Before Committing to a Reform Movement, Ask These Questions
In every society, there are always great evils. Wherever there are great evils, we had better hope that there are individuals, organizations, and coalition movements.
There had better be people who are willing to commit their lives to the eradication of the evil.
Nevertheless, the old political rule always holds: You can't beat something with nothing. It is not enough to eradicate the evil. The reformer must also have an agenda for replacing whatever it was that called forth the evil. It is not good enough to remove the evil. There must be healing. This program of healing must precede the surgical removal. If a movement has no funding for a positive alternative today, it should not be trusted. The supreme test of a negative agenda is the positive agenda. First, follow the rhetoric. Then follow the money.
Evil always has a market. It has an agenda. It has a clientele. There is demand for it. That is why you must deal with the fundamental root cause of the evil. This requires a reform program that is both positive and negative.
THE PYRAMID OF COMMITMENT
Within any society, there are also gradations of a particular evil. Some people are really committed to the pursuit of a particular evil. They devote their entire lives to it. There are not many of these people. Then there are those who immediately profit from the extension of whatever the program of evil is. They are self-interested supporters of this particular evil. They may be in it for the money. They may be in it for political connections. They are not so much ideologically committed to it as they are financially or emotionally committed to it. Then, all the way down a kind of pyramid of commitment are supporters of the evil.
What I have said here about the sources of evil also applies to the sources of the opposition to evil. There are true believers at the top, and all the way down the pyramid of commitment there are less and less committed people.
Most people don't care one way or the other, but for convenience's sake, will pick a position. They are about equally ready to defend the evil as to oppose it. They want to be left alone. They are these people:
And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word (I Kings 18:21).
Any reform movement that is not based on an understanding of this gradation of commitment on both sides of the issue is a utopian movement. That is to say, it is in the middle of nowhere. It is going nowhere. It is operating outside of any kind of social or psychological context. If it is not trying to enlist people all down the pyramid of commitment, it is a fringe movement. Movements on the fringe are dangerous to join.
A serious reform movement has to deal with all kinds of potential supporters, and it also has to recognize the difference in the levels of commitment among the proponents of the evil.
THE FANATICS
There are always fanatics who call for immediate abolition of some evil. There are not many of them. Here is the problem: they do not establish the extreme end of the movement. The extreme end of the movement are the ones who call for private violence against those who practice some evil. One of them may implement this vision. He may amplify his rhetoric by attacking people who are not committed to the movement.
Consider the American abolitionist movement after the slave revolts in the early 1830's. The South's resistance to abolition became comprehensive. The abolitionist movement in the North began to match the South's harder line. The most extreme member of the movement was John Brown. He was a murderer. He was a true fanatic. In the history of the United States of America, he is probably the ultimate fanatic. He wanted to use violence. He killed innocent people. He adopted the rhetoric of abolitionism in order to support his personal murderous tendencies. He justified his murders by means of abolitionist rhetoric. And, more than anybody else, he was responsible for the coming of the Civil War.
He had an agenda: the uprising of slaves in the South. This was nuts. In 1859, the slaves were under tight control. But Brown's little band attacked Harper's Ferry. The federal government sent out Col. Robert E. Lee to put down his rebellion, which Col. Lee did. Brown was heralded by some of newspapers in the North as being a Christlike figure. Brown was starting a revolution, but not in the North. The South reacted to Northern rhetoric about Brown as a new Christ. This created an environment of resistance among the slave owners, and this resistance spread down the hierarchy of commitment to the common man in the South, who resented Yankee abolitionists. So, when Lincoln won election of 1860, the fire-eater politicians of South Carolina seceded. They were followed by the other southern states. John Brown achieved the goal of his agenda posthumously: abolition. He had hoped to launch a slave rebellion. He launched a southern white rebellion. That is why Brown is the most successful fanatic in American history. He was a man of the consummate evil, and the result was a murderous Civil War.
