Sometimes lofty moral perches are a hindrance to stopping evil. Or are an excuse for doing nothing. “I agree with your cause, but not how you are doing it.” Means vs. ends. They sit blissfully surrounded by their supposed ethical purity politics and criticize, feeling superior, doing nothing. Worse than useless in a fight!
In the 1930s, Saul Alinsky led a bitter meat packing plant strike in Chicago. He had proof one of the bosses was gay – in an era when that would instantly destroy a career. He didn’t use it because he didn’t have to, but absolutely would have if needed. Because the alternative was 40,000 strikers lost the strike and got retaliated against by the companies. Means vs. ends.
It’s the same thing now opposing the far-right Trump Administration agenda. Beware of those saying our tactics just aren’t quite perfect. Or that we’re too loud and discourteous. Screw all that. Any protest and opposition now is a good thing. Let’s support all of it.
As for those big angelic wings, from Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals:
“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. That their condition would even be worsened by the vindictiveness of the corporation was also terrible and unfortunate, but that’s life. After all, one has to remember means and ends. It’s true that I might have trouble getting to sleep because it takes time to tuck those big, angelic, moral wings under the covers.
To me that would be utter immorality.”
We are in the political equivalent of war now against an occupying force in the White House. Whatever tactics and means we use that win are the best ones.
Also, from Alinsky, on means vs. ends.
1) One’s concern with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with one’s personal interest in the issue, and one’s distance from the scene of conflict
2) The judgment of the ethics of means is dependent upon the political position of those sitting in judgment
3) In war, the end justifies almost any means