Social movements have substantive political positions, values, and goals. This is the content found in their discourse. Content varies on the usual dimensions of political debate, such as left vs. right. But in addition, movements develop characteristic modes or styles of discourse, and these vary along different dimensions. Analytically, they are distinct from content dimensions and empirically, they often vary independently. Modes of discourse are politically consequential. Furthermore, they represent deeply held commitments more than instrumental choices. Studying them can strengthen our understanding of the cultural dimension of social movements. To make these arguments, I'll use two examples, both from groups (broadly) on the left in which I did participant observation.
The Cincinnati Area Coalition against U.S. Intervention. At meetings of this group, which operated during the Gulf War, discussion was entirely on nuts and bolts. This was not an accident but an explicit choice. At a meeting in February 1991, when the end of the war was imminent, a draft political statement was brought up but put aside without discussion. Thus the group decided to refrain not only from taking a public position beyond demanding that the war end but also from any internal debate on the issues raised in the draft. A little later in the meeting, a member tried again to raise broader questions. What changes in our country, he asked us, should we seek given that we want it to make fewer wars? He argued that the goal of stopping the war didn't make sense any more because it was going to be over shortly. Instead, he said, we should think about our underlying purposes. He was, in a friendly way, ruled out of order. No such discussion as he proposed took place at that or any other meeting of this group.
What explains these outcomes? Practical explanations are implausible. Lack of time was not the issue. The next two hours were spent discussing, in mind-numbing detail, two elaborate proposals for the organizational structure of a group which was never to meet again. Nor did the constraints the group imposed upon itself come from concern to avoid alienating potential supporters, since the group restricted even its internal discourse. A third possible explanation, that the group was in danger of destructive internal conflict if discussion became broad or passionate, is also implausible, since the group was quite homogeneous politically.
Something deeper, some set of customs or rules appears to have been in play. There was an implicit rule that people's reasons for belonging and their ethical sentiments were an entirely private matter. Any discussion of topics beyond nuts and bolts was effectively embargoed. Connections between the immediate political issues at hand and general socio-political visions were not made. Nor were links forged between people's politics and general cultural traditions, such as religious and ethical values, to which they were attached. Furthermore, these activists expressed little passion, even though most of them were strongly committed to their cause.
This pattern, manifesting a highly constrained mode of public discourse, can be found among political groups of all stripes. Such styles are enduring patterns. Unlike the ones adopted by politicians under the influence of their consultants, they are usually not manipulated instrumentally. The operative rules expressed in these patterns are not just practical adaptations. Rather, they are ethically charged. They may be implicit or customary, but activists have a deep commitment to them. And in some groups, such as Amnesty International, one hears explicit, systematic, philosophical discussions about what style of discourse is best.
Milwaukee Innercity Congregations Allied for Hope (MICAH). MICAH is an instance of congregation-based community organizing, which is happening in about 100 cities across the country. In some ways MICAH, as I observed it in 1991-93, was similar to religious right groups (although it lacked the intolerance and strict cultural boundaries often found in such groups). It practiced a much more expansive mode of discourse than the Cincinnati antiwar group.
One difference is that religious faith was not just a private source of motivation, as it was for the people from the churches that I found in the antiwar organization and have seen in many other progressive groups, but a collective identity. At meetings, I found myself seated behind a manila folder bent into a simple name plate reading, "Steve Hart, St. Andrew's." Individual MICAH activists, as this implies, were representatives of and links to religious communities. These communities were the "members" of MICAH, committing themselves organizationally to confronting the corporate and governmental actions and inactions responsible for the woes of Milwaukee's less affluent neighborhoods.
Another difference is that nuts and bolts consumed only part of the group's energy. Even routine business meetings included prayer and a short religious reflection period. More important, to be involved in organizing means that one is perennially being trained. MICAH people attended evening workshops, all-day training events, and a one-week training retreat. Training developed the ability of activists to connect their faith and ethical values to politics. It presented religious faith and scripture as having a strong public dimension, and melded a variety of religious social action traditions and the philosophy of community organizing developed by Saul Alinsky into a distinctive religio-political language which participants were encouraged to adopt. It challenged participants, often confrontationally, to "clarify [their] self-interest," which in practice meant taking ownership of their core purposes and making them a unified agenda for an integrated, intentional life. The actual religious content varied widely, but the ideal of connecting faith and activism did not. As an organizer in another city put it, "We do not expect a Unitarian to sound like an African American Baptist preacher, but maybe to be able to be as passionately connected to the substance and ground of their faith-whether it's Rilke or Jeremiah."
In short, MICAH's discourse was often passionate and transcendent, and persistently linked faith and values to political issues and public policy, forging connections between civil-societal cultural traditions and politics. Thus MICAH adopted different modes of discourse than the Cincinnati group. As in Cincinnati, this choice is not explicable simply on instrumental grounds (although organizers and leaders regarded a rich cultural life as good for the health of their groups). MICAH participants were far more committed to their religious communities and faith than to MICAH, and would have left the organization if they felt that anything other than a genuine religious impulse was at work.
In fact, they experienced their faith and activism as complementary. Participants frequently told stories about how they had learned, through involvement in organizing, to connect their faith to public life and become effective, engaged actors in the public arena. They often went on to tell of how, as a result, their spiritual life had deepened....
This article draws in part on material in the author's recent Cultural Dilemmas of Progressive Politics: Styles of Engagement among Grassroots Activists (Chicago, 2001). It also reflects discussions with other people studying movement culture, particularly Paul Lichterman and Nina Eliasoph. E-mail sahart at buffalo.edu; home page www.buffalo.edu/~sahart/.
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* Calendar of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/>