Last year, I summed up the major lessons I’ve learned from taking part in local activist movements over the last couple of decades. In thinking over this topic again, I find the need to tack an addendum onto those posts.
So, I’ll talk here very briefly about what I call the ‘Lettuce Problem.’
The Lettuce Problem
Activist meetings often begin without a clear agenda and well trained facilitator. As a result, they degenerate into unfocused, aimless, open-ended discussion. Most activist meetings work this way.
These discussions tend to take a specific form. People take turns proposing that ‘we’ (i.e., the people in the room) do something. ‘Something’ could be a project, a march, an event, or, really, just about anything.
And so the meeting proceeds. One person says ‘Let us do x.’ The next person says ‘Let us do y.’ The next person says ‘Let us do z.’ And so on. Sometimes the people who do this are Pied Pipers, but not always.
But you get the idea. The ‘Lettuce Problem.’
Why and What Next?
The Lettuce Problem arises from good intentions. Activist groups strive to be as open and democratic as possible. They want to create space for people to provide input.
However, this desire for an open, democratic structure with space for input degenerates into structurelessness. A meeting with no agenda and/or no guidance from the facilitator is very accessible to the sorts of people who tend to take part in activist meetings. But it’s highly inaccessible to anyone else.
And so, the Lettuce Problem is another in a long line of things that give members of activist communities what they want (i.e., the proper look and feel of an ‘activist meeting’), but also make activist spaces inaccessible to people who aren’t already part of activist communities and approach things with an activist mindset.
My advice? Have an agenda. Stick to the agenda. Make sure the agenda is small enough to be manageable. Don’t constantly ask for additional input and Q&A from attendees, especially when Q&A isn’t part of the agenda item. Have a process for facilitating questions and input from attendees, and stick to that process. Offer time and/or advice for new attendees to get used to the meetings. And announce meeting times and places well in advance.
