This is a continuation of quotes from Saul Alinsky’s book Rules for Radicals, along with my commentary.
This is part 2 of 6 parts. Also see:
- Marxism, the heart of Community Organization: Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals Part 1
- Marxism, the heart of Community Organization: Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals Part 3
- Marxism, the heart of Community Organization: Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals Part 4
- Marxism, the heart of Community Organization: Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals Part 5
- Marxism, the heart of Community Organization: Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals Part 6
On with the quotes:
The means and end moralists, constantly obsessed with the ethics of the means used by the Have-Nots against the Haves, should search themselves as to their real political position. In fact, they are passive – but real – allies of the Haves. (Page 25)
I present here a series of rules pertaining to the ethics of means and ends: first, that one’s concern with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with one’s personal interest in the issue. When we are not directly concerned our morality overflows….The second rule of ethics of means and ends is that the judgment of the ethics of means is dependent upon the political position of those sitting in judgment….Those who opposed the Nazi conquerors regarded the Resistance as a secret army of selfless, patriotic idealists, courageous beyond expectation and willing to sacrifice their lives to their moral convictions. To the occupation authorities, however, these people were lawless terrorists, murderers, saboteurs, assassins….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. (Pages 26, 27. Emphasis is Alinsky’s)
Alinsky continues on with nine more rules of the ethics of means and ends – an entire chapter’s worth – and the message throughout the chapter is that there is no such thing as right and wrong when it comes to politics and government. Every example he uses to explain these rules of ethics is calcuated to descredit the U.S. government, U.S. Allies or the Founding Fathers. See Alinsky pages 28-47.
…by using combinations of words such as ‘harnessing the energy’ instead of the single word ‘power’, we begin to dilute the meaning; and as we use purifying synonyms, we dissolve the bitterness, the anguish, the hate and love, the agony and the triumph attached to these words, leaving an aseptic imitation of life. In the politics of life we are concerned with the slaves and the Caesars, not the vestal virgins….it is a determination not to detour around reality. (Page 49)
I agree with Nietzsche’s statement in The Genealogy of Morals on this point:
‘Why stroke the hypersensitive ears of our modern weaklings? Why yield even a single step…to the Tartuffery [i.e., hypocritical piety] of words? For us psychologists that would involve a Tartuffery of action…For a psychologist today shows his good taste (others may say his integrity) in this, if in anything, that he resists the shamefully moralized manner of speaking which makes all modern judgments about men and things slimy.’
I do not propose to be trapped by tact at the expense of truth. (Page 50, Definition of the word Tartuffery added)
There is a non-sequitur logic problem with the above statement because the only truth Alinsky recognizes throughout the book is the idea of class struggle, a viewpoint that interprets everything through Marxist ideology and values. Yet in the Prologue (on page xv) Alinsky says that, “all values and factors are relative, fluid, and changing.”
The moment the word power is mentioned it is as though hell had been opened, exuding the stench of the devil’s cesspool of corruption. It evokes images of cruelty, dishonesty, selfishness, arrogance, dictatorship, and abject suffering. (Page 50, Emphasis is Alinsky’s)
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 fairy tales. (Page 53)
…the United States in World War II fervently allied with Russia against Germany, Japan, and Italy, and shortly after victory fervently allied with its former enemies – Germany, Japan, and Italy – against its former ally, the U.S.S.R. These drastic shifts of self-interest can be rationalized only under a huge, limitless umbrella of general “moral” principles such as liberty, justice, freedom, a law higher than man-made law, and so on. Morality, so-called, becomes the continuum as self-interest shifts….With one breath we point out that we are utterly opposed to communism, but that we love the Russian people (loving people is in keeping with the tenets of our civilization). What we hate is the atheism and the suppression of the individual that we attributed as characteristics substantiating the ‘immorality’ of communism. On this we base our powerful opposition. We do not admit the actual fact: our own self-interest. (Page 55)
Another attack on the U.S.; Alinksy is implying that the U.S. is just as corrupt and self-seeking as the communist countries, but we deceptively cloaks our self-interest in terms of morality we don’t really believe in - and so actually we are worse than the communists.
It is interesting that the communists do not seem to concern themselves with these moral justifications for their naked acts of self-interest. In a way, this becomes embarrassing too; it makes us feel that they may be laughing at us, knowing well that we are motivated by self-interest too, but are determined to disguise it. We feel that they may be laughing at us as they struggle in the sea of world politics, stripped to their shorts, while we flop around, fully dressed in our white tie and tails. (Page 58)
A free and open society is an on-going conflict, interrupted periodically by compromises – which then become the start for the continuation of conflict, compromise, and on ad infinitum. (Page 59)
What Alinsky is describing here are the principles of Syncretism and Marxist Dialectics, which are part of the standard Marxist model for changing a society: Create a conflict, any conflict. Make it come to a head and then offer to solve the issue through compromise that benefits your side a little. If you make 5% progress every time, then after arbitrarily manufacturing 20 conflicts, you will have reached your goal. And so on.
The leader is driven by the desire for power, while the organizer is driven by the desire to create. The organizer is in a true sense reaching for the highest level for which man can reach – to create, to be a ‘great creator,’ to play God. (Page 61)
Conflict is another bad word in the general opinion. This is a consequence of two influences in our society: one influence is organized religion, which has espoused a rhetoric of ‘turning the other cheek’ and has quoted the Scriptures as the devil never would have dared because of their major previous function of supporting the Establishment. The second influence is probably the most subversive and insidious one, and it has permeated the American scene in the last generation: that is Madison Avenue public relations, middle-class moral hygiene, which has made conflict or controversy something negative and undesirable. (Page 61)
Again we see that Alinsky views religion – and the middle class – as being corrupt. He sees them through the Marxist world view as simply being vehicles for the continuation of power of the Haves over the Have-nots.
