Spirit in Action

George Lakey - Quaker Activist, Organizer, Sociologist, Trainer, & Author - from the Everyday Nonviolence Podcast

The team at of FNVW and their Everyday Nonviolence Podcast guest-hosts today for Spirit In Action.

Duration:: 55m
Broadcast on:: 20 Jun 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

(upbeat music) ♪ Let us sing this song for the healing of the world ♪ - Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark Helpsmeat and each week we bring you visits and conversations with people doing healing work for this world, hearing what they're doing and what inspires them and supports them in doing it. Welcome to Spirit in Action. Today for Spirit in Action, I'm pleased to share with you an interview from the Everyday Nonviolent Podcast from the Twin Cities of Minnesota, and it's a project of the Friends for a Nonviolent World. Great folks doing all kinds of great work. Our guest host today is PJ Hoffman, and I'll let PJ fill in a lot that I wanted to mention before turning it over to PJ that I've had George Lakey as my guest on Spirit in Action six times already. With the seventh visit with George to happen, the first week of July 2024 is part of the Friends General Conference Gathering. George always has gems to share and that's what you'll find as you listen today to an episode of the Everyday Nonviolent Podcast from November 2023 shared by PJ Hoffman. I'll let PJ explain some of his connection to George Lakey and then we'll share the full interview. Over to you PJ. - Thank you Mark. Interviewing George Lakey was for me both an honor and a personal pleasure. That's because I got to know George way back in the early 1970s through a largely Quaker-based social change organization called Movement for a Society or MNS. We both lived in a close-knit group of communal households called the Life Center in a neighborhood in Philadelphia. George was in his 30s at the time but his leadership ability was already legendary and his ideas and strategies for non-violent revolution were fundamental to MNS. Now let's get on with the podcast. (upbeat music) - Welcome to Everyday Nonviolence. This podcast is produced by friends for a non-violent world or F&VW. F&VW works to promote and create peace and justice in our community by using the principles and practices of non-violence to transform conflict and to address the root causes of violence. The Everyday Nonviolence Podcast highlights people whose stories deepen our understanding of violence and whose lives demonstrate the many ways non-violence can promote healing and social change. (upbeat music) - Welcome to the Everyday Nonviolence Podcast. I'm your host, PJ Hoffman. And today I have the great pleasure of talking with George Lakey, the well-known Quaker activist, strategist, and teacher. Talk about Everyday Nonviolence. George has been everyday for over six decades starting in the 1950s in the struggles for peace, civil rights, LGBTQ rights, labor, justice, and the environment. Wow. Welcome to the podcast, George. - I'm delighted that you invited me, PJ. You've just published your memoir, Dancing with History, A Life for Peace and Justice. And you've been touring the country talking about it. Tell us about the tour and how's it going? - Well, it's been fascinating for me because I haven't done it to her in about four years. That was for a previous book, of course COVID intervened and the climate situation has become much more dramatic. And so I was curious, I've been to 20 states. I've been to 50 cities and towns, a bunch of colleges, doing bookstores, all kinds of places. And I was curious about what is different now from the last time I did book tours. It is a considerably more anxious country. People seem really, really worried in a way that I have to go all the way back to the '60s and the nuclear arms race and the terrible situation we were in with the Soviet Union, in which we were on the brink of a nuclear exchange. I have to go back that far in my memory to find a time when we've been as upset as a society as we are now. So it makes a very interesting environment to be thinking and creating new thoughts. - Yes, and maybe a very important time for your book and your tour. - People seem to love it, partly because the book is upbeat. - I mean, yes, it's a recital of encounters, some of which are really dramatic, some of which are in the midst of a shooting war. And yet, there is a kind of a big quality to it. - So going back to those scary times, maybe even a few years before, how did you get started in nonviolent action and in social and political issues? - My dad was quite a storyteller. He would often come home from the day's work and tell us stories about what the men at the slave quarry we're talking about. He was a slave worker, a slave miner. And I was fascinated by the things that tickled him most, of course, which would be the things that would be most interesting for a boy, right? One of the things that he loved to do was to poke at their racism. This was an all-white crowd in an all-white town, white mining area. And he would say something like, you know what, I wish that a black candidate would run for president so we could get a black president. And then the others would all attack him to the nail for doing this. And he would love the controversy and then come home and tell us quite proudly how it went. And that gave me such a sense of, okay, you can be working class, you can be middle class, you can be whatever class you are, you can find ways of getting things going, making some excitement in your life by talking about current events. And that's what my dad exemplified for me and that's what I have done the rest of my life. - So how did you discover non-violence? - That happened in a couple of different ways. One was through the action. The actions themselves that most gripped me as a young man were the civil rights movements actions