We wrapped up class on Thursday by talking about the death of Howard Zinn. Professor Waterston mentioned an interview on Democracy Now! with several authors who knew, worked with and were influenced by Zinn. Author Naomi Klein was quoted near the end of the interview talking about Zinn's legacy: "Thinking about it the day after the State of the Union address, Howard's message was don't believe in great men, believe in yourself; history comes from the bottom up. And that -- we have forgotten how change happens in this country. We think that you can just vote and that change will happen for us. And Howard was just relentlessly reminding us, no, you make the change that you want."
I was also thinking about Obama's State of the Union address and reflecting on this week's cover of The New Yorker (Feb. 1, 2010, shown here), that has Obama walking on water and then in the final frame falling with a splash. I am someone who (still) believes in the greatness of Obama (though my image of our first Hawaiian president was more of him surfing rather than walking on the water), but also believes in "Howard's" message that "history comes from the bottom up." Where does the power to change come from? Is it a combination of good leadership and grassroots, or does the idea of the Great Man/Woman prevent the kind of social change Zinn called for?
(The historian in me feels compelled to say that we are returning to a familiar blog question here. If you are interested in checking out the blog archives, you'll see that we raised a similar question about heroes in the very first blog post.)
15 comments:
I do agree with Howard Zinn that all change comes from the bottom up and that the key to change indeed is grassroots movements. However, is it fair to call anything pertaining to our government "grassroots" if begun by people already at the top?
Our model for government is little more than a silly and dangerous popularity contest with corporations picking the "cool" kids (through campaign donations, lobbying, favors, contracts, etc...) and us choosing from among their pre-selections. It's not about the best person for the job but about who has the most mass appeal to get a party into power and who will elicit the most campaign donations. Such attitudes lead only pandering to the lowest common denominator in personal matters and to advance the economic interests of corporations.
I even find it hard to call Obama's campaign "grassroots". It was shoved down our throats by the media, it had to be given the greenlight by the Democratic party, and it was orchestrated to appeal to the simplest among us and was based on knee-jerk reactions: vote for the apparent opposite to Bush. "Sick of cranky, old, WASPY, religious, 'good ole' boy' white men? Here's a young, hip, bi-racial, cosmopolitan, "chic", handsome, relatively secular man. GO VOTE!!!" Our country ate it up and a disturbing amount of voters had no idea as to his politics or even as to how to pronounce his name. Is it a good thing Obama got elected? absolutely (in my opinion. Hell, I enthusiastically voted for the guy). But many, many voters fell for the salespitch. In this example, there happened to be a positive outcome (again, in my opinion) but such a propensity to take matters at face value is seriously harming this country. To me, this is the antithesis to grassroots.
There is simply no sincerity or credibility in politics. Republicans are now the ones starting "grassroots" movements focusing on small town Amerikkka and preying on people's xenophobia, their anger that their party isn't in power (even though they were for the last 8 years), and creating a socialist scare when even their voter base benefits from the same redistribution of wealth (through taxes, welfare, medicaid, minimum wage laws, public schools, etc..) that has always existed in our country but just has never been termed as remotely socialist.
There is a "Great Man/Woman" out there but until they learn the song and dance we'll never know who he or she is and when we do, it'll be too late. They'll have been corrupted, watered down, bought, somehow discredited, or plainly assassinated.
The avenue to take this post has been challenging. I suppose I wouldn’t have applied for the Vera fellowship if I didn’t feel that something wasn’t quite right with America’s delivery of justice, but the past four months have delivered some unsettling truths to my world which was much less critical of individuals in power.
I guess, because I’ve spent most of my educational career rapt up in getting an A on a final project on topics in abnormal psychology and addiction to drugs, I swallowed up the time to do personal research. For instance, I discovered a common denominator as to why I choose to write on topics such as the autism debate (against the suggestion of my professor) and the way society views mothers with postpartum depression – there’s a relationship to how intrinsically impressionable we all are. Howard Zinn said, “we see, though it is unsettling, that we were not born critical of existing society.”
Now, as young adults ready to take responsibility and re-think our long held ideas, we’re emerging the nation’s honeymoon phase with President Obama. The draw of Obama was that he promoted honesty; he had an unapologetic take on the former presidency and the state of our current economy (Remember hearing McCain say our economy was doing just fine?) He reminded us that, as a democracy, every single one of our votes acknowledge our responsibility toward change and he subliminally promoted the individualism that supports the American Dream. When he encouraged people were to take vans with neighbors to get to the voting booths, he encouraged community ties which we lacked for 8 years.
