is going on on the ground, at a glance, and decisions can be taken accordingly.

In other words modelling like this opens up participation to a wider pool of people to take on organising work, it makes that work auditable and makes for better decisions, and it also adds to accountability within the organisation conducting the organising.



As opposed to what?

As opposed to organising being a dark art, with lots of secret arcane skills, without information which enables the organisations doing the organising to take decisions, and with zero accountability, and hit and miss ad hoc approaches to organising?

I am sorry but I really do not and cannot empathise with your perspective. You seem to just be making conservative denunciations of a system because it is unfamiliar. Many of your arguments stem from logical fallacies. And you have claimed a grounding in anarchist principles for your outlook, principles which actually support, more properly that system which you have decided you oppose.

I'm sorry but unless you can present an argument here, rather than making blanket statements which you claim stem from principles (but which actually do not stem from principles), we can't really have a discussion.

I doubt I'm expressing myself as well as I should and that may lead to many of the non-sequitur arguments I've read. What I'm saying is, though I believe that there can be a disparity between skills, to formalize a system based on that runs the risk of excluding members from tasks they might easily accomplish. For the most part, I believe people should be allowed to take on whatever task they want, and if there are to be any decisions made about what other people do, it should be done based on consensus. If there is any system at all to be used, it should be allowed to be created organically through trial and error in each organization, not imposed from the top-down.

I'm not against educating and helping others acquire skills; I think it is a straw-man to make my position out to be that.

Really? How does it do this?

What it does is _push_ people to become _more_ active and _more involved_, and encourage them to develop their skills and capacity, as far it is possible to get that person to go, remembering that old habits die hard, and so trying to make this kind of voluntarism habitual.



No. It should be based on democracy and open dialogue. Consensus must not be imposed to the detriment of democratic decision making. Democratic systems have a method of arriving at a decision described as "passed by general acclamation"; that's when the meeting takes a unanimous decision. When an issue is contested and not unanimous then it goes to a vote. Democratic systems already function by consensus, except where there isn't consensus. Consensus as a system does aware with the fairness of democracy and effectively imposes minority rule.



You are conflating the role of organiser with the role of participant. This assumes the participant is in a position to implement their own training schedule or would avail themselves of training if it were made available. In most organisations, with most participants, most of the time none of these conditions obtains and it is the job of organisers on the left, organisers appointed within organisation, a cadre structure in organisations/rank and file, or otherwise external agitators and organisers to try and build participation for rank and file control. Calling that top down is misunderstanding what top down means. 'Top down' is having no executive control, and having decision making authority wrested from the rank and file. That is not what we are talking about here. What we are talking about here is developing skills, capacity, buy-in and habituating participants in mass organisations to involving themselves in building the organisation, and developing a rank and file. That is the opposite of top-down. It is bottom-up.