because I participated in those and got to the point of understanding about how things work so that I was actually brought onto the training team for the big Mississippi summer, 1964, when a thousand or so young people from the north were recruited to go to Mississippi and take on the Ku Klux Klan and try to get voter registration to actually happen in the hardest of the hardest states of our country with regard to race. So all of that was hugely formative for me. The other movement set of campaigns that influenced me was the anti-nuclear campaign. My very first demonstration, I talked about it in the book because it was so scary for me. My dad had talked about a lot of conflict at work. Okay, that's one thing. But to go on the street, this was a 1950s. This is the Joe McCarthy period when everybody was, seemed like everybody was anti-communist and ready to beat you up. There we were on the street demonstrating, cricketing at the federal building in Philadelphia against nuclear weapons and nuclear arms race. And we got a lot, very, very anti-communistic yells at us from passing cars, that kind of thing. And that upset me quite a lot. Thank goodness, Lillian Willoughby, a wonderful Quaker woman, an older Quaker woman, who'd been through a lot already, was right in front of me in the picket line and she reassured me the way she reassured me was really funny. I said, "Lillian, is this all right?" I'm very anxious, 18 year old way. And she said, "Well, George, you do want them to pay attention to us, don't you?" (laughing) - So the kind of non-violence that you were beginning to participate in, the figure had, the main leader, was Martin Luther King, Jr. But there's a whole history behind that, I think of modern understanding of non-violence as being a product of Gandhi and his work and his campaigns in India. What do you think, based on what you've experienced, what is the power behind non-violence? - It really depends so much on what it is your opponent needs in order to keep doing what they're doing that you're objecting to, or trying to implement something that you don't want to happen. To take a recent example, a bank that makes a lot of money by financing mount top removal coal mining. What it needs is just a civil order, so that it can go ahead and bring in the money day by day. The bank we were tackling was the seventh largest bank in the country, so there were a lot of depositors that had a lot of money to play with, a lot of money to use to destroy the planet through climate crisis, through financing mount top removal coal mining. And it was the number one financer mount top removal coal mining, then quite proud of it. So what did they need from everybody was simply just going about their business. That's all they needed, right? So the power then of non-violence was to disrupt their operations, to make their life harder. And we figured if we could make their life hard enough, they would decide, hey, it's better for us to forego the income that we're getting from learning money to coal operators and have a more orderly kind of bank arrangement. And so that's what we did. We figured out it's disruption that would give us the power that we needed. So we practiced, we being a bunch of Quakers, thought, well, let's have Quaker meetings, but let's have them right on the floor of the lobby of banks. And we went into banks. First, we were able to do one bank at a time we would circle up and worship, and that would get everything in consternation because you don't want a bunch of people worshiping in the middle of your operations. And then we were figuring out we were growing, so we could do two banks at the same time, then three banks, and then do banks in multiple states. We grew to the point where we were able to do the same day, bank actions, as we call them, in 17 states. So as far as the bank could tell, the national bank could tell, we were just like a cancer, we couldn't be stopped. And we were just grow, grow, grow, grow. And they had to, and so they folded their tent, they decided, okay, we'll give this up. - Well, that's great. In your book, you talk about meeting and working with Gene Sharp, who unfortunately has passed away. Gene spent many, many years researching historical non-violent actions, and he came up with a whole bunch of tactics. I think there were 198 by one list I saw. Besides resistance and non-cooperation, there are so many ways that non-violence can be expressed the power of non-violence. Can you think of another instance in your life where the power of non-violence made a difference? - Oh my goodness, yes. A neighboring town to my town, I feel love you. There's a small industrial city, not far from Philadelphia, where the Civil Rights Movement was tackling school integration because the schools were segregated in that city, even though it's a northern city, we had a lot of school segregation here too. And so they did a civil rights campaign model on the kinds of campaigns that were going on in the South. And so I got to go out and participate in that. And again, it was a matter of putting our bodies, where bodies of regular people don't belong, and are disruptive of the operations, whether it's a city council or whatever, just bring lots of people to be where we're not supposed to be and create, therefore, a problem for them. And that campaign went on long enough to win and integrate those schools. It was, again, it was my first time being arrested. I was terrified, just as I was terrified the first time I was on a demonstration, what really distressed me, PJ, at least on the demonstration, there was a whole bunch of people I can join, right? Well, I thought that the first time I committed civil disobedience was also going to be as part of a large group. So I went into the place where we were going to do this action, and I was the only one there. And there were a couple of police officers just