The education of an organizer requires frequent long conferences on organizational problems, analysis of power patterns, communications, conflict tactics, the education and development of community leaders, and the methods for introduction of new issues. (Page 64)
Always the potential organizer’s personal experience was used as the basis for teaching. Always after the problem was solved there would be long sessions in which a postmortem would dissect the specifics and then stitch them together into a synthesis, a body of concepts. All experiences are significant only insofar as they are related to and illuminating a central concept. (Page 64)
Alinsky is interpreting people’s experiences for them; this is a common programming technique which cults use and Alinsky is using it the same way (see the second quote below as well.)
Then there were those who had trained in schools of social work to become community organizers. Community organization 101, 102, and 103. They had done ‘field work’ and acquired even a specialized vocabulary. They call it ‘C.O.’ (which to us means Conscientious Objector) or ‘Community Org.’ (which to us evokes a huge Freudian fantasy). Basically the difference between their goals and ours is that they organize to get rid of four-legged rats and stop there; we organize to get rid of four-legged rats so we can get on to removing two-legged rats. (Page 67)
I have improvised teaching approaches. For example, knowing that one can only communicate and understand in terms of one’s experience, we had to construct experience for our students….Happenings become experiences when they are digested, when they are reflected on, related to general patterns, and synthesized….Our job was to shovel those happenings back into the student’s system so he could digest them into experience. (Page 68)
The organizer, in his constant hunt for patterns, universalities, and meaning, is always building up a body of experience. (Page 70)
Here is a list of the ideal elements of an organizer….Curiosity…He is driven by a compulsive curiosity that knows no limits….The organizer becomes a carrier of the contagion of curiosity, for a people asking ‘why’ are beginning to rebel. The questioning of the hitherto accepted ways and values is the reformation state that precedes and is so essential to revolution. Here, I couldn’t disagree more with Freud. In a letter to Marie Bonaparte, he said, ‘The moment a man questions the meaning and value of life, he is sick.’ (Page 72)
Alinksy is looking for someone who will channel people’s curiosity into rebellion against authority, and who will question the value of human life. He continues to expand on this in the following pages:
Irreverence….’Just because this has always been the way, is this the best or right way of life, the best or right religion, political or economic value, morality?’ To the questioner nothing is sacred. He detests dogma, defies any finite definition of morality, rebels against any repression of a free, open search for ideas no matter where they may lead. (Page 73)
Imagination….There was a time when I believed that the basic quality that an organizer needed was a deep sense of anger and injustice and that this was the prime motivation that kept him going. I know that it is something else: this abnormal imagination that sweeps him into a close identification with mankind and projects him into its plight. He suffers with them and becomes angry at the injustice and begins to organize rebellion. (Pages 73, 74)
A sense of humor….The organizer, searching with a free and open mind void of certainty, hating dogma, finds laughter not just a way to maintain his sanity but also a key to understanding life. Essentially, life is a tragedy; and the converse of tragedy is comedy…the most potent weapons known to mankind are satire and ridicule. A sense of humor enables him to maintain his perspective and see himself for what he really is: a bit of dust that burns for a fleeting second. A sense of humor is incompatible with the complete acceptance of any dogma, any religious, political, or economic prescription for salvation. (Pages 74, 75)
It’s amazing what dark and hopeless view of life Alinsky had. It’s so ironic, hearing stuff like this, that Marx thought, “The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness.” Keep in mind that the atheist has no more factual basis for the reinforcement of their belief than the religionist has for theirs; the atheist is choosing to have faith that darkness and hopelessness are the nature of reality.
For a variety of reasons, the organizer must develop multiple issues. First, a wide-based membership can only be build on many issues. (Page 76)
In a multiple-issue organization, each person is saying to the other, ‘I can’t get what I want alone and neither can you. Let’s make a deal: I’ll support you for what you want and you support me for what I want.’ Those deals become the program. Not only does a single – or even dual – issue organization condemn you to a small organization, it is axiomatic that a single-issue organization won’t last. (Page 77)
In the above two quotes, Alinksy is talking about a core strategy. Because all morals are fluid and changing, he believes, therefore the only causes which really matter are anything that you can use to further your agenda. The program is literally made up of anything so long as its components can be used as paybacks to get people to support you and give you power and influence.
An organizer must become sensitive to everything that is happening around him. He is always learning, and every incident teaches him something. He notices that when a bus has only a few empty seats, the crowd trying to get on will push and shove; if there are many empty seats the crowd will be courteous and considerate; and he muses that in a world of opportunities for all there would be a change in human behavior for the good. (Page 78)
In response to Alinsky’s quote above, I would say that first, some people just don’t respond to opportunity. Second, he’s mistakenly equating equal distribution of goods (which is inherently unjust) with equal opportunity. Pretend a little brother breaks a toy that both he and his older brother play with, and the mother comes to the older brother and says, “Tommy, I know your younger brother broke this toy, but he doesn’t have any money and you’re getting a $5 a week allowance. So I think it would be fair to take your $5 for the next four weeks and use it to replace the toy.” What’s the older brother going to say? Even a child knows that to do this would be unjust because it violates the concepts of personal responsibility and property ownership that every person is born with.
This brings up a good point: The social planner views people as being products of their environment rather than being products of their own freewill. As such, the social planner believes that people don’t have personal responsibility for anything and that it is society’s duty to compensate people for perceived social injustices because it’s society’s fault that they are criminal, unemployed, poverty-stricken, or what have you. This thinking leads to all kinds of injustices such as people who are clearly at fault not being convicted, or parties that are not at fault but happen to have deep pockets being held responsible for the actions of other parties, etc.
Click here to continue on to Marxism, the heart of Community Organization: Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals Part 3
