The most successful initiative to change the law and public perception in this country was the result of incrementalism — one of the most powerful ways to seek change.
Most people are aware that those seeking gay rights ran two very long term initiatives. One in schools, starting with how educators are educated. The other in the courts. Both have been successful in changing public perceptions, public policy and the law. Recently there have been some interviews about how the project was accomplished.
There is a good deal to be learned by any group seeking change in looking at what the gay rights group did, and in related matters.
I’ll start with a quote (From In Praise of Incrementalism):
I have lessons that I think any future movement can learn from the gay-rights movement, and they are as follows:
Put your own interest first. Do not take up every conceivable progressive issue that somebody in your movement thinks is interesting. At the beginning, new movements don’t have a lot of spare capital and they need to spend it on their issues and the things that will keep them together rather than fragment them. The gay movement did that.
Two, take the moral high ground. The AIDS epidemic forced the gay movement to take the moral high ground, and they did it beautifully and then they used it in the marriage fight perfectly.
And the third lesson is have weekly meetings. I am not convinced that social media is a substitute for the kind of social, deep rich social contacts that emerge from physical proximity to one another.
The next steps that Black Lives Matter can take are reasonable ones for them to take next, okay? The availability of technology in the form of video cameras and phone cameras empowers them to take bolder action than they would be able to take without the technology. So their next steps look about right to me. They’re bold, but they are in a sense incremental. I mean saying, “Don’t shoot me while I’ve got my hands in the air” does not strike me as a radical position.
They then have to move to much more profound issues like the organization of the police force and their training and the way that people use local taxes against communities of color like in Ferguson. Those are bigger bites, but it’s time I think for those to be addressed as well.
The next quote is from a podcast by Malcolm Gladwell, Generous Orthodoxy. It comes from a man from a culture of peacemaking with years of experience in love and change.
“You have to respect the institution you’re trying to change and maintain a balance between loyalty and openness,” he said. “That is the hardest balance of all, but that’s the truest way to bring about transformation…
This point is so often underappreciated.
Without respect you lose credibility and you lose any chance to do anything but gratify your own pride. Hugh Nibley could say things with love that many still get attacked for saying because they lack that love and loyalty. Criticism without respect is bullying at best.
For more on Wenger, who was at the heart of the podcast, you can see the Mennonite News Page where they embrace their critic with pride.
He loves them and they love him. It is a matter of trust and love. And of proven patience, sacrifice, service and loyalty.
Any path to change has those two elements in it, if you want to be successful and care about change more than your own ego.
My final quote is from Moroni 7:
46 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, if ye have not charity, ye are nothing, for charity never faileth. Wherefore, cleave unto charity, which is the greatest of all, for all things must fail—
47 But charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him.
Afternote: There are some people I really admire seeking changes in may places — and they are using all of these tools. This essay is not to be read as a criticism of any of them, but more to illustrate which tools work and which ones that do not.
Wheat & Tares 
This article sounds good on the surface, but I don’t necessarily agree with the premise. If you want to effect change, you use whatever strategy works. I will say this: usually the party asking for “incremental change”, moderation, and respect is the party that’s in power and stands to lose that power as a result of change. I’m looking at *you*, LDS church.
I can also think of plenty of examples where change wasn’t going to happen without forceful voices and action: the American revolution, civil rights demonstrations, womens’ suffrage, feminism, anti-war demonstrations…. and that’s just in the United States. There are plenty more examples worldwide. Basically, for every example of measured change, there’s an example of forced change.
Specifically, for the LDS church, change will come from a combination of playing nice and dragging the LDS church kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Yeah… incremental change sounds good on paper, but we can see from history that the only time the LDS church changes is when it’s forced to by legal realities or public outcry.
Read the transcript of the Gladwell Podcast about civil rights and their incrementalism.
It was an incremental approach and the gay marriage initiative copied it.
“46 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, if ye have not charity, ye are nothing, for charity never faileth. Wherefore, cleave unto charity, which is the greatest of all, for all things must fail— 47 But charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him.”
“12 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.” 1 Cor 13:12 KJV Bible
I am not sure if Joseph Smith “borrowed” his verses from the KJV Bible, but, if he did, then “charity” means something like “brotherly love” not “generosity”. In modern translations, the word “love” is used. I suppose the Moroni quote works either way in the OP’s context, and there’s no way of knowing the intended meaning without referencing the Moroni text in the original language.
Anon 1 — Thurgood Marshall’s incremental approach and successes in the civil rights area were the express model followed by the gay rights group. It is well worth a look at the transcript or a listen to the podcast discussion of that in In Praise of Incrementalism.
Incremental change does not equal passivity. But when you start with a 70-80% margin of opinion one way, you only get to a tipping point where change is possible by incremental steps. Worldwide, failed violent actions are very, very common, and they almost all involve insufficient incremental change.
Anon 2 — “charity,” or as Dr. Elgin used to put it “loving kindness,” is the same concept that Gladwell refers to as generosity (albeit Gladwell also invokes openness as a part of the concept). In Gladwell’s context “Gladwell emphasizes that people trying to change institutions often fall into the trap of being either too loyal to the institution or too focused on change. “The minute we forget our loyalty, we lose people and begin to antagonize the very people whose hearts we’re trying to change,” he said. “But if we go too far towards the other side, we become incapable of change.””
@steve
“Read the transcript of the Gladwell Podcast about civil rights and their incrementalism.”
