Applying.. “How Social Justice Movements Succeed”
Doug Hamilton
Scientific American had this on its March 2021 cover,
“How Social Justice Movements Succeed”
An article written by sociologist Aldon Morris.
(One could add to the title, ..”..or Fail”)
Seeing this Magazine at the grocery store I bought a copy. The article is a ‘Communal Studies' paper.
Throughout my life I have been associated, involved, or working within international spiritual reform movements, what scholars would refer to as “New Religious Movements”. So with an article like this Scientific American’s I tend to project from my own experience and take what is useful towards a critique of understanding groups or movements that I have known.
The Scientific American article (summary below) is looking at the context of civil rights reform movements like anti-slavery, women’s suffrage, racial equity to example principles. - But a similar critique could look at spiritual regeneration movements which in their own working critiques of corrupt orthodox religion have sought spiritual reform in society. Groups like the flourishing of 17th Century George Fox’s Quaker Movement, or Mother Ann’s Shaker movement late 18th &19th Century, or late 19th Century’s Vivekananda’s Vedanta Society, Paramahansa Yogananda’s 20th Century Self Realization Fellowship (SRF), or Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s Transcendental Meditation (TM) movement in the later 20th and early 21st Century, as spiritual regeneration movements (SRM’s) in practice. This Scientific American analysis probably deserves also to go across SRM’s as reform movements.
Paraphrasing the March 2021 Scientific American,
abstracting from the article, and summarizing:
“How Social Justice Movements Succeed” (..or fail)
The Frameworks, in theory:
Observations: “Movements are generated by grassroots organizers and leaders. Individuals are embedded in social networks such as church, student, or friendship circles.” “Resources matter, but they come largely from within the community, at least in the early stages of a movement.”
Modern social movement theories:
‘Resource Mobilization’ theory - argues that mobilization of money, organization and leadership were more important than the existence of grievances in launching and sustaining movements. Then ‘movement entrepreneurs’ foster these elements as more affluent people provide these resources to the group.
‘Political Process’ theory- argues that social movements are struggles for power - the power to change oppressive social conditions. Because of unequal access to power social movements are insurgencies that engage in conflict by effective organization and innovative strategy to outmaneuver repression.
‘Indigenous Perspective’ theory- argues that the agency of movements emanates from within oppressed communities. That social movements are struggles for power which movements gain by preventing (disrupting) power holders from conducting economic, political and social business as usual. Whichever tactics are employed, the ultimate goal is to disrupt the society sufficiently that power holders capitulate to the movement’s demands in exchange for restoration of social order.
‘Cultural Sociology’ perspective - For movements to develop, a people must first see themselves as being oppressed. This awareness is far from automatic: many of those subjected to perpetual subordination come to believe their situation is natural and inevitable. Such outlooks can be changed by organizers helping organize cultures of resistance where injustice generates anger and righteous indignation, which organizers can summon in strategy. Love and empathy can be evoked to build solidarity and trust among protesters. Far from being irrational distractions, emotions, along with transformed mental attitudes, are critical to achieving social change.
The article’s concluding questions:
Can a decentralized movement produce the necessary solidarity?
Will porous internet-based organization structures provide secure spaces where tactics and strategies can be debated and selected?
Can internet-based organization structures maintain discipline?
If protest is not executing a planned tactic in a coordinated and disciplined manner, can it succeed?
How can a movement correct a course of action that proves faulty?
How can a decentralized movement that welcomes strangers guard against subversion?
“..Agents provocateur can turn peaceful protests into violent ones, providing the authorities with an excuse for even greater repression.”
/ These are useful to use in considering what I am terming here as SRM’s. I already am laying these on to the narratives of movements that I have been around. It is an interesting analysis. =Doug
The Scientific American thesis in light of spiritual reform movements- (SRM’s)
Historically,
looking at the TM movement, the “resource mobilization” stage of TM in the late 1950’s and the 1960’s describes when there were middle income people who provided resources and organizing skills for Maharishi Mahesh Yogi to go out and widely teach meditation. Some Indians early on provided air tickets to Malaysia and later to Hawaii. Then Jerry Jarvis, Walter Koch, Charles Lutes, Granville, with their wives providing the organizing and facilitating and fostering resources. Then some others too came along in the UK and Germany.
‘Resource Mobilization’ theory - argues that mobilization of money, organization and leadership were more important than the existence of grievances in launching and sustaining movements. ‘Movement entrepreneurs’ then foster these elements as more affluent people provide these resources to the group. See the 1950's and early 1960's newsletter, "The Divine Torch", chronicling accounts published in India of the fledgling Spiritual Regeneration Movement.
Within “Political Process theory” as this is described in the Scientific American article, Maharishi methodically propelled scientific ‘authenticity’ within the TM movement’s insurgency as a driving front, in addition to people’s own experience with his meditation practice and some use of scriptural reference. Using three fronts to outmaneuver existing repressive cultural orthodoxies. An account of Maharishi returning pleased from an early world tour (1960) for having found Western scientists to commence researching the effects of meditation.
