SPGB COMMUNICATION STRATEGY

[Anonymous]

Interesting topic and probably the most important issue we face. Would Howard mind me pasting/posting his ideas here?

[ALB]

I wouldn't have thought so. It's already part of a document published in the files section of spintcom. An electronic copy already exists of course. But I think it would be more appropriate on the "World Socialist Movement"  section than this one.

[Anonymous]

Wasn't sure where to post it. Perhaps admin/mod will move it if need be.

[alanjjohnstone]

To get the debate off i have cut and pasted two comments i made on the other thread which are appropriate to this one.Quote:"We believe in preaching our Marxian view of capitalism wherever we can get hearers; but when we find that people get tired listening to the same old grind week after week, and then refuse to support our gatherings, we must, if we still preserve our sanity, change our tactics." John McleanHe never did have the right answer but he did pose the right question    Members are wondering to themselves what our future approach should be for the Party campaigns and presentation.This article about why people don't care about climate change could apply to our selves, why they don't care a shit about socialismhttp://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/a-psychologist-explains-why-peopl… Quote:We need to apply a mix of strategies that hold the potential to dissolve the polarization: use social networks, supportive framings, simple actions, stories, and signals. We start by changing the messengers to people that are inside non-polarized social networks such as sport teams, churches, neighborhoods, towns, and cities. Second, we avoid doom, cost, and sacrifice framings, and talk about the issue in terms of opportunity, insurance, risk management, health, and resilience…. Fourth, and most important, we tell new stories of the dream, not the nightmares. We must describe where we want to go, such as smarter green growth, happier lives, and better cities, stewardship rather than dominion, and re-wilding nature by allowing its resilience to flourish again….Humans will act for the long-term when conducive conditions are in place. Therefore, all climate communicators need to assist building the necessary social norms, supportive frames, simple actions, new stories, and better signals.(my emphahsis)

[alanjjohnstone]

For the time being i think this is the best place to discuss the London elections until the party makes a decision on its position to staanding.First the costs, excluding printing and publicity and i presume a new video, The deposits are £1,000 for the constituency seats and £5,000 for the list, both with a 2.5% threshold for retention, and £10,000 for the mayoral race, where there is a 5% threshold.Then let us see what Left Unity have discussed. http://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1062/standing-in-londons-elections/

[ALB]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

For the time being i think this is the best place to discuss the London elections until the party makes a decision on its position to staanding.

No, it's not ! There's already a long-running thread on Left Unity and Howard Pilott's paper has nothing to do with the London elections. If anything, there should be a separate thread here. Interesting link, very interesting in fact so I'll comment on it on the LU thread.

[alanjjohnstone]

SPGB COMMUNICATION STRATEGY…i think that make the thread all-encompassing And as Howard's comments is based upon his experiences of being a candidate in the general election, i think they may well similarly apply to the London elections…perhaps he might explain if they are applicable or not. If we are serious about creating a communication strategy, we have to choose the medium ..should it be elections…should it be expensive elections …or are there other forms of campaigning that may bear more fruit? That surely is a question that has to be raised if we are talking about communicating not only general socialist ideas but articulating Socialist Party principles which i think was the criticism of Glasgow Br and London of his tv appearance.    I don't think we should box ourselves in by limiting the scope of the debate which i think the Outsource meeting and subsequent report did. We can widen it online and as you have seen despite endeavours to contain and direct threads, they take on a life of their own and often aren't diverted but on the contrary centre upon the core issues as they develop from exchanges… i should know because many of my comments never head in the direction i hope. But i think Vin may well have his own opinion on what the thread to focus upon and he was the one who started it after all…and i may have usurped the thread from what he intended it to discuss….