He was supported by a group of Unitarian ministers in the north, known collectively as the Secret Six. They didn't have the courage to do what he did, but they sent him money and guns so that he could do it. They were not alone. Other organizations sent weapons into Kansas, causing "bloody Kansas." That was where Brown got his start in bloodshed. These gun-runners were the next level of commitment down the abolitionist pyramid. They were willing to use violence and murder, but not personally.
The next level down were the "immediate abolitionists." These are the names that get in history textbooks. Wendell Phillips was one. William Lloyd Garrison was one. Frederick Douglass was one. They believed in immediate abolition on principle, but they were willing to work within the system as agitators. They were willing to settle for nonviolent means.
Some of them were content with separation. They favored the secession of the South. This abolitionist sentiment was known as "the covenant with death." They wanted the South out of the Union. They were pietists. They didn't want their hands sullied in any way sullied by slavery. As long as they could separate themselves judicially, meaning covenantally, from the slave owners, they were content. They did want abolition as much as they wanted personal absolution, applied by themselves to themselves, by complete separation from the institution of slavery. They were not deeply committed to freeing the slaves. They were deeply committed to freeing themselves from any contamination morally and judicially with the evils of slavery. What they wanted was separation, not abolition.
The South provided this for them, but Lincoln would not let them get away with it. It was because he was in favor of Union, not separation. He was not an abolitionist. He was an anti-separationist. So, deep within the abolitionist movement was a crucial division. Lincoln won; the separationists on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line lost.
There was also a theological division within the camp. The winners of the campaign were Unitarians in New England. The shock troops of the abolitionist campaign were Christian evangelicals, best represented by the Tappan brothers. The Christian evangelicals went into the front lines of abolitionism in the North. They joined the Union army after 1860. But the Unitarians got most of the credit, because they had been the most vocal. Politically, they won the Civil War. The Tappan brothers and the other evangelicals had no broad agenda, other than abolitionism. The Unitarians had world-and-life view, and they were committed to it. Their agenda was the reform of the nation through the expansion of federal power. Reconstruction was to be only the first step. They never looked back. They were joined by converts from the ranks of the sons of the pre-war evangelical reformers. (A good book on this is Crunden's Ministers of Reform.)
TWENTY QUESTIONS
You had better look at the nature of any reform movement you are being asked to join. Find out which level of reform the group is committed to. Find out where it is on the pyramid of commitment.
Stay away from the John Brown end of the spectrum. In the hierarchy of commitment, Brown was up there at the top, but you would be wise to avoid committing to anybody comparable to John Brown.
So, when you are invited to join reform organization, ask the following questions:
1. Who are these people?
2. What is their open agenda?
3. What is their hidden agenda?
4. What is the basis of their ethical system?
5. Where is a detailed volume, meaning a book, that explains this ethical system?
6. What negative sanctions do they ask the government to impose?
7. On what judicial basis?
8. Is there a legal precedent for this in American history? 9. What is their view of private violence to stop the evil?
10. What is the ethical basis of this view?
11. Who are the people in charge of a reform organization?
12. What is their background?
13. What have they achieved outside of the reform movement?
14. Are they working full-time for the reform organization?
15. If they are, who provides the financial support?
15. Is the organization part of a broader coalition?
16. Does it have a multi-phase plan of action that recognizes the rival pyramids of commitment?
17. What is their positive program of reform?
18. How are its spokesmen selected and excommunicated?
19. How extensive is its existing membership/influence?
20. What other evils does it want to stamp out?
Your level of commitment should be based on the answers you get to these questions.
Bottom line: don't be one of the secret six behind a revolutionary act of terrorism.
I believe in specialization, but avoid Johnny-One-Note outfits. Be sure that it has a comprehensive view of the good society. Its commitment to a particular reform had better be part of a comprehensive package. Any outfit that fans the fires of reform for one cause, and only one cause, will be dead in the water after the great evil is so subdued that the abolitionist movement disintegrates through lack of interest. Ask question 21 before committing: "What's next?"
There is more than a single great evil in society. What is the second phase in the reform movement's agenda? Remember this rule of life: You can't change just one thing. What is the long-term agenda of the organization or movement? Is it open or hidden? If it is hidden, pass.