Everyday resistance

I'm happy to know many radicals, even if they're not known as such

It’s been a little while since I’ve written to this list. April was a strange month for me in which I briefly explored an opportunity that might have taken me far away from the kind of work I do now. In the end it didn’t work out and all seemed like a case study in Mercury retrograde.

Around the same time, I started a new project that is much closer to home: research on how to implement healthy work environment standards with my friends at a major nursing group. I also wrapped up the first run of a new seminar I’ve developed using my social lens framework for impact.

The confluence of all these events prompted a lot of reflection on why I focus on social impact, and why I have chosen the specific approach of helping leaders and small groups enhance their efforts. It’s a time when many of the people I work with have been in anguish, with the proximate cause being the protests on university campuses (and the counterprotests, and the police crackdowns, and the media portrayals of the conflict, and the cynical political exploitation of the media portrayals of the conflict, and so on).

These days, what many folks in the social impact space might expect here is a list of my beliefs about the conflict and a manifest of the groups I “stand with.” All I will say about that is that I was persuaded years ago that taking the side of peace doesn’t mean picking one side of a war like you are rooting for a sports team. My heart is always with unjustly suffering civilians — and especially children — but I don’t show that by posting a flag emoji or signing a petition.

This trying time has made me realize that most of the people I work with are the same way.

Regardless of how they feel about the protests or the war, they find that the best way to deal with those feelings is to dig deeper into their own programs, their own campaigns, their own patients and clients and stakeholders whose needs don’t diminish just because they aren’t on the news. These folks — let’s be honest, you folks — often do their work in spaces that until recently might have seemed outside of the political fray: hospitals, universities, museums. Of course they have their political convictions, as do I, but they care about getting things done more than formulating the perfect statement of solidarity for their institution.

This kind of work usually isn’t considered radical. But an essay by Rebecca Solnit, “Slow Change Can Be Radical Change,” made me reconsider that. You can be a serious dissenter from the status quo and show it in ways other than burning it all down. I have no desire to denigrate those whose consciences compel them to occupy a building or initiate a hunger strike, but I also think there is a kind of radicalism to leaders who have built careers around properly educating students, consistently advocating for patients, or patiently reforming government — all folks I’ve worked with this year.

Is it as brave as getting arrested or volunteering for your nation’s military? I’m not sure, but I sure know it isn’t easy. Every individual and team I work with is approaching complex issues of change with subtlety, science, and seriousness. Then they turn to me to help them overcome an unexpected dilemma or show them how to design a new solution when the data runs out. It’s my own way of expressing beliefs I consider radical in this contentious age: the belief in the potential of principled leadership, the belief in the power of human creativity, and the belief that ordinary people can change the world.

I’m planning on getting back to that business in the weeks to come. I’m so glad I won’t be alone.

Image: “Security of the People,” a New Deal mural by Seymour Fogel