[Anonymous]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

SPGB COMMUNICATION STRATEGY…i think that make the thread all-encompassing 

 Hi Alan, I was referring to this document.SPGB COMMUNICATION STRATEGY Key points·         The Party exists to facilitate a democratic revolutiono   by definition this can only occur when a majority of the population wills it·         the Party thus exists to persuade a majority of the population of the merits of socialismo   persuasion rather than simply expressing the message is necessary since there is a mass of counter revolutionary propaganda of various forms·         countering the arguments of the media involves presenting accessible responses: it is not simply a matter of stating our points more forcefullycurrently the Party has minimal support amongst the populationo   this has been the case throughout its history·         Current trends are not very encouragingit is therefore essential that the party optimises its reacho   we must get away from this habit that we communicate as if we are talking to each other – to those already within the tent. PreambleThis is aimed at no-one in particular, but some may see themselves in bits of it.  Maybe that’s a good thing and I make no apologies for any of it.Argument larger…We all know what we are here for, as it were. There is however in this Party [how do I put this] a certain degree of disclarity about transitional issues [for good reason, etc etc].  I suspect that these have metaphorically infected our strategic thinking over the years: that somehow we have become woolly over the nature of the transition from a world where we are an irrelevance to one in which we are key players [and for those sticklers, the ‘we’ in this case includes those we represent]. We have to move from a position where 100 people vote for our candidates to one where 10,000 people vote for our candidates [Yes we do!], and moreover to grow from there. Perhaps once we get to this position things will become easier – momentum and all that. I’m more focussed on the initial great leap forward [to borrow a phrase from somewhere]: how we start to enter 4 figures, say…We have a good message [sounds a bit like the Christians when expressed like that, eh?] and we should have a degree of confidence in it. My impression is that we do not behave like we have confidence in our message: it seems some comrades feel that unless we state it all, every time, people won’t get it…or that in some sense we’re betraying our heart-felt principles which we have held so dear and purely for 111 years…Additionally unless there is a reference to Marx and preferably Engels too, somehow there’s a lack of credibility.  Just ask yourself for a moment, why do references to some long dead German have such a status in our communications? To me it is almost as if we doubt our own integrity unless there is a link to our apostle and his holy scripts. My view is that most people could not give a monkey’s about what he said and in fact are turned off by the references; many of which quotations are turgidly expressed in the written voice of a bygone era.We are effectively putting ourselves up as some form of educators; we are presuming to take the position of being able to teach the majority of the population of the merits of a different society.  Moreover we claim to be able to remove the scales from their eyes. There’s no shame in that, but it does mean we are teachers [Rabbis or Gurus in other tongues…] and as a former teacher educator I can tell you with some confidence that the best approach for any teacher is to start from where the learner is. Teaching has come on a bit from the years where teachers entered a room and told the students everything they, the teacher, knew about something.  Nowadays common sense has it that development of knowledge is a process of steps; steps from somewhere to somewhere else. A quick reflection will establish that the starting point of this journey is where the learner starts, not where the teacher is…This is not a complex idea.  It is no use being like the country bumpkin in the old joke who, when asked for directions said “I would not start from here if I were going there…”Two questions follow swiftly: to whom are we hoping to communicate, and where are they at? In that order. Firstly whom:Accepted wisdom [again?] is that you communicate mostly to the undecided.  You need not talk to those already on your side [they have already heard the message], and it is a waste of time [well, mostly] to talk to your intractable enemies, so you are best advised to concentrate your fire on those who are possible but not yet in your fold. The great masses…and also coincidentally those already on the left but not true socialists. Here I suppose I break with tradition: rather than emphasising the extent to which we denounce these misguided fools in their mistaken political activism, we should send them out a more welcoming message – the concerns that attracted you to a left wing party are valid and we are likely to share them. I believe we are more likely to gain new recruits from those already on the left than elsewhere: hopefully the other parties have in some sense warmed them up for us.  If our message is so much better than theirs [well, it is, isn’t it?], then it shouldn’t be too difficult to get them over. And if that is the case, then it isn’t very clever acting all hostile to them…sensible?So, talking to the rest of the electorate…those who might see the world in terms of tory and labour or LibDem, etc.  