‘Political Process’ theory- “argues that social movements are struggles for power - the power to change oppressive social conditions. Because of unequal access to power social movements are insurgencies that engage in conflict by effective organization and innovative strategy to outmaneuver repression.” - This phase of the TM movement was in full motion by the 1970's and into the 1980's.
‘Indigenous Perspective’ theory- argues that the agency of movements emanates from within oppressed communities. That social movements are struggles for power which movements gain by preventing (disrupting) power holders from conducting economic, political and social business as usual.
Revolutionary Millennial
https://groups.google.com/g/communal-studies-forum/c/1di3VYUG13U
Using Foster's Critique of revolutionary movements to consider
Transcendental Meditation (TM) in the 20th Century.
Responding to “When do Millennial Religious Movements Become
Politically Revolutionary?...”
A review by Doug Hamilton
Lawrence Foster's form of critique looking at revolutionary millennial-
ism provides a good framework of criticism toward seeing what we have
with things TM. World Plans, Heavens on Earth, Global Governance,
currency, education, architecture, healthcare, ethics. Using Foster's
overview it seems that the history of Transcendental Meditation in the
West is a history of a rather complete millennial revolution that had
and still has its eyes set on effecting the outside world around
it.
Excerpting from Lawrence Foster's paper published in the Communal
Societies Journal of the Communal Studies Association v-31-1, 2011:
“Dedicated millenarians -inspired by their intense emotional
commitment to goals they view as cosmically important and by their
“true believer” millenarian rhetoric- often seek to assist the divine
process of transformation in which they believe they are participating
by taking matters into their own hands rather than passively waiting
for God to inaugurate His kingdom on earth. Initially, such movements
may engage in relatively quiet and largely non-confrontational efforts
to withdraw from what they view as the wicked world around them, in
order to try to create purer, more communally cohesive groups in
preparation for the anticipated millennial kingdom.”
“Describing millennial movements in this way implies that they must be
inherently “revolutionary”...
...This article will argue, instead, that the complex trajectories of
millennial movements may lead them to two quite different directions -
either toward increasing accommodation with the larger society, on the
one hand, or toward escalating conflict and confrontation that
typically results in the group's dispersal or violent suppression by
political power holders, on the other.”
Lawrence Foster , Communal Societies Journal of the Communal Studies
Association v31-1, 2011
Continuing,
“Similarly, the potentially disruptive activities of millennial
religious or communal movements (which in Hagopian's framework are
classed as “revolts”) also may develop in “revolutionary” or “non-
revolutionary” directions, depending upon their goals and on the
context within which their protest develops.”
Now, that said, then consider a Revolutionary Maharishi Transcendental
Meditation.
Choose your own millenarian movement end-of-days and descent of Heaven
on Earth; however, surveying the 60 years of Maharishi and TM in the
West or even just the 4 decades of TM in Iowa the TM movement as a
millenarian movement by Foster's critique has tried everything
millennial and has both confronted and accommodated the larger culture
and even has been suppressed and dispersed by it. And, it has changed
the larger culture some too.
In definition it seems that Maharishi was one of the revolutionaries
of the late 20th Century and of the early 21st Century. Certainly not
the only one, but one of them.
Foster's critique continues,
“Before considering these important questions, a working definition of
“political revolution” first is necessary. The definition of
political revolution used in this article is drawn primarily from
Crane Brinton's classic comparative study, Anatomy of Revolutions...
Brinton argues that for such an overthrow or attempted overthrow to be
considered “revolutionary” the leaders of the movement must also seek
to initiate major changes in the structure of government (as opposed
to simply who is running it), as well as in economic life, social
relationships, and ideological or religious beliefs.”
Maharishi during his time and right up to his end was all of this, a
revolutionary effecting change. I particularly like this following
quote from Foster's critique using Noyes by comparison:
“...Noyes evidently ably utilized the wide range of social and
financial connections at his disposal to create a millennial group
that skillfully pursued its objectives with in American society for
more than three decades.” ... “Although Oneida's religious rhetoric,
ideology , and social arrangements might appear as extreme at first
sight, the group is actually a remarkable example of how a millennial
group can successfully develop its own distinctive identity, while
avoiding destructive confrontation with larger society.”
Looking back on Maharishi and his Transcendental Meditation movement,
they they are of that statement too. It is possibly too close to see
now but in time I suspect that Maharishi Mahesh Yogi will be found as
both radical and revolutionary in his time for what he was.
Was Maharishi a millenarian and revolutionary?
Here is a short interview clip using the rhetoric of a millenarian.
That Maharishi was comprehensive by Foster's critique, Maharishi was
certainly revolutionary.
