BT Core Component #2: Slide #2 Theories

Jim Little
Jim Little
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Link to Slides.  Slide #2


Theories

Big-picture ideas about how the world works & how we might change it.

Theories work together, but some may contradict each other.

Viewing Theories on the BT website, which resonate most with you?



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Edited
Jim Little Jim Little

The Tactics of Everyday Life:

  • Strategies often become outdated because the conditions they are based on are always changing.
  • In contrast, tactics are flexible, using an “OODA Loop” process: Observation, Orientation, Decision, and Action—repeated continuously to adapt to evolving situations.
  • There is a constant readiness to respond to unexpected changes. This quality, known as tactical agility, often gives popular movements an edge over the institutions they challenge: They rely on strategy, while we rely on tactics.

Agile Tactic:  Agile Reframing, Anat Shenker-Osorio

“... one of the most effective ways to push back against Donald Trump’s story that American cities are war-ravaged hellholes is by showing how safe they are for dancing animals.”  

“To win this battle, we must run on the broadly-held values most Americans cherish and make clear we are in a battle against fascism, not just inflation”.
Jim Little Jim Little

Escalate Strategically

A target rarely gives in after one action.  It's often necessary to strategically increase the pressure on them in a step-by-step escalation with a mix of tactics.

Keep the pressure on. Creativity and agility are key here. As Alinsky says: “Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance. As the opposition masters one approach, hit them from the flank with something new. A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag. Don’t become old news.”  


Ethical Spectacle

A way of thinking about the strategic use of signs, symbols, myths, and fantasies to advance progressive, democratic goals.

Open: adaptive to shifting contexts and the ideas of participants.
Transparent: engaging the imagination of spectators without deceiving.
Realistic: using fantasy to dramatize real-world power dynamics and social relations that otherwise tend to remain hidden in plain sight.
Utopian: celebrating the impossible; helping make the impossible possible.

The truth does not reveal itself by virtue of being the truth: It must be told well. It must have stories woven around it, and works of art made about it; it must be communicated in compelling ways that can be passed from person to person, even if this requires flights of fancy and new mythologies ... a propaganda of the truth. This is the work of ethical spectacle.


Critical Multiculturalism

Critical multiculturalism disrupts power structures by challenging the subjugation of marginalized cultures, questioning power and privilege, and acknowledging knowledge as a process.

... the liberal approach to multiculturalism is limited by its focus on surface-level inclusion of superficial/exoticized aspects of a culture, without questioning structural systems of injustice and power. By failing to recognize embedded power structures and institutional inequities, liberal multiculturalism helps maintain the supremacy of dominant groups.

By contrast, critical multiculturalism seeks to acknowledge, question, and ultimately disrupt embedded power structures. At its core, critical multiculturalism highlights structural inequities for the purpose of redistributing power more equitably across society. It confronts race, class, gender, and other normative biases in order to improve educational, economic, and social outcomes for everyone, not just the dominant group.

Critical multiculturalism is essential for a democratic society because it calls upon people to consider, critique, and destabilize deep-rooted institutional structures that breed inequities. In essence, critical multiculturalism provides a framework of thinking that leads to a more just and equitable society.