The WSM and the future identity of the SPGB and SPC
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There is surely no doubt about our obscurity?Why did Scarghill's party become more well known?Tariqe AliSWPCPGBMost people know of these but only a tiny minority have heard of us. We should not be complacent about the subject.
As someone new to the SPGB/WSM site, can I offer an opinion- whilst recognising the history behind the name,explaining the GB part of the name does lead some to assume its a " British " party. Also as SPGB is a world socialist movement, not just a British one,doesn't it make sense to use the WSM brand?
As you can see from the length of this thread, Paul, this is a debate we have within our organisations and we permit the views of others to be expressed. Our organisation is democratic and we have a structure that has been agreed and which we follow. We do not suppress discussion or exchanges. Ove the years the issue has been raised and often returned to. To change our name means a branch debating it and agreeing to submit a motion to conference where it will be debated again with delegates from all our branches and then the proposal is sent to all individual members in a postal Party poll and the majority vote prevails. I believe that to change a name of an organisation that many members endured persecution in the past for, that many present members have committed themselves to and also made sacrifices is a decision that should not be taken lightly. I think there has to be an almost overwhelming consensus for a change of name. I do not judge that such exists at present and while i am very happy to argue for a change of name, i don't think it should be forced upon others even if a numerical majority existed for a change (and i personally don't believe there is.) However, for the purpose of standing in elections we have registered alternative names with the Electoral Commission:-World Socialist Party (UK), World Socialist Party (EU) and, of course, your own preference, World Socialist Movement which we can opt for at anytime rather than using the customary Socialist Party(GB) or our acronym SPGB.
Paul Scivier wrote:.. Also as SPGB is a world socialist movement, not just a British one,doesn't it make sense to use the WSM brand?Yes!In fact the alternative makes no sense.
alanjjohnstone wrote:To change our name means a branch debating it and agreeing to submit a motion to conference where it will be debated again with delegates from all our branches and then the proposal is sent to all individual members in a postal Party poll and the majority vote prevails.I tried it, my branch is not interested
This thread seems to have taken a turn for the worse in that we don't seem too interested in analysing just where we fail and what we should do to improve. The debate solely about the election is severely limiting. One problem is that people as a whole don't give a toss about political parties these days. The number of people in the UK who are members of political parties is roughly the same number as those who say they believe Elvis is still alive and much lower than the numbers who believe Princess Diana was assassinated, the Apollo moon landings were faked or that humans have been contacted by extra-terrestrials. Conservative Party has 149,800 members, the Labour Party 190,000 and the Liberal Democrat Party 44,000, the coalition of UK Green Parties had around 44,000 members, the SNP 93,000 and UKIP 42,000.http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN05125Although the following article is about climate change, it could as well be applied to our own campaign for socialism and offers some insight in how we should be framing our propaganda effortshttp://grist.org/climate-energy/10-things-you-want-to-know-about-human-nature-if-youre-fighting-climate-change/1. We are overly optimistic about the future — our future, that is. Neuroscientist Tali Sharot has observed that when newlyweds are asked about their chances of getting divorced, they tend to say zero, despite the widely known fact that the odds are 50-50. We instinctively overestimate the probability of positive events and underestimate the probability of negative events in our own lives, she writes in The Optimism Bias, for two reasons: We think we have more control over our lives than we actually do, and we tend to see ourselves as better than average. Applied to climate change, this means that I might think that you — and surely those poor Pacific Islanders — might be negatively affected but I’ll be OK. The problem, of course, is that this reflects a bias grounded in delusion. But don’t try to tell me or anyone else that. You’ll have a better chance of engaging others in climate action, experts like Sharot say, if you keep a laser-like focus on how climate change is affecting people now.2. We can be blasé about the most important issues in the world because the global perspective is way beyond ordinary human scale. “Trying to convince people of the magnitude of the climate problem through large-scale statistics is essentially useless,” says Scott Huettel, chair of the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University. “The iconic global warming image of the polar bear on the iceberg is evocative precisely because it is one polar bear. Thousands of polar bears on a glacier that is receding would be irrelevant. Our brains cannot process it.” Put another way, climate change seems like an abstraction because it is so much bigger than us. Humans relate to human-sized stories — the kind that speak to a family living in a home like ours, having dreams and struggles like ours, and maybe discovering one day that their home is on a map of places expected to soon be under water.3. We are wired to refute imperatives. “If you say I have to act now on climate change, my first reaction will be, ‘No, I don’t,’” says Huettel. The reason, he explains, is that our brains are very well designed to come up with counterarguments. So no matter how good the reasons to switch to solar energy or demand that government take bolder action on climate change, people can always come up with reasons why they don’t need to do anything, such as: “If I don’t act right now, the world will basically be the same.” Passing a law that requires people to change their behavior (especially