“Heaven on Earth is Possible says Maharishi”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dQPgSyQ2M8
Or language from a timeline recounting:
"1984 (continued)
Maharishi formulated his Unified Field Based Integrated Systems of
Education ,
Health, Government, Economics, Defense, Rehabilitation, and
Agriculture, which
will perpetuate the forthcoming Unified Field Based Ideal
Civilization,
generation after generation."
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/message/304524
TM looks and sounds rather revolutionary and millennial.
With Best Regards,
-Doug Hamilton
Fairfield, Ia.
‘Cultural Sociology’ perspective - “For movements to develop, a people must first see themselves as being oppressed. This awareness is far from automatic: many of those subjected to perpetual subordination come to believe their situation is natural and inevitable. Such outlooks can be changed by organizers helping organize cultures of resistance where injustice generates anger and righteous indignation, which organizers can summon in strategy. Love and empathy can be evoked to build solidarity and trust among protesters. Far from being irrational distractions, emotions, along with transformed mental attitudes, are critical to achieving social change.”
The ‘Cultural Sociology’ perspective, from the beginnings of TM,
“Our task of the day is to find a cure for this major ill of
humanity. The heart of man is so changed. The inner man has to be
transformed.. A direct experience of the Blissful nature of Soul and
the inner man is completely transformed. The mind, experiencing the
Great Bliss, feels satisfaction and this satisfaction of the mind
results in right understanding and virtuous action, kindness, love
and compassion for all....”
- from Maharishi's address to the 15th session of the World
Vegetarian Congress held at Madras on 30 November 1957
“Last Christmas Day (1958), a remarkable person, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, arrived in Honolulu, on a world tour for the purpose of spiritually regenerating mankind. ..Maharishi left Honolulu on January 29th to continue his mission in San Francisco. ..”The Spiritual Regeneration Movement will be completed only when every individual on earth is enjoying all glories of life, worldly and divine.”
‘Cultural Sociology’ perspective - “For movements to develop, a people must first see themselves as being oppressed. This awareness is far from automatic: many of those subjected to perpetual subordination come to believe their situation is natural and inevitable. Such outlooks can be changed by organizers helping organize cultures of resistance where injustice generates anger and righteous indignation, which organizers can summon in strategy. Love and empathy can be evoked to build solidarity and trust among protesters. Far from being irrational distractions, emotions, along with transformed mental attitudes, are critical to achieving social change.”
(Then as can happen, the insurgency itself can become repressive,
like is being seen currently within the post-founder TM organization
in conflict with its members.)
The TM movement in Russia, now (2022) about 30 years after TM’s first arrival in the former Soviet Union..
Philippe Chauvancy who as a TM teacher lives in St. Petersburg Russia writes this summary of organizational change there in Russia:
About ITMA :
“ The ITMA, International Teachers of Meditation Association, is now our tool , to all of us, to federate anyone interested in getting out of the influence of a sectarian and failing organization (TMO).
We can grow in harmony , no sectarian rules, no titles, no golden crowns...
Let us take a few examples to show what we can do together.
In Russia we have dozens of people eager to learn TM , most of them insisting before they do so not to be part of this "sect" or "cult" they have seen on the Internet.... then they learn and TM centers are opening in Russia to help and teach with joy.
We do work with our Russian scientists, they will help us to add more credibility to the practice of TM.
As our yajman in our "affordable yagya program" are supporting our efforts. May I remind our readers here that in every yagya group we organize every month in Russia, an average of 400 Russians participants join (sometimes up to 1200)? It can happen in each country around the globe.
We have invited our Ukrainian friends who can join this program for free.
Many TM teachers who have fled TMO over the years are now coming back as they know time has come for areal change
And why are so many people leaving TMO and its decorum? Because she lost her soul thinking that a book or a few pompous titles will save the world.
Joining ITMA you will get a real income, no royalties given God knows where...
ITMA and many great motivated souls want to pursue the Global Plan of Maharishi to make it a success.
Join ITMA to make a difference. The world is changing TMO has now become part of history and has done its time. ITMA is the real next generation. “
Steve Gray in comment responds:
“Eric Hoffer's book "The True Believer" is highly recommended to understand movements. We need more fanatics -look who ran the TM SIMS orgs, former radicals!! The TM "movement" today has atrophied, and run by top down foundations, it is what it is.
A stevedore on the San Francisco docks in the 1940s, Eric Hoffer wrote philosophical treatises in his spare time while living in the railroad yards. The True Believer—the first and most famous of his books—was made into a bestseller when President Eisenhower cited it during one of the earliest television press conferences.
Called a “brilliant and original inquiry” and “a genuine contribution to our social thought” by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., this landmark in the field of social psychology is completely relevant and essential for understanding the world today as it delivers a visionary, highly provocative look into the mind of the fanatic and a penetrating study of how an individual becomes one.”