Entitlement

When organizing groups, especially in pursuit of social justice issues, the idea of entitlement is an important one to foster. Entitlement generally gets a pretty rotten rap: after all, it's the sort of thing which has led us to mistreat poorly paid baristas and badmouth waitstaff (having been both a waiter and a barista, I can tell you: a sense of entitlement was just about the worst thing a customer could bring into the situation).

In terms of organizing, however, one must play a careful dance with entitlement. It is important to breed a certain type of human entitlement into one's works: that is, in virtue of our humanity, we are entitled to the ability to lead dignified lives, we are entitled to food, to the pursuit of happiness or success or whatever basic virtue you need to instill in those you are organizing in order to enable them to pursue their goals with a sense of Right.

The thing of it is, when we, as individuals, have internalized this type of dignity, when one truly believes that one is entitled to dignity, one must bring along with that the entitlement of others to lead dignified lives. It is only when a sense of entitlement advances selfishly, when one believes that one is entitled to dignity at another's expense, then one has failed to understand the importance of human dignity (or any of the above virtues).

In this way, it is important to choose one's rhetoric carefully. "Our dignity" must always be inclusive: never exclusive.

Organizing and Marketing

Over at Turn On Your Marketing Light I have been participating in a discussion regarding the similarities between marketing and organizing. I have a few thoughts regarding the two which I think are more well served in this space.

In a certain way, both organizers and marketeers have a similar job. Both in organizing and in marketing, one must be acutely aware of the way in which information flows, be it in a community or in a demographic. The organizer needs to keep in mind that many times those who most need his skills are those who have been failed by, or who put little stock in, traditional means of information flow - the marketing executive notes this as well, and engages in 'guerrilla marketing.'

Both need to have an awareness of how individual culture effects the impact of one's message. Geographically and culturally, people's willingness and ability to hear and disseminate information will differ. The speech given to retired union workers may not have quite the same effect when delivered to high school graduates. Only an awareness of one's audience will reveal the ideal ways and means to communicate to them: and that, really, is where both organizing and marketing plant their foundations, in communication.