Owen Jones has a website that is, if you’re a politico, well worth a look. He has a recent post called “Why the left needs to watch its language” which is not a Lakoffian “reframing” excercise, but actually full of good advice for activists.
Snippet that made me laugh loudest was this –
Get some non-lefty friends. I’m not saying start going to dinner parties with Tories and treat your political differences like it’s all one big joke. But left-wing activists often live in a bubble, only hanging out with other like-minded lefties. They end up forgetting that most people don’t share their politics, and as a result they don’t have a way of addressing their concerns, or countering their arguments.
He means, perhaps, the smugosphere?
Anyhow, I came to Owen’s site via Casper Ter Kuile.
Meanwhile, rhizome has put a lovely thoughtful comment under the recent “Decruitment” post. And on their own site (we have a Mutually Assured Discussing pact) they also kindly point to the post and add this – It also brings to mind a fun activity a trainer friend of mine is fond of – the reverse ideastorm. Ask the group to ideastorm around creating the problem rather than solving it. So in this case ‘how do we decruit rather than recruit?’. Then work from there to solutions….