standing around, you know, just, I think, taking a break, actually. And there I was. And all I knew was I was supposed to sit down and join the sit down. George, that's your job. It's just sit down, and so I sat down. (laughs) I just have to laugh when I think about it. I was so totally naive and scared to death, and these police officers came over and said, "What can we help you?" And I said, "I'm in the sit-in, I'm here to sit-in." And they could see me sitting on the floor, and they said, "Well, okay, you've done it, so now you can get up and go home and help people you're a hero." And of course, I knew that would not do it. And so I said, "No, no, no, I'm determined, I need to do it." And so they arrested me. And they beat me in the process. So I got that kind of introduction to direct action also, but all by myself. So I do tell these funny stories in my book. - I've read your book, and you have so many stories that illustrate not only who you are, but what you were trying to do. Lots of stories about the anti-war movement, and we're gonna get to something a little later too about your history. But right now, I wanna talk a little more about the philosophy of non-violence. Some people I know talk about social change as being done from person to person. I'll change myself, you change yourself, and by that means, society changes just by person to person. And other people will say, "No, that doesn't work. What you have to do is you have to change the systems, and people will change as a result of the systemic change." What do you think about that? What do you think about that dichotomy? Where do you stand on that? - Actually, I think both go together. That is, it is initially, it may be just one person's idea. It's time to change this particular thing in our town or in our state or even in the whole society. But as that spreads, hey, you also, oh, good. Hey, come on over to my living room. Let's talk about this. We're a group, we're next thing you know, we're in a YMCA or we're in a church talking together about this, and it grows and grows. What changes the society actually is not only that one-on-one growing and organizing, but also that it becomes a movement that captures the imagination such that there's a cultural dimension to the change that is society-wide. And so people read about it in the paper or they watch it on TV or something like that and realize, oh, wait a minute, there's this larger state of what's going on. This is larger than whether you're a Baptist or Lutheran. This is a kind of, whoa, we as a society are gonna have to confront this issue. And if the movement is good at strategy, it's going to insist that the society confront it. Then once the society confronts it and makes a change by governmental action or some other kinds of systemic change, there's still tons of individuals who have not been, talked with have not confronted this change in their own minds and in their own hearts. And so there's still this like clean up operation you might say. Obviously, the civil rights movement changed laws, it changed practices, it changed behaviors. And there was a lot of individual 101 work that went on in the process of doing that. On the other hand, there were plenty of individuals who were not reached 101 in the process of doing that. And then they had to face the question, well, will I conform or can I continue to discriminate against black people in my little bomb and pop store or in my this or that? Oh, it looks like it's gonna be problematic for me to discriminate. But at least I can hate them, even while I'm selling them to bread. And so it goes on multiple levels. And so I think it's too simple to say, well, either one root change takes care of the whole deal or the other root to change takes care of the whole deal. Society is so enormously complex that it involves multiple layers of work. - Thank you. I noticed from your book that you talk very little, if at all, about electoral politics as a means of social change, I hear a lot about electing the right people and sometimes the right party. And that would bring about a tremendous amount of change. Do you think that's the right method? - Well, I've done electoral politics a little bit. I think it's sometimes appropriate, it's sometimes the easy and obvious route to change. So if that works, great. Then there are other issues that will never be able to accomplish, I believe, through electoral means because they just aren't powerful enough to make the changes that are needed. And so I'm pragmatic about that. The reason why in my work, I've been focusing on the non-electoral is because electoral is what's in our faces all the time. The mass media are full of that. Just as a specific example, PJ, the word campaign. What is a campaign? A campaign is obviously, somebody wants to run for president or senator or something and they announce and then they campaign and they do a two month campaign or an eight month campaign. If you're president, it might be the three year campaign. If you wanna be president, in order to campaign campaign. So everyone understands, thanks to the mass media's education, that people need to campaign in order to get something done, right, in the electoral arena. People understand that, right? Mass media reminds us constantly, people have to campaign in order to win the election. Well, mass media is, I think, because it's not geared toward our needs. It's not going to keep telling us, you need to campaign in order to win an objective if you're using non-violence. We have to teach each other that. And a lot of my work has been workshops and books and articles, hey folks, do you wanna get something? You have to campaign. If you're gonna just announce a protest, well, maybe we can get more people. Last time we got 10,000 people, let's get 30,000 people, it doesn't matter. Let's get 50,000 people, it doesn't matter. Because what the opponent