TIME TO ACT

Lately it seems the world is trying to tell me something. Everywhere I go, the classes I take, the books I glance through, what I hear on the news or read in periodicals - a common vein of thought has emerged. Apparently, I'm supposed to go out and affect some kind of change. Reach out in the community. Start to organize. The signs are coming at a tough time for me, caught up in a new semester, faced with constant questions of my values, my priorities, my goals. I think its a wakeup call. I need to stop asking so many circuitous questions and start making decisions, start acting on the few things I know for certain. What the world is telling me: I can analyze every angle indefinitely, but I won't get any perspective without experience.

Is changing the world my destiny?
source:http://www.starstore.com/acatalog/destiny-poster-l.jpg

The last chapters of 'How Can I Help?' were just another drop in the bucket of instructions I've been receiving from the universe. When I first saw the chapter titled 'The Way of Social Action', I almost had to laugh. Last week I started out in my TC course, Pathways to Civic Engagement. Already this class - after just two meetings - has brought back so much inspiration that was lying stagnant for a long time. Professor Walker's career history is enough - his path through corporation to non-profit to teaching is exactly the kind of life I've seen for myself. Already I've started picking up books by authors he's suggested. The first I checked out from the library yesterday, and I haven't been able to put it down. The funny thing is that Dass' last few chapters are a near regurgitation of this book, Saul D. Alinsky's 'Rules for Radicals'. Granted Dass uses different language - appealing to those not already attracted to the role of community organization and social action. Dass also makes an assumption that Alinksy directly refutes - that man is fueled by compassion and that it is the motivator in his acts of service. To give a sample of Alinksy's opinion, and his overall civic perspective, he speaks of innate compassion thusly, "the myth of altruism as a motivating factor in our behavior could arise and survive only in a society bundled in the sterile gauze of New England puritanism and protestant morality and tied together with the ribbons of Madison Avenue public relations. It is one of the classic American fairytales." I feel that although Dass makes good points on the nature and requirements of social action, he buys too much into this 'fairytale' of altruism.

Alinsky's 'Rules for Radicals', an especially
inspring book for me.
source: http://jdwaggoner.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/rules-for-radicals.jpg

Both books give a good account of the steps towards social action and the type of thinking required to carry them out. In both cases, I feel that communication is one of the most essential aspects to affecting social change within a community. As Dass says, "even the slightest bit of self-righteousness can get in the way (p. 161)," when trying to help people, directly or indirectly. In terms of organizing around an ideal, people have to see you on equal footing before they take you seriously, and self-aggrandizement can only cause trouble. And yet organizers, leaders, 'helpers', must retain a sense of right-ness, not necessarily righteousness. They must have courage and a strong sense of identity in order to make change happen - to help others help themselves to make the necessary changes. The sign of a truly great organizer is one who can affect change without making any direct movements of control, one who manipulates situations not through power, but through understanding and strength of character - an infectious and positive strength. To do this one must do as Dass suggests, "if we are serious in our criticisms of the practices and habits of helping organizations… we've got to be light, free, and sufficiently above it all to see where we can untangle the knots and bring about change. (p. 199)"

I plan to change something in my life. Be it an organization, a community, a standard, or the world. Now more than ever I realize the paths to doing this are open and varied, but they don't have to be unnavigable, and there are countless stories of success. I hope that by the time I come into my prime, Dass' words will be true that "we're an environment, not an argument for social change. (p. 163)"