On Reasoned Disillusionment

There was an article on my list of things to write about that I neglected to address and it’s been haunting me ever since. "To the Ramparts (Gently)," by Ben Gibberd in the New York Times (3/23/08), about Brian Kelly of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). It’s the kinder, gentler version of the group that protested, often in violent ways, in the 60s.

Let’s deconstruct:

• Kelly on violence and radicalism:

“I actually think violent action isn’t radical at all,” he said firmly. “Radicals go to the root of the problem, and they want to change society. Violence doesn’t change society, and if it doesn’t go to the root of the problem, it’s not radical.” Mr. Kelly paused. “I don’t know what it is,” he added, “but it has nothing to do with what I want to do.”

• What does he want to do?

His main goal, he said, “isn’t to take over a building, it isn’t to block a recruitment center. It isn’t to do any of these tactics that people kind of zero in on from the ‘60s. Our biggest goal is to get more people who are politicized, who are progressive, who want to join in a mass movement to help change the world.”

Sound familiar?

• How is he going to do it? Gibberd writes: "Once upon a time, radical politics was a physical, messy and often violent undertaking. . . . These days, such undertakings are much more reasoned and cerebral." Kelly’s weapon is consciousness-raising. Talking to people. A lot of them. (Check out his site, Diary of a Walking Butterfly.)

• One of Kelly’s mentors is Michael Albert, a founder of the SDS chapter at MIT from "back in the day." Albert says:

“All that was required in the old days was to point out the causes of pain and suffering — which was the system — and that could instantly be converted to anger and then channeled into activism. Now, you point out how bad things are, and everybody already knows it. So it’s not cynicism we’re up against, it’s reasoned disillusionment. And Brian and some of the others are very good at countering that.”

We too are now up against reasoned disillusionment. You point out how bad things are for animals or the environment, and I won’t say everybody knows it, but a lot of people do. Yet they continue their destructive behavior. They are of two minds: One says what we are doing is wrong, and the other says please pass the butter.

I’m going to spend some time on Kelly’s site and see if he has any ideas that might be helpful in our struggle to shake off the reasoned disillusionment of those around us. He may be a youngin’, but if he’s good at what he does, I’m sure we have a couple things to learn from him.