knows, whoever it is you're trying to change, is that you're going home at the end of the day. You're going home at the end of the day. You're gonna be like that candidate who thought they can have a news conference and then four months later get elected. No, no, no. You're going home at the end of the day, the opponent knows that they don't have to worry about it at all. You can go out and do one of those every week. I mean, there are some cities in which people are announcing demonstrations all the time and none of them get anything done because they're not campaigning, they're simply demonstration. - So can a protest be part of a campaign, a useful part? - Well, of course the media will call an event that you do a protest. So for example, when we would go into these banks and do these actions each time the media covered it, they called it a protest. Something can call it that, sorry. But we knew it was an event as part of a longer campaign. We knew that we were gonna have to do that over and over and over and over and over and we did it for, what did we do? We did it for four years. Yeah, we did it for four years to force that bank. Now we started in a living room. PJ, we were really a small group, right? So we started in a living room and then we grew, grew, grew, grew. We grew two other states where we could do simultaneous demonstrations in banks and drive the bank crazy. And so they finally relinquished their profit margin. And so that worked, but it was the campaign that did it, even though on any specific day when you were doing it, of course the media would cover it as a protest. The media are very, very unhelpful. The media cannot be dependent on for this. If you tried to build a house, would you depend on the mass media to tell you how to build a house? No. So the mass media isn't geared to tell you how to get certain things done in our society. How do you get a dental degree so you can practice as dentists? The mass media will tell you that. So you have to find out somewhere else. So I've tried to be one of the somewhere else's that have said, guess what folks? I researched this up to Wazoo. I've participated in the, I got anointed by the civil rights movement. I could tell you it's only campaigns to do the job and you can learn how to do the campaign and read my book, How We Win. And that tells you A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and how to win. And how to win is one of your more recent books. Where can people find that book? Oh, it's easily available just to go online and you'll see how we win. Well, I'm interested in winning. I might read the book. George, the way you talk about a campaign, it sounds like it's a series of steps. And in order to do that, you probably need to strategize. Exactly right. Could you talk about strategy a little bit and why that's important? Oh, yeah, I'm so, so happy to do that. Well, with that bank, for example, we realized that one of the things that mattered a lot to the bank was the annual shareholders meeting, which is not unusual. I think corporations do put a pretty big value on their shareholders meeting. I was their owners sitting there in a large room, and getting a report once a year. And so we realized, whoa, our strategy, which was to keep impacting the bank in very uncomfortable ways, that's one of the places to show up. First time we showed up, we just sat there. We had to buy stock, of course, to get in the room. And then when it was Q and A, we asked our questions and so on. So we got to lay in the land. We understood how it worked. And the next time we went, we went intending to disrupt it. So we developed this strategy that if we could shut down the shareholders meeting, that would be so disruptive. Of course, they know what we're planning because we're proud of the fact that they have spies to find out what we're planning. I mean, if you're in a movement group and you aren't being eavesdropped electronically or something, then you're probably not worth very much. So we're proud when we got pretty well established. Oh good, they're spying on us, great. So they will know what we're planning to do. Then as we got closer and closer, we realized that we were getting nervous because a lot of our people in an earthquake or action team are upper middle class people. Upper middle class people, I brought up working class. So disrupting, hey, go for it. But upper middle class people tend to, and just playing the professional middle class people tend to really obey rules. So to go into somebody else's meeting and then not obey the rules, that became one more of an issue for our folks. And we were getting nervous at the time approach. So we went to our consultant because I always advise new groups, even older groups, get consultant, get somebody who's gonna be outside the organization so they have critical distance, but are with the organization in their heart and understand the nature of the organization. So we went to our consultant who was Daniel Hunter and said, Daniel, we had this problem. We're getting close to the moment and people are getting so nervous. What could you advise? He said, okay, so you folks, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I have an idea, except how about, if you lean on one of your strengths, one of your strengths as a group is you're good at having meetings, so am I right? You seem to have a lot of meetings. Oh yes, we have a lot of meetings. Oh my gosh, do we have meetings? Okay, he said, so bring that strength with you to that meeting. So he said, just plan ahead of time. What your meeting will be, what its agenda will be, who will speak to each agenda item? Oh, we could do that. So that was really great. So we had our agenda plan. We knew it was gonna speak to each other. So picture this, huge opportunity. Lots and lots of wealthy shareholders sitting there, the board of directors is sitting in the front