Those who worry about taxes and the price of petrol and employment security…Going straight at them and talking about scrapping money is a big jump for most of them, and it consigns us as extra-terrestrials as far as many are concerned, no matter how great the idea is. As things stand we have got to make the case that there is an alternative because most of them do not believe it: they think this is all there is. At least when the USSR was in existence, there was a tangible alternative -admittedly not much of one but one that was present within everyone’s consciousness. At the moment received wisdom is that this system is the only possibility.  Our giving them both barrels as an opening gambit is counter-productive: it simply deters them from listening. Moreover the language in which much of our case is made is, to many, far too opaque. At a recent election meeting, I found myself paraphrasing some of the answers to questions given by those speaking on our behalf: the questioners being visibly confused.Communication is also dependent upon willingness to be receptive. Importantly communication is a two way process and requires both a message to be sent and a recipient to correctly decode it. As any trainer worth their salt will tell you, much of our message is conveyed by tone and body language. It is important that we adopt the right tone, and come across as decent reasonable, approachable and humane: this I think is especially important for attracting those from other shades of left who may have been subjected to a lot more top-down hectoring, etc, and might welcome the possibility that they can be active in politics without being treated like a peon. The caricatures of the left show us as being prone to internecine warfare, of denouncing those who deviate from the party line by an inch, of extreme and harsh views.  It is essential that we project an image which challenges all of these.  My main objective in appearing on TV was to allow the party to be viewed as reasonable and decent ‘people like us’; or at least people we could conceivably have as nice neighbours. OK so I didn’t read out the full party’s declaration of principles, but would it have made any difference if I had? How many votes difference did it make?Let’s get back to my theme of transition – how long do we think it will be before we have the 10,000 votes at an election? I think perhaps we’d best start counting in decades, don’t you? Sure is a long road.  That means a long term game plan.  Given that we are on the margins, we are effectively at the moment a pressure group…sorry about that but it’s true. Yes we should still when asked, and in official publications trot out the line, but in the larger arenas we should be trying to nudge things our way.  I hear cries of “betrayal!”, but consider how far just parroting the same old maxims has got us.  Face it, we ain’t nowhere and things ain’t progressing in our direction: strategy to date has been less than effective, to be honest…So, long term strategy of a pressure group. Start by sowing seeds: This system is crazy and there IS an alternative.  Getting people to listen to that is a massive start as it challenges 2 aspects of currently accepted thinking; that this system is orderly and sensible, and that there is nothing else that can be done. Homing in on the excesses and absurdities of this system, alongside the incredible ingenuity of human kind is a good subsidiary case to make. I am not saying that we shouldn’t still be presenting the full case in the official party stuff: the Standard should still be presenting the complete argument and picture [although it too could do with a bit of a refresh: a touch too sixth form magazine at times, methinks]. My point is about key messages at election time and similar: I think a money-less society and leaderless world was a bit of a big step for most of our intended audience [much as it felt right in a self-congratulatory way].  I think my suggestions of seeding as above is far more palatable to many.  It will not bear immediate fruit, but I suspect there is not much that will.  At least it gets people thinking – which is foremost what we want [surely?].I got a warm reception at many hustings; at some I’d even claim to have got the biggest round of applause.  I do not however think much of that translated into votes, but it could translate into some of those ideas and questions bubbling up in heads over the next year or two: I think there were some resonances which stuck. The agenda of politics has to be shifted in our direction and again that’s a long process – start with single steps…The big comms picture: we’re reasonable people advancing a reasonable argument – we are not from outer space or some crazy political ghetto. This current political economic system is completely bonkers but somehow we have got used to it and accept it.  We should keep hitting the iniquities and the outrages of the current set-up: the contrast is “if you had a blank sheet, is this how you would set it up?”[thus sewing the seeds of the voters’responsibility for the future]. It does not have to be this way: we are very clever and can organise things much more cleverly. Moreover if we don’t, the environment might be going down the tube . Simple argument, simple analogies, simple really…HOWARD  PILOTT

