How the smugosphere defends itself, a worked example

What do the good guys do when their failure to win is pointed out to them?  That’s the question I grapple with (or gum on, toothlessly) in this post (usual disclaimers apply). Readers of a nervous disposition, who are happy in their own public smugosphere, will want to look away now.

I recently talked to (well, probably at) a friend about the way organisations that claim they are innovating respond when you point out that they are not, in fact, innovating, or winning. And I dredged up an old encounter and shared it with him.

Over a decade ago I attended a day-long event that had really bigged itself up with all the then-current buzzwords (World Cafe, unconference etc).  I had been reluctant to go, because, well, fingers-burned plenty of times. But one lives in hope. Or delusion. 

Anyway, I went, it was a catastrophe on so many levels and I wrote up my account of what happened, why it was so crap and – crucially – what could have been done in the same space, with the same time and money. I sent it to the organisers. And I got back this 

“we took a massive gamble in doing things so differently – and have had amazing feedback including a green councillor who said it changed his life – but no empathy, understanding, encouragement  or anything slightly generous from you at all – which is sad and is not the way to help make change happen I feel.”

This was topped and tailed with the polite ‘thank you for coming/feedback” bullshit, obvs – elite British people do like their manners. It makes them feel secure, superior (1) 

So, this one paragraph contains several of the responses you can expect to encounter if you are foolish enough point out to the Great and the Good that they are not in fact either so Great or indeed so Good.

1. We are Good People with Good Intentions [and are therefore above reproach]

“we took a massive gamble in doing things so differently”

2. We Got Good Feedback [therefore you are the weirdo malcontent who can be ignored]

“have had amazing feedback including a green councillor who said it changed his life”

3. You didn’t tell us how wonderful we are [and are therefore an ungrateful wretch who can be ignored]

“but no empathy, understanding, encouragement  or anything slightly generous from you at all” 

4. Now that I [think I] have the High Moral Ground, I am going to look down my nose at you, because condescension, even if unearned, makes me feel good. And means I can avoid dealing with your substantive points.

“which is sad and is not the way to help make change happen I feel.”

And of course, neither of the people who said they were all about doing things differently ever engaged with any of the concrete suggestions for improvements, because these improvements would largely strip them of/constrain them around their patronage possibilities.

What is to be done

Never be so naive as to expect anything approaching honesty, clarity or reflexivity from those who claim they are innovating, at least in the “social movements” space.  It’s not who they are, it’s not what they have ever been rewarded for, it’s not what they can do.

Remember that they will do everything they can to fight on different terrain.

• Expect you and your points to be ignored for as long as possible
• Expect to be tone-policed
• Expect to be smeared, have character assassination/innuendo used against you
• Expect to be condescended, patronised and belittled (the hope is to derail the conversation, to get you responding in the same way so attention can be drawn away from the substantive points).
• Expect your points to be wilfully misinterpreted, with either outright lies, massive distortions or reductio ad absurdums and strawmans, so that the actual content of the critiques is never up for discussion.

The point is to exhaust you, so you give up and they can continue with their self-serving and self-defeating racket.

The point is to insulate them and their followers from the detail of your critique.

(I should probably make a bingo card/game of I-Spy around this. Whatever.)

Footnotes

1. The email thread, which I just read, shows me that the other organiser who ‘engaged’ clearly had not read the offending/offensive post very carefully (red misted?) because many of his questions about my motives and actions were, um, answered in the blog post itself. But that’s to be expected. We’re human and when over-aroused (by anger/fear/whatever) our already dubious capacity to see things is even further diminished.