of the auditorium, and then on the stage is the CEO and the secretary and the treasurer, right? So the CEO says, okay, this meeting will come to order. And he knows perfectly well that we intend to disrupt the meeting, right? And in fact, he came off the stage before they started and shook my hand, said, I haven't met you yet, Lord. And so anyway, so he said, all right, we'll have the reading of the minutes. So the secretary gets up and starts reading the minutes. But PJ, would you know it? That happens to be the moment for our first agenda item. So our first person jumps up and starts talking about mountain top removal coal mine in West Virginia, blah, blah, blah, blah, which is our agenda item and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now the back of the auditorium is full of police, right? So looking at the CEO, waiting for the signal, when do we get these jerks out of here? There are 17 of us. We were all scattered throughout the auditorium in order that the police would have to Paul over regular shareholders and take us out there with the events, right? So anyway, so the chair didn't want to arrest us. So he sat there thinking, well, maybe this person will shut up, but he's losing his patience. We're watching the body language and then that person sits down. So I release. All right, we'll have now the secretary's report. So somebody jumps up to start doing this. And they'll practice me the moment for our second agenda item. And somebody else jumps up and does our agenda item. And it goes on like that. It goes on and on and on like that. Every time they call for something, then we also jump up and do our thing much louder than they're doing their thing. And the CEO throws up his hands and says, this meeting's a jerk and we are stunned. Everybody's stunned. And okay, there's silence. And then my daughter who's there starts singing this little light of mine. I'm gonna let it shine. And so we all get up and start moving toward the exits, everybody, the shareholders, regular shareholders and us. And that was our event. So the meeting was supposed to last an hour and a half, only lasted for half an hour. We shut it down. And then the next year, for this year, holder's meeting, when they thought, now we're really, really ready, we shut it down again. So what I'm just saying is that strategy has to do with what is it that will really get at your opponent? Now that means you have to study your opponent. We have to get to know your opponent, know what will drive them crazy, so to speak. And then get under their skin. If part of your strategy is to make their operations difficult for them to continue, to the point where they would rather give in to your demand then continue their ill-conceived practice. - I'm Mark Helpsmeet, main host for Spirit in Action. And I'm going to break in for a moment on guest host PJ Hoffman of the Everyday Nonviolence Podcast, who is sharing an interview with George Lakey, back in November of 2023. An excellent interview, by the way. But I'm interrupting in order to remind you that this is Spirit in Action, and we're on the web at northernspiritradio.org. With 19 years of our Spirit in Action and Song of the Soul programs available, do me a favor and post a comment with whatever shows you listen to. Do that via the northern spiritradio.org site, and I'll be a happy camper to know you're there and to receive your feedback. Also on our site, you can find the stations where our shows are broadcast by community radio stations across the country, about 35 of them. Please remember to support these stations and the invaluable work they do, because alternative media is the surest way. We can keep ourselves free from the corporate control of what we see and hear. And please consider donating to Northern Spirit Radio, because we can't do it without you. Our work is the work of community, and we deeply appreciate your support to make what we do sustainable. Enough of me back to today's guest host, PJ Hoffman of the Everyday Nonviolence Podcast, and the interview with George Slakey, back to you PJ. - George, when you talk about understanding your opponent, it also strikes me that you need to understand the issue that you're dealing with, that you might have a gut reaction to an issue or a personal experience that gets you all riled up, but you need to understand it on a pretty deep level. What is the issue? Why is it there? Who's supporting it? Could you talk about analysis as a little bit and why that's important? - Well, I think you've just said it, if you don't have the correct analysis of what's going on, and that is a problem with regard to some of the issues that people try to pursue in an electoral way, because I think they're missing on the analysis part. If, for example, you're trying to deal with nuclear armament, as I said, that was one of the first issues I tackled, through the electoral process, you have to understand that behind the electoral process stands the financial elite, the economic elite, from our country. They financed both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. Both of those parties, plenty of differences between them, but both of those parties are dependent on the economic elite, or at least cow-tow to them, do what the economic elite wants them to do. It's the economic elite that's behind the power in our country, even though it's a democracy, and that does mean that there are certain objectives that we have that we can hope to win, strategically, until we figure out how to remove the influence or bring down the influence of the economic elite. Now, that's a problem that was solved in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, and that's why I wrote my book, Viking Economics, to explain to people why those countries are doing so much better than we are. They got rid of poverty long ago, they have very little poverty, they're just way more individual