Category: Human Behavior and Cognitive Science

(in progress… saving)

ALINSKY’S RULES FOR RADICALS: THE FEMALE METHOD OF WARFARE: REPUTATION DESTRUCTION, ALLIANCE DESTRUCTION, TRUST DESTRUCTION, SOCIAL DESTRUCTION.

RULE 1: “Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.”

Power is derived from 2 main sources – money and people. “Have-Nots” must build power from flesh and blood. (These are two things of which there is a plentiful supply. Government and corporations always have a difficult time appealing to people, and usually do so almost exclusively with economic arguments.)

Curt Doolittle:

The only material power is violence. Everything else is tolerance by the powerful. If you cannot use violence you are not in fact powerful. If you can use violence and you do not then you are unworthy of rule, and merely free riding, parasitizing, or conspiring. What does this teach you? Master Organized Violence. Use it with Zero Tolerance.

RULE 2: “Never go outside the expertise of your people.”

It results in confusion, fear and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone. (Organizations under attack wonder why radicals don’t address the “real” issues. This is why. They avoid things with which they have no knowledge.)

Curt Doolittle::

Straw manning is only effective if we are tolerant of straw manning, and avoiding the central issues at hand. The only reason not to engage in war, decimation, enslavement, and enserfment of the various type available, is truthful, productive, discourse on the central issues. If we cannot discourse on issues then we either war if we can, or are destroyed if we cannot. Ergo, the only power is Violence.

RULE 3: “Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.”

Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty. (This happens all the time. Watch how many organizations under attack are blind-sided by seemingly irrelevant arguments that they are then forced to address.)

Curt Doolittle::

Again, straw manning is effective in particular because those who specialize in truth, duty, sovereignty, reciprocity, voluntary exchange under the natural law, and markets in all aspects of life, develop specialization and habituation of doing so. Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, Nietzsche (and me for that matter), and The Great Generals, are not telling us how to fight war. They are telling us that we must not be ‘christianized’ by our own moral rule. This is one of the secrets to the west’s success outside of the abrahamic dark age: rule by warriors ensures we are not victims of ingroup morality extended to outgroup conflict. It is also one of the reasons for the success of islam: it is a continuous call to war against aristocracy, by every living soul, to reverse aristocracy and restore dysgenic pastoralism.

RULE 4: “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”

If the rule is that every letter gets a reply, send 30,000 letters. You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules. (This is a serious rule. The besieged entity’s very credibility and reputation is at stake, because if activists catch it lying or not living up to its commitments, they can continue to chip away at the damage.)

Curt Doolittle::

Critique is a powerful means of avoiding the act of providing a solution that ‘in total’ is more

(need to understand how they seek reciprocity)

RULE 5: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”

There is no defense. It’s irrational. It’s infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions. (Pretty crude, rude and mean, huh? They want to create anger and fear.)

Curt Doolittle:

Ridicule is not discussion, debate, or argument… it is admission one lacks one, and as such breaks the incentive for non violence necessary to negotiate. Therefore all cases of ridicule that are tolerated are nothing more than you avoiding the cost of policing the commons against those who would undermine, free ride, parasite, and predate.

RULE 6: “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.”

They’ll keep doing it without urging and come back to do more. They’re doing their thing, and will even suggest better ones. (Radical activists, in this sense, are no different that any other human being. We all avoid “un-fun” activities, and but we revel at and enjoy the ones that work and bring results.)

Curt Doolittle:

tolerating small wins by the enemy only gives them positive reinforcement. If you are practicing truth, duty, sovereignty, reciprocity, natural law, and markets in everything the only objective people can have is falsehood and duty(debt) avoidance, reciprocity and non-sovereignty, arbitrary rule, and free riding, parasitism and predation, and in such cases they are almost always unwilling to trade improvement in their behavior for commons and consumption that results from their improved behavior.

RULE 7: “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.”

Don’t become old news. (Even radical activists get bored. So to keep them excited and involved, organizers are constantly coming up with new tactics.)

RULE 8: “Keep the pressure on. Never let up.”

Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance. As the opposition masters one approach, hit them from the flank with something new. (Attack, attack, attack from all sides, never giving the reeling organization a chance to rest, regroup, recover and re-strategize.)

RULE 9: “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.”

Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist. (Perception is reality. Large organizations always prepare a worst-case scenario, something that may be furthest from the activists’ minds. The upshot is that the organization will expend enormous time and energy, creating in its own collective mind the direst of conclusions. The possibilities can easily poison the mind and result in demoralization.)

RULE 10: “If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive.”

Violence from the other side can win the public to your side because the public sympathizes with the underdog. (Unions used this tactic. Peaceful [albeit loud] demonstrations during the heyday of unions in the early to mid-20th Century incurred management’s wrath, often in the form of violence that eventually brought public sympathy to their side.)

RULE 11: “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.”

Never let the enemy score points because you’re caught without a solution to the problem. (Old saw: If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. Activist organizations have an agenda, and their strategy is to hold a place at the table, to be given a forum to wield their power. So, they have to have a compromise solution.)

RULE 12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”

Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)