Ideas from Jeff Smith

 

Here are some efforts of others who know paradigm shifts follow principles:

 

Kuhn is the classic. “Old minds don’t change; they just die out, replaced by young open ones.” So appeal to the young. Learn to dance, you stiff fuddy-duddies. Our problem: Georgist elders attract youth exactly like themselves—conservative, conformist, obedient, not your classic profile for agents of change. https://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_how_to_start_a_movement

 

More recently, Reich’s 4 buttons: Rot at top, Barbarians at gate, Self-made, Group identity. Even though by a Dem (Clinton’s Labor Sec), only Trump was savvy enough to use them, unlike us and other ideologues: http://changingminds.org/disciplines/storytelling/plots/reich_narrative.htm

 

Lakoff, one of my grad school contemporaries, is also ignored for urging do-gooders to learn how to frame: “Frame yourselves before others frame you.” You framed yourself as a taker (taxist), not a sharer, like basic income, which has far more innate appeal: https://medium.com/indivisible/george-lakoff-on-indivisible-36931ee03c5

 

Use unique language, like “geonomics” not boring code like “LVT”: https://www.bustle.com/p/9-genius-ways-to-change-someones-mind-according-to-science-2307178

World Bank: To measure progress, count (John Berger made the same point):  http://blogs.worldbank.org/voices/5-tips-on-starting-a-social-movement

 

Develop empathy, lose British classism and academic snobbery: “Strong beliefs, loosely held.”  https://heleo.com/facts-dont-change-peoples-minds-heres/16242/

For writers rather than real-space-and-time people: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/02/10/how-to-change-someones-mind-according-to-science/?utm_term=.98aabc1738e9

 

Harvard: Engagement, not rhetoric—interact with real people on their terms:  https://hbr.org/2016/11/what-successful-movements-have-in-common

Leadership—suggestions for everyone, even non-alpha rats: http://nclp.umd.edu/resources/social_change_model

Some poverty people, potential allies: https://borgenproject.org/how-to-start-a-movement-for-social-change/

Source of millions of volunteers, an enormously valuable resource for Georgists to ignore: https://www.dosomething.org

 

All in one: http://changingminds.org

 

But don’t limit yourself. Google. Yet balance mere reading with actual doing.

 

I have my own that worked to start several cutting-edge groups: How to Make a Movement in 5 Easy Steps:

1 Message

2 Members, including celebs

3 Money

4 Media, including star power

5 Maintenance—every other meeting should be a party. Seriously.

6 aMass the Multitudes—demonstrate—and Meet the Minions of the Moguls—i.e., lobby.

7 Make Merry your victory

 

Georgists fail at Step 1, so they can’t get out the gate. They must redo Step 1 and translate their message into the language of their intended audience. To know what to say, they’d have to use focus groups, polls, and surveys. But that’s too rational for ideologues, so far.

 

“We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are.”

 

You can’t reform by conforming. You just lose the respect of both reformers and conformists.

 

If there is a mistake to be made in shifting paradigms, Georgists have made all of them.

 

Thanks, Fred, the opportunity to feel nostalgic for old, ignored, powerful ideas. You did not offer to quit doing what does not work and devote that time to doing what does work. Hence, most likely, you asked me to waste my time. 

 

“The dog barks but the caravan moves on.” Into the desert.