SEEING THE RULE
We have emphasized clarity and planning throughout this course. Alinsky’s Rule #12 highlights the importance of this. When someone is seeking to attack your position, be quick to make them fully and clearly articulate what they think is right. Be careful with this, because an experienced radical will be ready for your challenge. But often you will find an unprepared opponent who starts stumbling when you push them for clarity about their thought or action. They know they don’t like your views; but they are not sure what should replace them.
Socratic Method begins with three essential challenges. First, define your terms. Second, explain how you know that what you propose is true. And third, explain why it matters.
If you look at many of the protests and actions of the Sixties or even the more recent Occupy movement, you find this rule being ignored. They communicate what they do not like about their parents’ views. They did not win folks to their solutions, however. Their solutions seemed simplistic, at times confused, and impractical. For all their noise and activity, they failed overall – mostly by ignoring this rule.
USING THE RULE
One needs to be convinced and clear with your own vision, so that you are clearer and more winsome than your ideological opponent. This means you have to brainstorm and edit your talking points and vision for a while before going public with it. Everyone should not only know what you want to have “go away” but what should replace it.
You can create discontent by being negative. Alinsky was a master of that. True and lasting change, however, occurs only when people begin to see your solution in their minds. Be clear, practical, and passionate. Have your stuff together – have the best alternatives to the status quo and you will have the greatest possibility for winning the day today . . . and tomorrow. Here’s an example from the University of Colorado at Boulder about one approach to creating change in policy: changing the student government to change the way that university funds get appropriated.
“The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.”