[Young Master Smeet]

Quote:

the Party thus exists to persuade a majority of the population of the merits of socialismpersuasion rather than simply expressing the message is necessary since there is a mass of counter revolutionary propaganda of various forms

I'd disagree with the two above premises: this comes back to the old question, is it our job to make socialists, or catch socialists?  In my view, we are not rying to persuade, but to clearly mark out where we stand, and invite others to join us, when they recognise that we agree with them.  The counter-revolutionary propaganda, in fact, makes simple, clear expression all the more important.

[Anonymous]

Vin wrote:

"Going straight at them and talking about scrapping money is a big jump for most of them, and it consigns us as extra-terrestrials as far as many are concerned, no matter how great the idea is. "HOWARD  PILOTT

I agree.It was something I noticed when I came accross the party again after a long break. Our message is powerful, but to appear on TV and blurt out that we seek to abolish money just sounds cranky. When we achieve our goal there will be no money but we have a class struggle to deal with and a working class that is asleep.There is a quote by Malcom X going around along the lines of "You cannot show a sleeping people your goal, they must first be woken up.

[jondwhite]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Quote:

the Party thus exists to persuade a majority of the population of the merits of socialismpersuasion rather than simply expressing the message is necessary since there is a mass of counter revolutionary propaganda of various forms

I'd disagree with the two above premises: this comes back to the old question, is it our job to make socialists, or catch socialists?  In my view, we are not rying to persuade, but to clearly mark out where we stand, and invite others to join us, when they recognise that we agree with them.  The counter-revolutionary propaganda, in fact, makes simple, clear expression all the more important.

I really don't understand the appeal of this distinction. apart from as a red herring to real issues with a particular appeal to the more abstract propaganda-minded minority in the party. The same tendency arguing against contesting elections, and conveniently using 'catching socialists' to imply its not the party with the problem, its those pesky workers who just won't wake up (see also the Malcolm X quote above). First I heard the distinction was rather recently, and the only old aspect is William Morris answer that his policy was making socialists and that waking up one day in a socialist society was just a dream, the Dream of John Ball, and the dream of the abstract propagandist tendency.

[alanjjohnstone]

If the parameters of this thread is merely to critique another member's individual thoughts on his experiences from hustings in the election  then i bow out for i believe there are far greater questions to be posed and answers attempted as i have several times suggested.Howard's viewpoint could have been a springboard but i fear i would soon be off-topic by bringing in extraneous material.I'll, follow the contributions with interest and be curious to discover the disagreements over Howard's discussion document  which arises. 

[Young Master Smeet]

Erm, I am very much in favour of contesting elections, but as a means of making ourselves known to workers, not trying to persuade them.  This distinction is against the idea that the party will persuade every last worker one at a time, rather than social conditions leading the working class to the idea of socialism off their own bat: it mans all we can do is clarify, crystalise and hopefully speed up the formation of this idea a little.  It also means, to my mind, rejecting the lazy and patronising idea that the workers are asleep, and taking them at face value that they mean their support for capitalism.

[ALB]

Howard Pilott wrote:

Additionally unless there is a reference to Marx and preferably Engels too, somehow there’s a lack of credibility.  Just ask yourself for a moment, why do references to some long dead German have such a status in our communications? To me it is almost as if we doubt our own integrity unless there is a link to our apostle and his holy scripts. My view is that most people could not give a monkey’s about what he said and in fact are turned off by the references; many of which quotations are turgidly expressed in the written voice of a bygone era.

Howard's summary of the view of "some members" thoughts here is a bit unfair as it is based on listening to speakers at one meeting, at which the chair quoted Engels and the speaker Marx. Actually, whether or not it is a good or a bad thing, this is not done at all our meetings. Far from it. And it varies from speaker to speaker. It is certainly not compulsory.

[Anonymous]

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