[lbo-talk] Time to Get Religion

Miles Jackson cqmv at pdx.edu
Mon Dec 4 14:55:42 PST 2006


Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:


>
> In short, what we can learn from organized religion, above all, is not
> any ideological tricks or political gimmicks or aesthetic props but
> the ABC of organizing, which we secular leftists have forgotten, or
> (more likely) which we remember but, multiply fragmented as we are, do
> not have resources to put into practice.
>
I'm all for stealing effective organizing practices from a variety of groups, but the underlying assumption here is important to analyze--viz., effective organizing principles can be yanked from the social context in which they developed and be applied easily in new social contexts. This is a strangely technocratic view: "Mechanism X works in situation Y, so we can use it everywhere." I think it's important to emphasize that effective organizing practices and principles are socially contingent. The techniques used by religious groups may or may not translate to secular organizing, because the effectiveness of those religion-based tactics are in part determined by the fact that they rely on religious beliefs and practices.

Miles



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