if those changes are relatively easy to make) is one effective way around this. But short of that — just as in other aspects of human relationships — efforts to attract people to a cause are much more likely to yield a positive response than those that threaten or make demands.4. We are vulnerable to peer pressure, especially about things that confuse us. We can watch the news, see photos of melting glaciers, even experience changing weather patterns. But if our neighbors aren’t doing anything about climate change, we’re unlikely to do anything either because, as much as we hate to admit it, we are herd animals who use social cues to adapt to our environment, according to Robert Cialdini, author of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. And if you doubt how powerful this instinct is, consider the experiment Cialdini conducted in which his team hung four different kinds of flyers on people’s doorknobs in San Diego, with the goal of inspiring residents to reduce their energy consumption. Three of the flyers directly asked them to reduce their energy use, offering three different motivations: save money, save the environment, and benefit future generations. But none of these appeals made a significant difference. Only the fourth flyer did, which read simply: “The majority of your neighbors are undertaking energy-saving actions every day.” The lesson: Don’t be afraid to appeal to our instinct to fit in.5. We shy away from topics that remind us of our mortality but can be motivated to take action on behalf of beings more vulnerable than us. Janis L. Dickinson, a professor of natural resources at Cornell University, conducted an experiment a few years ago in which she asked 3,546 people (largely birders) if they would be willing to reduce their energy consumption after learning that climate change was, among other things, a threat to people or to birds, and then she compared the results. It turned out that people were left unmoved by considering the threat to humans, but envisioning the threat to birds was another story. One possible reason, Dickinson says, is that considering climate change as a threat to humans may trigger thoughts of death (which we also tend to deny) whereas we like to think of ourselves as helping cute little creatures that seem to need us. This suggests that emphasizing the threat climate change poses to beloved animals could be an effective way of motivating people.6. We perceive and respond to risks only when we feel them. While riding a roller coaster with my children one day, my youngest son took his hands off the bar and raised them in the air. The amusement park, I was sure, anticipated antics like this and did not expect people to remain in their seats by the strength of their grip. Still, I screamed, insisting he hold on because I was scared and, for the moment, that made the risk I imagined feel real. This, says Columbia University professor of psychology Elke Weber, is how we perceive and respond to risk: through our emotions more than an analysis of the facts. When it comes to climate change, this means that no matter how much scientific and journalistic evidence we are presented with, we will not be moved to action unless something makes us feel the risk. As a result, it may be more effective to tell a short, detailed story that can evoke people’s feelings — for example, about an individual or family encountering some specific impact of climate change — than present yet more scientific evidence about the global or even national implications of a warming planet.7. We are motivated more by hope than fear, at least in matters of social change. While research shows that fear is a more powerful motivator than hope when it comes to behaviors such as diet and fitness, inspiring social change seems to depend more on a positive vision of the future, according to the social movement, political science, and neuroscience experts with whom I spoke. “This rhetoric about we only have a certain amount of time is a killer. It doesn’t make people engaged, it makes them give up,” says David Meyer, professor of sociology at U.C. Irvine and author of The Politics of Protest: Social Movements in America. Sharot confirmed this, saying: “Our studies show that people don’t process information — they don’t pay attention — when what is being communicated is how things will get worse.” In a widely shared opinion, Meyer said the implication was clear: “You have to be hopeful.”8. We are more likely to take action when we know precisely what we can influence. It would take a fantastic and deluded leap of the imagination to think that, as individuals, we can control rising seas, melting glaciers, or heat waves. As a result, when people hear messages that encourage them to broadly act on climate, it can strike them as unrealistic and trigger what psychologist Martin Seligman called learned helplessness — specifically because it appears so far outside their sphere of influence. But, as Seligman and others have also found, it is possible to cut through learned helplessness (or apparent indifference) by appealing to what people think they can control, such as their own attitudes and behavior. For this reason, Huettel recommends emphasizing how people will feel about themselves, for example, after they take some realistic action, such as riding a bike or buying a hybrid.9. We need to believe our actions will make a difference. “We have to have some sense of efficacy to motivate us to make changes in our lifestyle that are beneficial to the planet,” says Paul Slovic, a professor of psychology at the University of Oregon and expert in decision making around risk. But when it comes to big issues like genocide or climate change, his research suggests that people can be demotivated by a sense of inefficacy as well as what he calls “pseudo-inefficacy” or the illusion of inefficacy. For example, Slovic explained, some people fail to do anything because they think their action will be just a drop in the bucket, even though that drop is important. This finding suggests that it could be useful to explicitly speak to people’s suspicion that individual actions don’t matter and creatively show them how such drops add up.10. We will continue to behave the same way we always have — even after we know it is problematic — until there is a