I’ve worked on activism of some kind or another for about 20 years. In that time, I feel I’ve learned a few things. But one lesson stands out to me as the most important. It concerns how to deal with the actions or events of leftists with whom you disagree.
The Activist Lesson
So, here’s the lesson. When possible, avoid public criticism of leftist actions with which you disagree. Especially criticism in the media, including social media.
Lots of leftist groups organize demonstrations or protests, make strategic or tactical decisions, and so on. Sometimes they make misguided or foolish decisions. Usually they’re doing their best, and they usually have good motives or reasons for those decisions.
There’s a time and place to criticize leftist groups, especially groups you’re a part of. If anything, we need more debate and criticism before taking action. We often react to events rather than get out in front of them, and we often jump into certain actions without thinking through how to do it and who’s already doing it.
But rarely does anything much good come from jumping in from the outside and blasting a protest to the press or on social media. Internal debate is vital, but sniping at one another in the press rarely get us anywhere beyond engaging in grandstanding and producing ill-will toward each other.
Handling Disagreement, Redux
I’ve talked about handling activist disagreement before, and I won’t add too much here.
I’ll point out, though, that nothing I’ve said here is meant to condemn all criticism of other leftists. At times, leftists engage in harmful things that we should criticize. But even there, internal criticism usually (not always) turns out more effective than public criticism.
I’ll also note I’ve learned this lesson the hard way over the years. Yes, I see leftist activism pretty frequently that I find misguided or otherwise foolish. Lately, I tend to meet that activism with silence rather than criticism. In the past, I’ve criticized those things more than I now think I should. Why? The media loves it when leftists fight each other. And they make that the story rather than what the leftists organized about in the first place.
