Tactics to Effect Change

TACTICS TO EFFECT CHANGE

You have to convert them, not defeat them.

Be Gentle with Everybody and Everything.
(as in activist work, etc.)

Per Jacques Ellul and NLP, telling people "You're
disgusting, you're the most horrible society"
won't -- for the majority of the population, who are
brainwashed -- make them change; they'll simply
tune it out. Effective propaganda must fulfill
needs. So instead, say "They've been lying to you.
You're better than that. You have so much
goodness inside of you, and they won't let it
express itself. But we can show you the way you
can, and will, be able to express that goodness."

Don't denounce how horrible things are and/or
how horrible people are for not doing something
about it -- they'll deny things are horrible because
they don't want to feel horrible. Instead, pace
them by praising them for already doing x, then
suggest "How much more wonderful you will feel
when you do y," and also paint see-hear-feel
pictures of the wonderful way it will be.

NLP

NLP is a way around or through the mass-media-
induced brainwashing of the U.S. population.

NLP for social change: destroy people's biosocial
band filters, so they see reality -- both their being
exploited, and their exploiting others.

Utilize the anchor and future pace. (Also use the
six step? the visual squash? well-formed
outcomes? change personal history? etc.)

Create special conditions (hypnotically induced?
embedded?).

Use NLP (parts modalities) on the U.S. population
as a whole to allow the God within to come out,
and thus massive social justice change to occur.

Make NLP available to advocacy groups for use
in advertising, fundraising, one-on-one advocacy,
etc. -- have an entire vegan training.

Force

Gandhi's non-violent civil disobedience involved
patiently being beaten until the British beaters got
revolted at their own behavior, changed heart and
left India. Similarly with Martin Luther King, Jr.,
the American public had a change of heart after
witnessing attacks by water hoses, dogs and
Southern sheriffs.
Our [late 1980's] non-violent civil disobediences
protesting U.S. policy in Central America face
quite a different situation. We can conduct our
humble, passive civil disobediences in the offices
of Congressmen from now until doomsday, and
the vast majority of the U.S. population will
neither know nor care. Something different is
called for.

Be a little harder (political stuff).

While others take the soft approach, maybe it's
my mission to be the hard prophet.

If a child is torturing an animal, you would
certainly first try to appeal to the child's better
instincts; but if the child didn't want to listen, or
was incapable of understanding or appropriately
responding to that approach, you still would have
the obligation -- by scolding, threat of punishment,
physical separation of the child from the animal,
or whatever else is required -- to prevent that
child from torturing the animal. The same holds
true with people and their support of factory farm
torture and killing.

I'd rather force ten people to stop killing, than
convince one.

Sometimes you have to kick some ass to show
Love.

Ultimately...

According to Wilber, you can't really get people to
stop grabbing for excess Eros, or to stop
oppressing and killing to get rid of Thanatos, until
level eight is achieved. You can, however, offer
"benign substitutes" more "humanely and
synergistically arranged." (Is this what liberation
theology does?)
[Up from Eden, p. 335]