Well, I lived through the New York and Watts race riots in the early 1960’s, and it wasn’t all “incremental”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_Civil_Rights_Movement_(1954%E2%80%9368)
@stephen
“charity,” or as Dr. Elgin used to put it “loving kindness,” is the same concept that Gladwell refers to as generosity”
I was talking specifically about the translation of “agape” as “charity” in the KJV bible. The meaning of word “charity” has changed from Elizabethan times. and modern readers often misunderstand the 1 Cor. quote as rendered in the KJV. The modern translation is “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
How applicable are the ideas espoused by Martin Luther King Jr. in his comments about “white moderates”, written in his letter from Birmingham jail on April 16, 1963? Here are some nuggets from that letter (I apologize for the length but wanted to include all the relevant text):
“I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action’; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a ‘more convenient season.’ Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
“I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.
“In your statement you assert that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence. But is this a logical assertion? Isn’t this like condemning a robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery? Isn’t this like condemning Socrates because his unswerving commitment to truth and his philosophical inquiries precipitated the act by the misguided populace in which they made him drink hemlock? Isn’t this like condemning Jesus because his unique God consciousness and never ceasing devotion to God’s will precipitated the evil act of crucifixion? We must come to see that, as the federal courts have consistently affirmed, it is wrong to urge an individual to cease his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest may precipitate violence. Society must protect the robbed and punish the robber. I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth concerning time in relation to the struggle for freedom. I have just received a letter from a white brother in Texas. He writes: ‘All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth.’ Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.”
You can read the entire thing here:
http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/documentsentry/annotated_letter_from_birmingham/index.html
“Most people are aware that those seeking gay rights ran two very long term initiatives.”
“The Stonewall riots (also referred to as the Stonewall uprising or the Stonewall rebellion) were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations by members of the gay (LGBT) community[note 1] against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. They are widely considered to constitute the single most important event leading to the gay liberation movement and the modern fight for LGBT rights in the United States.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots
Orange.
Quote:
“Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time.”
Exactly!!
Tireless and continued effort.
Not passive.
Anon:
I’ve walked Slauson Avenue at night. I got my Bachelors degree from Cal State LA.
I’ve been a witness to riots that occurred in front of me in school.
But none of the riots you mention changed the law.
Continued and persistent effort one step at a time changed things.
It is like seeking perfection of character. No one does it at once. No one does it with out steady and consistent effort.
Anon–I think we are on the same page as to the meaning of love. You are right that “charity” sometimes has connotations that do not fit.
But the idea of love and kindness and related concepts….
Gladwell : “You have to respect the institution you’re trying to change…”
A lot of LDS people, and women especially, have finally developed healthy self-respect and a sense of boundaries.
What’s the difference between that and “ego” or “pride.” Again, women especially tend to wilt when that label is comes out.
The question for me is how to respect the institution and ourselves/our daughters both.
@Stephen
“Exactly!! Tireless and continued effort. Not passive.”
I think you are deliberately misrepresenting Dr. King’s message. His point is that even activities that might precipitate violence are necessary at times. He is decidedly *not* talking about waiting around for those in power to get around to changing the law.
“But none of the riots you mention changed the law. Continued and persistent effort one step at a time changed things.”
None of the riots changed the law, but I can guarantee the law would not have changed *without* those riots. Likewise, protection for LGBT groups and the laws respecting LGBT marriage would never have changed without LGBT groups vocally demanding their rights.
Look, I am not saying that radical action is the only way to achieve real change. Nobody would argue that an incremental and negotiated approach to change is more effective in the long run, but, on the other hand, nobody would argue that those oppressed need to sit around on their thumbs waiting for their oppressors to get around to fixing things. I am saying that those in power will resist change in order to hang on to their power by sending the message that those oppressed need to be respectful, patient and “use the right tone”.
Exhibit 1. I doubt anything at BYU would have changed around the Title IX fiasco unless female students had stood up to the authorities there and complained loudly and publicly. No amount of negotiating with the powers that be would have gotten a dang thing done.
Exhibit 2. I doubt the LDS church would have created the “Mormon and Gay” website without pressure from members over POX, the horrible PR problem POX created, and the need to conform with public policy in the United States after the recent SCOTUS ruling on gay marriage. And, I will note, the LDS church *still* does things reluctantly and passive-aggressively. I noted elsewhere that the “Mormon and Gay” website portrays gay members are troubled and having to overcome their sexuality as if it were some sort of huge trial.
Exhibit 3. The same thing has happened with respect to womens’ rights in the LDS church. After demonstrations by Ordain Women caused a PR problem for the LDS church, the LDS church is suddenly making a big deal of having a womens’ general conference and giving women more visibility–while at the same time denying women any real power and continuing to patronize them.
My point is that the LDS church would continue business as usual and delay any attempts at change using whatever strategy–including tiny, reluctant concessions and calling for “incrementalism”–that the church thinks will silence their critics.
Quote:
“His point is that even activities that might precipitate violence are necessary at times. He is decidedly *not* talking about waiting around for those in power to get around to changing the law.”
Yes. But the change occurs in incremental steps not all at once.
Steady incremental change.
@Stephen
“Steady incremental change.”
Can we call it punctuated equilibrium? 😉
Anon — I’m a fan of punctuated equilibrium and topology models of catastrophe theory.
All. — It has been pointed out to me that I was not clear.
I didn’t write clearly. What I meant to write is that to achieve an end goal you need incremental goals and to steadily work through them.
The same technique that leads to building muscle or doing well in a sport or martial art works in other places.
You can’t just sit passively and hope for change. Nor can you expect change from one grand gesture without follow-up.
I also wanted to point out that if you want to change a community of people you have to love and respect them.
Without that all you manage to do is bully them.
And I had some great material to work with as examples.
My apologies for not doing a better job.