Misrule for Radicals

Saul Alinsky

My left-leaning friend Xerxes has surprised me by declaring that he no longer idolizes Saul Alinsky. 

The shock, of course, is that he ever did.

Indeed, he says the only reason he does not now is because Alinsky’s tactics were adopted by the Tea Party.

After all, Alinsky’s methods were supposed to help the poor and powerless against the rich and powerful, right? (And, it seems, the Tea Party is supposed to represent the rich and powerful?)

But surely anyone could see all along that the fact, or claim, that the tactics Alinsky proposed were to help the poor and powerless is boilerplate. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, or the Kims made exactly the same claim. Julius Caesar made the same claim; so did Napoleon. Anyone out for raw unfettered personal power is going to make that claim.

Moreover, since Alinsky’s contribution was purely tactical, it is self-evident that the tactics can be used for any purpose, whether in itself good or ill. It is hardly relevant whether his own use was supposedly benign. Once anyone starts using Alinsky’s rules, just as when the Germans started in with poison gas in World War One, then everyone is both morally justified and practically obliged to use them as well. It becomes, if the rules are not themselves moral, an ugly free-for-all with eyes getting gouged out and widows raped all round.

And, of course, in any free for all, might makes right. It is not the poor or powerless who are going to end up on top.

No pious words about his original intent can excuse that. Nor is it plausible to maintain Alinsky was himself so stupid that he did not see it. He was a canny fellow; even William F. Buckley called him a near-genius in terms of organizational ability. If he had had the interest of the poor or disenfranchised in mind or at heart, he would not have published the book. It is purely a manual for any dictator on how to seize local, and perhaps wider, power. Today, Chicago’s South Side; tomorrow, the world!

So the question has to be whether the tactics are, in themselves, moral. Purely on that basis he, and they, must be judged.

And they clearly are not. In their very essence, they are not. His essential idea is that an enemy must be created, a tribal “us-them” mentality created, the enemy must be demonized, and conflict must be initiated or provoked.

This is straighforwardly Satanic. It is just what Hitler did, with the Jews. Or Stalin with the kulaks or the Ukranians, or the Young Turks with the Armenians, the Hutus with the Tutsis, the Serbs with the Croats and the Bosnians, and so on. Not to mention that it justifies starting a war. There is no moral issue here for Alinsky. Hitler could have used it to justify invading Poland.

“Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”

This is true, as a tactical consideration, but most often immoral. It destroys reasoned debate and a reasoned discussion of the issues. It also violates the most basic rule of morality: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” We owe each other basic respect.

It is valid and proper only if normal paths of debate have been cut off—in an authoritarian or totalitarian society. Or as a polite measure to avoid accusing the opposition straightforwardly of something heinous. I think in this regard, for example, of Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal.” It is better to accuse the opposition of folly than of deliberate evil, if those are the choices you are faced with.

“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.῎

In other words, go ad hominem. Attack the man, not the idea. Exactly wrong, morally. And exactly wrong if your intention is to produce either the best policy or the best government.

A GoodReads-style suggestion: if you liked Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, you will probably also enjoy reading Machiavelli’s The Prince and Hitler’s Mein Kampf. They are similar books with similar content and a similar view of the world.