These are the days we are most sure we want to act in the service of justice - and there’s no shortage of ways to do it - but the idea of the Great Man/Woman does prevent the social change. Anyone who views Obama’s presidency as an insult to those who saw his election as our means to change has it wrong. During the election people we energized to do and discuss what we do in seminar each week; SO QUICKLY have people come to feel defeated.
“Look for a peace movement to join…it will look small at first and pitiful and helpless, but that’s how movements start. That’s how the movement against the Vietnam War started, it started with people who thought they were helpless or powerless, but remember, the power of the people on top depends on the obedience of the people below. When people stop obeying they have no power…Yes, people have the power if they organize, protest and create a strong enough movement toward changing things. That’s all I want to say. Thank you.” - Howard Zinn
wow Great to be back!
and great way to start the comments Manny, the changes the government implements clearly is not grassroots if they're already at the top, but we did elect them from the ground into those chairs...
Your comment gets stronger and more passionate with every sentence and I just want to say that I too believed and bought into the Obama's "change," and I still feel that he was the image of hope that this country (and humans) need.. but we need more than just hope... we need action, and not just expect it from one man, even if he is the president because that just allows for finger pointing... I strongly believe that such great woman and man is within us in this agency doing the work we do and sure it might not change all of America, but it is changing something... if not someone else’s life then our own.
Danielle, that quote by Howard Zinn says it all...
Change does come from those small groups of people organizing have their views heard... it starts with small movements like those of Vera which then develop into agencies and institutions. And right now I have to ignore the political protest I have seen my country (Nicaragua) undergo for over thirty years, where a community made out of black garbage bags and sticks has risen across the street from the political buildings. I have ignore and fear them because they were unsuccessful and I am hopeful we won’t be. . .
That image of Obama walking on water was very powerful... we definitely did elevate his campaign of change to unrealistic standards, but instead of him falling and splashing how about we built a boat for us? or better yet, a floating city?
I think that great leadership cannot function without the help of grassroots and vice versa. If you look at the changes that Obama is trying to implement and the difficulty he is having with implementing it and gaining support--because of the resistance at the ground level and the fear being generated about his socialist agenda--we clearly see the relationship and power between the government and the people. I highly doubt that Beau Biden decided not to run for the Senate seat because he is focused on a child molestation case; it was, I think, a smart decision made on his part because of the hostile environment in this country toward Democrats. Our voice, our beliefs and our opinions all affect what politicians do (and they also influence us of course), what movements they support and don't support, and what direction the country takes when it comes to controversial issues. The atmosphere in this country right now is becoming very anti-Democrat and anti-Obama and the Republicans are capitalizing on it and adding fuel to the fire. Obama may be a great man and he is certainly trying to implement changes in this country, but it will be impossible for him to do so without the support of the people. I think Howard Zinn recognized that people were just sitting back and waiting for Obama to fix it all and getting frustrated because Obama can't create a quick fix--he's only one man and the mess he's been left with is going to take years to resolve.
I believe the power to change is really a combination of grassroots and great leadership. It is silly to assign one man the responsibility to change our nation, because in a way we are setting him (Obama) up for failure. Obama is not a god nor a superman to change or improve our economy with a in a snap of a finger. It takes time to fix our socioeconomic mess, and simply assigning responsibility to one man is convenient and wrong.
I say it's convenient to have a great man or a superman to fix society because it takes responsibility away from the comunity. Why do anything if this superman is going to fix it for me? And, when this person fails, I can simply point him out and say how incompetent he is. It is always easy to say you have failed than to say I have failed. Failed by being inactive within society.
The power of change is really at the hands of everyday people who are passionate about helping to create a better world. However,it is also necessary to work with the people on the top to make their goals a reality. My overall thinking is that change is the result of the collective work of society, and not the work of one individual.
It's Wednesday morning. I've been holding back to comment, waiting for all 10 students to post first--before end of day Tuesday.... Half of you have--that's great. Where's the other half??!!
For those who did post, I'm moved by your thoughtful comments. Manny's passion--your anger--is palpable. There was so much promise at the moment of Obama's election. Young people especially had mobilized--energized, it seemed, by the more "just" vision Obama seemed to be expressing (although if we looked at the fine print, we'd know he stated his support for the war in Afghanistan, etc. etc.). Still, his election benefited from the hopeful energy of most people in the US, among them young people who before seemed disaffected from the electoral process.
