Our community is raucous, full of passionate dissents and disagreements because that is how change is done. That is how it has always been done. There has never been a movement in human history for meaningful change that did not have internal disagreements. Sometimes these disagreements resulted in the implosion of the movement, sometimes these disagreements propelled the movement forward. However, rapid, boiling internal dissent is a force that propels change forward.
The multi-century fight for women's rights, which is on-going across the globe, was not and is not a unified movement with a single voice. It has and has had radicals, moderates and all kinds of folks in-between who fought (and are fighting) the good fight for change. The civil rights movement in this country was not a monolithic force at all. The movement was ripped with internal dissent over what direction to take and whether or not the non-violent approach was working or working quickly enough. The oppposition to the Vietnam War was a case study in semi-organized chaos.
Why does this happen? Because the heart of liberalism or progressivism is changing what is and that is incredibly hard work. It is easier to be a conservative. That ideological force seeks to preserve what is and to preserve order in society. Human beings instinctively crave order and security. Much of liberalism challenges what is and threatens real change. Actual, honest-to-god, real change is hugely upsetting to most people. This kind of change goes into the deepest part of the soul and tells people that treating others as lesser beings is wrong, when all of their societal upbringing and societal structure has told them the opposite.
Of course this is hard and of course we have all kinds of internal debate and fights. This debate is uncivil at times. I beg you to read Dr. Martin Luthor King's
Letter from a Birmingham Jail. The letter is to local clergy in Birmingham who have denounced the demonstrations and marches held in that city. The locals wanted more moderation. Dr. King was trying to get them to see that nothing happens without prodding and that their own efforts for change are helped, not hampered by the actions of the activists on the ground.
In our own way on DU, we are engaged in the type of discussion Dr. King was having with others on the various wings of the civil rights movement. Dr. King did not abandon the people who didn't agree with his tactics. Seemingly, they also did not abandon him. They did, somehow, seem to work it out, with argumetns, successes, fights, internal dissents, and even a bit of love and understanding. Maybe we can too.
From the Letter from a Birmingham Jail:
One of the basic points in your statement is that the action that I and my associates have taken in Birmingham is untimely. Some have asked: "Why didn't you give the new city administration time to act?" The only answer that I can give to this query is that the new Birmingham administration must be prodded about as much as the outgoing one, before it will act. We are sadly mistaken if we feel that the election of Albert Boutwell as mayor will bring the millennium to Birmingham. While Mr. Boutwell is a much more gentle person than Mr. Connor, they are both segregationists, dedicated to maintenance of the status quo. I have hope that Mr. Boutwell will be reasonable enough to see the futility of massive resistance to desegregation. But he will not see this without pressure from devotees of civil rights. My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.
We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."
