In regards to my post from earlier thinking about a novel tactic to use on businesses that post, it brings up the issue of means and ends. Saul Alinsky, the great leftist organizer of the 20th century, had so much to say on means and ends that he wrote a whole chapter in Rules for Radicals about it. Alinsky was certainly not an advocate of any means justifying any end, but that activists who wished to organize for mass power had to think about means and ends in a realistic and pragmatic manner, and whether the means available were worth a specific end. In many cases he was brutal toward those who fretted over means and ends to the degree of paralyzation:
Whenever we think of social change, the question of means and ends arises. The man of action views the issue of means and ends in pragmatic and strategic terms. He has no other problem; he thinks only of his actual resources and the possibilities of various choices of action. He asks of ends only whether they are achievable and worth the cost; of means, only whether they will work. To say that corrupt means corrupt the ends is to believe in the immaculate conception of ends and principles. The real arena is corrupt and bloody. Life is a corrupting process from the time a child learns to play his mother off against his father in the politics of when to go to bed; he who fears corruption fears life.
Alinsky’s examples are difficult, from the options available to those who resisted the Nazis, to our founding fathers in separating from England, to Lincoln’s prosecution of the civil war and the freeing of the slaves, all of which involved an amount of deception and deceit and unscrupulous means. He also relays some of his own experience:
To me ethics is doing what is best for the most. During a conflict with a major corporation I was confronted with a threat of public exposure of a photograph of a motel “Mr. & Mrs.” registration and photographs of my girl and myself. I said, “Go ahead and give it to the press. I think she’s beautiful and I have never claimed to be celibate. Go Ahead!” That ended the threat.
Almost on the heels of this encounter, one of the corporation’s minor executives came to see me. It turned out that he was a secret sympathizer with our side. Pointing to his briefcase, he said “In there is plenty of proof that so and so [leader of the opposition] prefers boys to girls.” I said, “Thanks, but forget it. I don’t fight that way. I don’t want to see it. Goodbye.” He protested, “But they just tried to hang you on that girl.” I replied, “The fact that they fight that way doesn’t mean I have to do it. To me, dragging a person’s private life into this muck is loathsome and nauseous.” He left.
So far, so noble; but, if I had been convinced that the only way we could win was to use it, then without any reservations I would have used it. What was my alternative? To draw myself up into righteous “moral” indignation saying, “I would rather lose than corrupt my principles,” and then go home with my ethical hymen intact? The fact that 40,000 poor would lose their war against hopelessness and despair was just too tragic.
I have never been an advocate of making a political struggle personal, and I believe in offering the anti-gun people dignity and respect, as fellow citizens, provided the same courtesy is paid in return. But I also see Alinsky’s point about ends and means, and it’s important to remember that this is a struggle to hold government and society to the values enshrined in our Bill of Rights against people who want to destroy them. Neither side is going to come out morally clean out of this. Not us, not them.
NRA sending Mary McFate to spy on the Brady Campaign was hardly a paragon of ethics and virtue, but was it the only means available to find out their legislative plans so we could be prepared to counter them? Politics and activism are not an ethical game. It is a dirty, underhanded game. You can not struggle in this arena and come out clean, and at the same time be effective. We must always be searching for novel ideas. Not all of those ideas will be good. Some might even be bad. But the proper frame of argument is whether the tactic will work, and whether the ends are worth it.