But since power (access to wealth and decision-making) is concentrated in the hands of a few (a structural, not individual phenomenon), the current state of affairs is no surprise. No matter what Obama thought he'd be able to do in terms of policy and practice, he'd need to confront power. He hasn't yet done that, it seems. As a community organizer, Obama sought to negotiate different viewpoints, different agendas. The problem with bringing that approach to the White House is that the conservative agenda was already firmly planted--it's already in place. Obama can't negotiate with that but should have stood up to it with a radically new agenda. Instead, it seems to me, he's already negotiated away opportunity.
Howard Zinn was an historian as well as an activist. His work resonates with so many because he understood that the erasure of history (the stories of social change that come from the grassroots) is in the interest of power, not in the interest of people. And so he wrote "a people's history" to show: 1) we've been lied to from the time we're little kids; 2) history is usually written by the victors; 3) the "people's history" can be brought to the light of day [the "great man" view of history is a distortion and obscures more than it reveals]; and 4) there are models of social change to be adopted and adapted for our times.
I'm so very sad that HZ has died, that he is gone. I am also deeply grateful I had the opportunity to meet him--to work with him, dine with him, be in his company, and let him know I learned so much from him and will continue to do so.
Here's a link to a beautiful tribute by Alice Walker to her teacher Howard Zinn:
http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2010/01/31/alice_walker_says_goodbye_to_her_friend_howard_zinn/?page=full
One more thing: Howard Zinn on the Daily Show in 2005:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-january-6-2005/howard-zinn
I am enjoying the commentary today, and want only to make a brief comment. I’d like to be careful about using the words “hero” and “leader” interchangeably, critiquing the latter by standards more suitable to the former, and romancing the notion of grassroots too much. As Ana observed so insightfully, we often seek a “superman” who will simplify or erase our own responsibility to the collective good. Such a person is not a leader but a savior (as Neethu points out, to conflate those roles-as in the case of Obama-is an invitation to failure.) However, leaders are necessary catalysts for change. I would argue that there are few grassroots movements without the visionary who recognizes the social zeitgeist, rouses the people, organizes the populace, and leads the way. “Change” is always more compelling with a face (perhaps that is just human nature) and, anyway, movements are WORK, and someone has to do it, or at least start it.
So, we need leaders. However, the difficulty arises when-as Manny persuasively argued-the pool of available leaders is preordained depending on who can raise the most money to publicize their leadership skills. This is not only true in politics, but in everything. For example, each Vera agency that we work with is totally dependent on their “leader’s” ability to raise money through private contributions and public grants/contracts. John Jay College (and the Vera Fellowship) is dependent on Jeremy Travis’s ability to raise money. (Most college presidents today are hired because of their ability to raise funds; that is their primary “leadership” skill.) And when raising money is the key, there are always tradeoffs. Vision gets partially sacrificed on the alter of expediency and survival. Obama is nothing if not the perfect case in point for that.
Yes I agree that not all heroes are leaders and not all leaders are heroes. True Vessels of social change are facilitators who emerge from a movement fueled by the weary masses as a mouth piece and figure head for the history books. I agree with Howard Zins idea of bottom up historical change. His Idea was also a fundamental principle adopted by Obama’s campaign against the republicans top down approach to Social change. I agree with Zins ideas but I won’t go as far as to push aside the facilitators. However I don’t believe any presidential candidate can be that person.
Countless events throughout history have proven that no one man can bring forth social change, but the men who lead the masses were amongst them. There was no one person responsible for the French, Russian, American Revolution or the civil rights movement, t Although names such as Napolean, Axlerod, Samuel Adams, and Martin Luther King became known as leaders in their respective movements it was the persistence and perseverance of the collective that in the end emerged victorious. These individuals were all specs amongst the masses to which they belonged. Our presidency seeks to do the opposite; we glorify and set high expectations on a person whose fight we are at times not interconnected with. The idea of a presidential savior is evident in every political campaign. There can be no such thing. It isn’t possible for an individual to exist amongst corruption and greed while combating the same forces that funded his or her campaign. What is expected of the man!
The inability of our government to be truthful breeds dishonesty. Democrat or Republican, the rich are the rich and the poor are the poor. While I do not doubt his intentions the only real fight Obama has in front of him is that of all first term presidents, the fight to be reelected. It would be wiser to be optimistic for his “second term” where he might have more leniency to show what he really stands for if he hasn’t shown us already. When you set the bar too high it’s very hard to please any one who believed it was possible.