freedom than we have in this country, way better educational system, way better healthcare system. I mean, you name it, they are way, way, way down the pike compared in terms of our own aspirations. They have so much more that we would want, but we can't have it because the economic elite won't allow us. So if we wanted to have more democratic, more positive societies that they have, then we would need to take on the economic elite. I think what we have to do is do what has worked for other countries, and I'm such a believer in that. I'm such a believer when you're in a strategically hard place, look around and see what the best practices are. I mean, other professors do that. Doctors check out best practices in other places. Lawyers do that, teachers do that. Lots of professions trying to find out what are the best practices in my profession. Why don't we do that? So let's activists look for the best practices, which in terms of accomplishment of handling the economic elite, that's what's described in liking economics. - In talking about Scandinavia a moment ago, you talked about non-violent revolution. Prior to that, you have been involved in the anti-nuclear weapons movement, civil rights movement, the Vietnam War movement, and so on. It seems to me like in 1971 by reading your book, you kind of put that all together and tried to create a strategy for non-violent revolution here in this country. And part of it you conceived of and you were instrumental in starting an organization called Movement for a New Society, sometimes called M&S, and that was in 1971. Can you tell us a little bit about what M&S was? What did it try to do? - Movement for this society was so ambitious because as you say, it was a product of partly, at least on my part, it was a product of previous decades of trying this, trying that, trying this, trying that, and realizing whoa, it's way bigger matter than I thought. And so if it's a way bigger matter, we need a more fundamental approach and that means revolution. And I'm not impressed by violent revolution at all. And I am very impressed. Well, I shouldn't say I'm not impressed by violent revolution at all. Some violent revolutions have accomplished some useful things. I think we did a useful thing to get out from under the empire of the British, for example. And I root for countries that try to get out from under the empire of the US, even if they used violence to do it. But I think that non-violent revolution would be far, far superior and more efficacious. And that's where Gene Sharp also comes in as my mentor because he showed that it's possible through non-violent struggle to even overthrow military dictatorships. And there are a number of cases of that that he describes in the books. And so I thought, well, wouldn't it be great to do that? But hang on, George. In order to lift aspiration to that degree, non-violent revolution, we need, wow, we need cadries. We need organizers. We need people who are both interested in doing the homework necessary to develop that strategy and theory of non-violent revolution. And also are willing to do the grunt work of organizing movements to do that. And so what kind of outfit could we put together to do this? And you're right, movement for new society came. And of course, historically, it was just the right time because there were so many people after the '60s who were willing to take a step back and recalibrate. Think freshly. And also young people who hadn't been through what I'd been through because there was a cultural change going on. There's an openness, a wonderful open son, a part of young people. So the movement for new society, which was a collaborative thing, because I kept running into batches of people who would say, oh, that sounds good. And they would nail down that part. And then I'd run into another batch and say, wow, that's a big vision, but we could have a list part. And so different groups came. For example, people inspired by the co-op movement, cooperative housing, cooperative living. Wow, why not cooperative living? So that became a dimension of movement for new society. And the campaigning, and a lot of campaigning, of course, that continued. But also, what about the big emphasis on education that seems to be needed? Well, maybe we ought to do training. Maybe we ought to have systematic training. And maybe we ought to have training center where people could come, a kind of university for nonviolent revolution. And so we created that. The amazing co-op movement that has such a great history in our country, and many countries, are their aspects of that. It was in those days being called alternative institutions or counter institutions. Maybe putting all that together, both the experience of the co-op movement and the aspiration of people who talked in terms of alternatives. Maybe there's a jelling of putting all that together, but putting it with struggle. So it wasn't a choice. Oh, no, I only build. I don't tear down, you know, another thing. No, tear it down, don't button it up. Let's put all those folks together. And if we've learned enough about human process, interaction, we've learned enough about that, maybe we could pull it off. - Do you remember PJ? These are such an important part of it. The joy that got generated by these different emphases, being in the same cluster. It was just remarkable. It was so creative and got expressed in a lot of joy. - So M&S tried to involve alternative living, alternative institutions where the action to change. We were ready to tackle everything. So what happened to it? Was it successful or did it fail? - Oh, it was so successful that one of the younger bright lights of movement work in this country is right now writing a book in which she tries to apply what we were doing in M&S to today's circumstance. That's how inspirational M&S remains. Even though, I mean, if you ask the average activist