realistic alternative. It is a safe bet that if you are reading this, you know that fossil fuels contribute to climate change and yet you continue, either directly or indirectly, to rely upon them, as most of us do. But the reason for this, I have firmly come to believe, is not because most people don’t care, don’t get it, or have been duped by climate denial propaganda. I find a more believable reason in the words of Thomas Kuhn, widely considered one of the most influential philosophers of science of the 20th century. “People are unlikely to jettison an unworkable paradigm, despite many indications it is not functioning properly,” Kuhn said, “until a better paradigm can be presented.” While individual behavior changes are essential, in other words, many of them remain dependent on systemic public- and private-sector changes. To fully succeed, we need a “moon shot”-style rapid transition to a clean energy economy, like the one proposed last week by a group of scientists and economists led by the U.K.’s former chief scientist, Sir David King.But in the end, even the best of plans depends on understanding, communicating, and acting with a fuller appreciation not just of the state of the natural world but of our own nature, which means bringing today’s global climate story down to a human scale. The good news is that doing so requires that we engage some of the best aspects of human nature, including our ability to be present in the here and now, to care more about people than facts, to be drawn to hope more than fear, to be willing to defend those weaker than us, and to focus our actions on things that are in our control — all the while being capable of believing in, even being thrilled by, the vision of a moon shot.The above is our challenges to overcome and raises several options for us to try and vary our approach. I know my own personal lesson…I have to cut down on the gloom and doom apocalyptic catastrophism of some of my prognosises for the future, but i think i have also made attempts to remedy that with promoting optimistic blueprints models of what socialism could be like. What i have not done is succeeded in making reading about it a personal experience that friends and neighbours can associate with. Bringing socialism to your door. I too have sometimes followed Number 4. and claimed political action is being taken strongly and revolutionary by fellow workers…icing the cake, so to speak wiith a bit of exaggeration. There is always the example of the mass media who's manipulation of offering only the good news by cherry picking events and experiences that reinforce a message is well known. But of course the Left like SPEW/SWP always does that …every act of resistance is the first step of The Revolution so it is no guarantee that we attract members. Zeitgeist offers a Utopian vision and i think figure-wise they have had much more of a global influence than we have, but they are not as choosey on membership as we are.
Would this be any use to ourselves i wonder?http://www.scottcrow.org/article-introducing-agency-the-worlds-first-anarchist-pr-collective/http://www.anarchistagency.com/about/
alanjjohnstone wrote:Would this be any use to ourselves i wonder?Not unless we or they have a change of politics…
DJP wrote:alanjjohnstone wrote:Would this be any use to ourselves i wonder?Not unless we or they have a change of politics…
Any chance of introducing a Like button on the Forum? It would make things a lot easier.ETA: Simply because I would like to like this post . . . to save time and waffle at my end.
imposs1904 wrote:Any chance of introducing a Like button on the Forum? It would make things a lot easier.An Unlike button rather appeals to me; I suspect it would get used quite frequently…
What i was getting at is that the websites offer quite commonsense advice on presenting the anarchist case such as writing guidelines that we can easily adopt for ourselves.Also, they may well be receptive to accepting press releases from ourselves and re-circulating them if we show that we are not an ordinary leftist organisation or your usual so-call socialist party but do in fact share an overlap with many anarchist ideas that would be acceptable to their own views.For a start, does the Media Committee have their e-mail address on their considerable list ?
alanjjohnstone wrote:What i was getting at is that the websites offer quite commonsense advice on presenting the anarchist case such as writing guidelines that we can easily adopt for ourselves.Also, they may well be receptive to accepting press releases from ourselves and re-circulating them if we show that we are not an ordinary leftist organisation or your usual so-call socialist party but do in fact share an overlap with many anarchist ideas that would be acceptable to their own views.For a start, does the Media Committee have their e-mail address on their considerable list ?Why not email the Media Committee as there's no guarantee its current members will see this thread.
Had done after my previous e-mail. But i find it a bit disconcerting if what you say turns out to be true – that our media committee does not visit or read this forum…[a very obvious prompt for a reply from one of the relevant committee members to correct me] I would also expect them to have numerous Google alerts so that they are informed when various words crop up on the internet…"Socialist Party of Great Britain", "SPGB", "Impossiblism" etc etc ..i'll understand the omission of more common words such as "socialism" since it would result in numerous false alarms.Surely it is a proactive, seeking opportunities to bring our existence and case to the attention of the media, rather than a solely a reactive body, requiring to be spurred into action? It may well be on this occasion that i am out of touch of the activities it does behind the scenes that goes unrecorded, so i'm ready to eat humble pie on this. I believe Robert S. tries to take every opportunity to direct those quoted or cited in the Socialist Standard to the mention, which i think takes some considerable research for e-mail addresses but it has paid off in the past. Could be that more collaborating could be the order of the day between him and the media comm. Or they could agree that the status quo suffices?
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