Columbia graduates are required to swim five laps before graduation. The ship of the great “mixed” hope has sailed and sank but now Obama is free to swim amongst us where I believe he will do some great things. My fear when he was elected was that he would be as great as every one expected. He’s smarter than that, you don’t make waves in a pond that has not only been still but contaminated for at least but not limited to eight years. It’s best that he isn’t as perfect as the savior who did walk on water.
I believe in Zinn’s quote that “we must believe in ourselves.” Obama is envisioned as a great man, in which he contains the characteristics, but what makes a great man is not fully making the change himself. In actuality it is the inspiration of change. If we say that our “savior” to the United States is failing us because he is not inflicting change (at least not in the amount that people so highly expect) then we are just digging ourselves deeper into ground. Basically it is like Zinn said, we cannot believe in a great man and expect him to change the world, we have to believe in ourselves and make the changes that we want.
Manny makes an interesting point, what if the grassroots begun on top? We spend so much time trying to find out whose campaign is filled with less bull crap that we actually just end up pushing what we want aside in a politician. If grassroots began on top and if it wasn’t a race to please the campaign funders, our system would be able to enforce change by opportunity. Once we have the opportunities it will be easier for us to make change on our own. But since we live in a corrupt world it is about to us, one by one to speak up and do something. This reminds of the chapter I will be talking about in March, I shall only secretly hint one thing so as not to spoil anything: When one person fights back it inspires others to do the same, so then it is not one man to save the world but an entire community. Obama is the one man to inspire, you want change follow what he is saying. Also we live in a nation of checks and balances, so when we say we want better or free health care, but our states politicians disagree, do something about it. Take up grassroots and say to hell what you want, do what the majority wants. It is appalling that in this country built on dream that we must have people dying from lack of medical care.
I agree with Ana that in order for change to occur there must be a collaborative effort between those in power (politicians) and those we consider to be on the bottom (society). I truly believe that Obama can still illicit change and his State of the Union address re-enforced my hope in him. Although I still believe that he has a tough fight ahead of him with those who are opposing his ideas.
Danielle's quote at the end of her post of Howard Zinn's says it all. In order to illicit change there must be some sort of movement with society as a whole. Society must work with those in power that also share their same views in order for change to be possible.
Here is an excerpt from an interview of Michael Moore on the Charlie Rose show regarding the current housing crisis in America: "Because if we don’t, if we don’t have any answers, if we -- if
we just look like, you know, meet the new boss, same as the old boss, they are going to be just as disappointed and probably more so in President
Obama and this Democratic Congress, because there is so much expectation and hope right now that they are going to turn things around.
And if President Obama, if he goes back on any of that, if he just does the same thing that the others have done, I will hate to see that happen. Because so many young people got behind us. So many young people have, for this last year or so, have been filled with this sense of hope and urgency
that we’re going to have a new day in America. And if he -- if that doesn’t happen, if he lets that dissipate, if those -- if their wishes and dreams get dashed like that, and turn them into cynics instead of hopeful citizens, he will have done more damage than anything else he’s doing right now. Because if they -- the last thing I want to see is somebody who is 22 years old go, what’s the use? They are all politicians. I am not getting involved any more in that. That would be devastating for our democracy.
And I am begging President Obama to not let that happen."
Howards words sound like music to my ears; truly what a brilliant man. He was not mistaken when he said "that we have forgotten how change happens in" America. Much of our society has become comfortable with the idea of literally "sit back and relax". This is because we have created a way of life that facilitates everything from the smallest to the largest of tasks, this undoubtedly pushing many to a way of life that simply expects a lot rather than finds the desire to give.
As Neethu mentioned, Obama is simply a man in power working to fix the countless serious problems our previous government has left behind for us to deal with. Most of us created this idea in our minds of Obama the super human in spite of the obvious common sense that the issues are too many to fix in such a short amount of time. This is where The New Yorkers cover comes into play, he was set on a unrealistic pedestal and it is now that many people have come to realize this and others (the republicans and other parties) are using this against him. This is why many find it easier to simply point fingers and criticize having knowingly voted for him and having been aware of the incredible difficulties he would face in process of fixing our nation.
In my humble opinion Obama is a combination of good leadership, grassroots and a desire to be the change he hoped to see in the world. This has made him a great man. With this in mind we must not forget that we too can be greats and that everyone has a great inside. We must simply have the desire to let that great be and aid at making differences. Once somebody embodies these qualities they undoubtedly can become greats! The power to change comes from within oneself. It’s the desire to make a difference, to change those things one believes can be improved and become better. It is the yearning to; “be the change we hope to see in the world”. - Gandhi
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