ever hear of M&S, they'd say no, right? Because we did lay ourselves down for 20 years of experiment. But the breakthroughs that we accomplished through aiding specific movements, I mean, that was one of the things we did was we'd tackle it and paint, right? It's then thoughtful, trained, young people, sometimes older people into that movement in order to make it a more powerful movement in order to up their strategic smarts. So we did a lot of support of existing movements. We started some movements of our own and trained up the wazoo, right? We were such a lot of trainers. It was marvelous. We needed it again. And so I'm glad to say that there are some really, really creative people who are saying, "Hey, how do we do this again?" You know, it had a different smell, a different taste. Each era has its own contribution to make and so style. The idea of uniting cultural change with social change, with personal change, it was extraordinary. It was some of the most fun of the writing that I did in the Scaring Book. - I very much remember the personal growth and personal change side of movement for new society. And one of them, when aspect was understanding the relationship between systemic oppression and how it got reflected in each individual. Could you talk a little bit about that? - Well, one thing that was very important to me personally was that I was a closeted gang when we started Movement for New Society. In 1969, the movement started in New York City, but we were getting going in 1971. I was very aware that lesbians and gays were starting to come out and trans people in New York also started to happen in Philadelphia. And I was feeling pushed by that because I was in the closet. Closets are never pleasant places to live. But I also had a family. I had a lot of responsibility. I had a certain measure of respect in various circles that I thought would disappear overnight if they knew that I was gay because homophobia was so intense in those days. And so I was very, very hesitant. So the personal growth dimension for me of Movement for New Society was giving me enough courage and also vision of how I could actually live as an outed gay person and retain my family and be the dad of my children and have a male lover openly. I mean, putting all that together in those days. I mean, even now, it's pretty unusual. But in those days, it was like, whoa. And I couldn't have done it if it hadn't been for the Movement for New Society context, which kept saying can't liberate society with no liberated individuals. But can't fully liberate individuals without a liberated society. So we were able to see those connections that gave us heart and gave us courage. And there were other gay people, of course, in M&S. Our being a little band of brothers together also was really helpful in giving each other support. - Yeah, the personal growth dimension was enormously important. - You mentioned that a number of younger people, mostly, are looking into some historical examples that you participated in, particularly Movement for New Society, as a possible model. Do you have any advice to give these people? If I was one of these folks, what would you say to me? - The very, very questioning about the value of consensus. Consensus was the decision-making model that we used in Movement for New Society. In the early years of that, it was brilliant. It just worked really, really well, because it taught us a lot about conflict. How do you have conflict with other people and still come to an agreement? (laughs) And consensus implies a high degree of agreement among people, but that therefore implies how tremendous that dialogue to go into it and so forth. There was a tremendous payoff for that in the early days. However, over time, my analysis was that it developed a dynamic in which any person, however new, however not steeped in the juice of the culture that we were creating could really stymie a move that the organization really needed to make in order to keep changing and growing. It certainly, several individuals could, but even one individual could in an extreme case. And so, it was my analysis that no organization stays just right over long periods of time because time keeps changing, circumstances keep changing, the organization needs to keep changing too. So then the big question is, how can you change your organization if you've got will within the organization for the status quo? Okay, so there's a conflict between people, one changes, people change the status quo. And the status quo always has the ability to veto changes because of the consensus method. That was what we ran into. So we had this constant veto, veto, veto, and this change organization that was calling on the country and the world to change was unable to change itself sufficiently to be able to keep growing and keep being here. - So George, we're gonna wrap up here. This country and the world in large seems to be going up in flames. - Yes. - I mean, fires everywhere, political fires everywhere. We're spacing severe issues and not the least, of course, is climate change. There are many others that affect everybody's lives and some people a lot more than others. Are you pessimistic or optimistic? I mean, you've been added for 60 years and has the world changed enough for you? Are you still an optimist? - Well, maybe optimism doesn't quite capture what my attitude is. I'm usually aware of this anxiety, especially the book tour just really threw it at me. Like crazy, it was like taking a shower and anxiety every night. I was on to the number of campuses and where I learned that counselors on campuses cannot keep up with the tremendous rate of anxieties but there is among undergraduates. So we do have this enormous problem and I can't be sunny and optimistic in that setting. On the other hand, I've seen a lot of surprises along the way, things that I would not have predicted happening. And