How to Engage with Detractors

We’re advocates. We’re activists. We’re joining a hostile fray, pitting ourselves against the system. So activism is about fighting, right?

Well, not quite. Allow me to quote from an ancient Chinese military classic in response:

Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.

Sun Tzu, The Art of War

It’s my bedtable book, by the way. Let’s win smarter instead of harder.

One thing I was dismayed with when I got into activism is the infighting. The notion that activists, even those with more common ground than differences, just form a common front against oppressors is naive. In practice, activists mistrust and fight each other. A lot. For example, divisions among indigenous leadership largely contributed to Fairy Creek’s debacle. Sometimes it gets so bad that the system hardly needs to intervene, because activist rivalries paralyse the whole scene. Or law enforcement can exacerbate differences from within, thus saving itself the trouble of actual repression.

I wish my peers learned diplomacy, because reaching out to the enemy is sometimes necessary. One cannot fight everyone any more than convince everyone, so sooner or later we need to talk to the other side and find some common ground—if only survival. Think of the cold war, with two nuclear superpowers capable of exterminating life on Earth, each accusing the other of being the most evilest country on the world map (and arguably being both right). The cold war wasn’t a war of factories like World War II, but a cloak-and-dagger war of spies and diplomats. It was, ultimately, a war of deescalation, which one side won by default.

Let’s come back to advocacy. Being an advocate means reaching out to those with differences. Some can be swayed. Some must be fought. None should be engaged with hastily or recklessly. It’s not always obvious who will become an enemy or an ally, while sometimes factions turn themselves around as circumstances change. It’s all a matter of whether we can find sufficient common ground.

So, how should a homeless advocate approach a public safety advocate? With circumspection, of course, but also with good will and an open mind. Public safety advocates aren’t all NIMBY mad dogs; some are cute growling puppies rightfully fearful of strangers, that will let you pet them if you just let them warm up to you. Let’s listen to their revendications for a moment: basically, the better ones like clean parks and clear sidewalks, and would rather not get stabbed at random by a raving drug user on a bad trip. Somehow I can work with that.

So what do we do about it? Let’s sell them solutions that would satisfy a reasonable person. Let’s tell them we could get these homeless people out of their businesses’ doorways if only the city spent more on shelter and less on policing. And while we’re at it, that a safe drug supply would mean less crime and mental health calls.

It helps to watch one’s language in the process. Avoiding fingerpointing pronouns, or wording an argument without assigning blame, can make a point look less confrontational; you know, a bit of passive voice such as “mistakes were made.” At this stage we’re not trying to win a fight, but to sell a platform, and salespeople typically avoid insulting or threatening potential customers, especially reluctant ones.

Arguments won’t convince everybody. Sometimes prejudice runs too deep. Sometimes their priorities differ from ours. And some of them may just be trolls and bigots. It’s still worth trying. In practice, I find that it works with roughly half of people. Some detractors can be turned into allies with the right pitch. Allies don’t need to agree on everything, only to agree to work together toward a common goal.

Diplomacy also has its uses against a natural enemy. Activists and governments will never get along, yet must sooner or later reach an understanding. Not every government can be broken or overthrown; sometimes it’s necessary to talk to them, if only for deescalation purposes. For example, many high-risk rallies feature a police liaison officer among protesters, while the police itself may deploy liaison officers, each side effectively sending out diplomats to minimise interaction between sides. Police commanders, for the most part, know that while they could break a given rally with clever ploys and brute force, the aftermath may be undesirable, complications ranging from excoriating media coverage to massive civil liabilities. So the smarter ones give protesters the opportunity to disengage peacefully, wrapping the gift with threats. Likewise, protesters may bamboozle the police with repeated promises everybody will disperse in fifteen minutes, for hours on end (honest!), to buy as much time as they can. Sometimes everybody walking home safely is good enough for the day.

In my own journey as an activist, I’ve learned that getting things done often comes down to compromise. Want to make things happen? Better be the adult in the room who tries to get people to work together than the radical who makes enemies of everyone. Because nothing good comes out of fighting among ourselves against all reason.