so I am not willing to rule out the possibility of us getting through this period in a good way, not in a good way in the sense of conflict free, goodness no, conflicts were part of my life. Anyway, not violence free, there'll be more and more violence. So what by analysis of the political polarization is? I'll tell you the truth, this is the biggest professional mistake I've made as a sociologist in my whole life. I misunderstood a dozen years ago when I was watching the polarization growing in the US and I was worried about it. I thought, oh no, this is terrible because how can we make progress on justice issues and peace and so on if we're just screaming at each other all the time? But then I found out that the Scandinavians made their big leap forward at the period of greatest political polarization in modern times. The Nazis were marching in those countries. The communists were marching. I mean, that's a difference. Incredibly shredded societies and they made their big leap forward at that time. So that got me thinking, well, what about the US? What about the 30s, 1930s? The Nazi movement was growing like crazy. And on the other hand, it was the glory period of the American Communist Party with tremendous divisiveness. Coolest plan, killing people like crazy, lynching and so on. Terrible, terrible amount of conflict and a tremendous rate of violence. And the 1930s was the period of greatest progress that we made in the first half of the 20th century. And then in the '60s, which, you know, the '60s was again, Nazis made a comeback, Ku Klux Klan bombing churches by this time. And then on the left, extreme growth to the left. And in the '60s, tremendous polarization, a lot of bombing going on in the '60s. And it was the period of greatest progress that we made in the second half of the 20th century. So I was wired in this wrong. I was thinking polarization means stuckness. Polarization means sliding downhill, if anything. But no, polarization can mean movement forward. So what if it turned out that this polarization, which is bigger, I think, is getting bigger than it was in the '30s and '60s? What if this is the polarization we need in order to make the big jump? So I don't wanna rule that out. Now, some people would say, "Well, what are the probabilities, you know, "if that's not 90% probability that I would." No, no, no, I wouldn't even go there. I would just say, "Hey, look, I would be happy for a chance." Maybe the probability is only 10% that we can get through this. I don't know what it is. But that's what I'm going for. And that's what gives me my energy. Yeah, that's what makes me so grateful to have this conversation today. - Thank you very much for your time. I know it's very precious. And I found this to be a very rich and rewarding conversation. So again, thank you. - You're so welcome, PJ. It's a pleasure to be with you. - George's Memoir Dancing With History is available online. If you wanna take a look, it's on amazon.com and penguinrandomhouse.com. - Thanks for listening to F-N-V-W, Everyday Nonviolence Podcast. Have a great day. (upbeat music) - Thank you for listening to Everyday Nonviolence. To learn more about friends for a non-violent world, visit our website at F-N-V-W.org or call 651-917-0383. We hope you will subscribe so that you don't miss future episodes and insightful conversations. Please note that the views expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and are not intended to reflect the official positions of F-N-V-W, its staff or board of directors. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - I really appreciate PJ Hoffman and the folks from F-N-V-W sitting in for me today for spirit and action. I've got their links on the northernspiritradio.org website. Since we have a little more time, I'd like to share with you something that George Lakey mentioned in this interview about his daughter, Ingrid, singing "This Little Light of Mine" as part of an action. I searched around and I found a video with portions from the July 3rd, 2014 earthquake or action teams protest. The video link is on the northernspiritradio.org website and has captions that I'll dub in here for your listening pleasure. Thanks for being here and we'll see you next week for spirit and action. Here's from the earthquake or action team video, starting with the high school activists on a bus heading to the action. - I'm life and I'm excited to really make a change in the world and also to piss off some bank people. (cheering) - And I am very excited to confuse some bankers with Senate worship 'cause I'm sure that they will be very. (cheering) - I'm Shoshy and I'm excited to do my first protest and I have incredibly amazed that quicker process actually led to quick practice. (cheering) - My name is Ansel and one is awesome and we're doing environmental change and stuff and it's awesome that that's my protest. - And a big group sitting in a big circle on the bank floor where part of the action took place singing a protest song, right? (singing in foreign language) - And right into the closing worship at the PNC bank singing that song. (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) - And let's give a pause for the group that just got here. (cheering) And a bit of silent, quicker worship right in the middle of the PNC bank. (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) - The theme music for this program is "Turning of the World" performed by Sarah Thompson. Check out all things spirit in action on northernspiritradio.org. Guests, links, stations, and a place for your feedback, suggestions, and support. Thanks for listening, I'm Mark Helpsmeet, and I hope you find deep roots to support you to grow steadily toward the light. This is "Spirit in Action." (singing in foreign language) ♪ Every song we will move this world home ♪ ♪ And our lives will feel the echo of our healing ♪ (gentle music)