Relatedly, if we don't want to think about a situation, we frequently convince ourselves that we're powerless to change it.

Less relatedly, I am growing increasingly aware of the gulf between what is implied by talking about "people" in the first person plural, and talking about "people" in the third person plural.

And here's some rather... more spicy stuff from him:

The seventh rule of the ethics of means and ends is that generally success or failure is a mighty determinant of ethics. The judgment of history leans heavily on the outcome of success or failure; it spells the difference between the traitor and the patriotic hero. There can be no such thing as a successful traitor, for if one succeeds he becomes a founding father.

The ninth rule of the ethics of means and ends is that any effective means is automatically judged by the opposition as being unethical.

In this world laws are written for the lofty aim of "the common good" and then acted out in life on the basis of the common greed. In this world irrationality clings to man like his shadow so that the right things get done for the wrong reasons—afterwards, we dredge up the right reasons for justification. It is a world not of angels but of angles, where men speak of moral principles but act on power principles; a world where we are always moral and our enemies always immoral; a world where "reconciliation" means that when one side gets the power and the other side gets reconciled to it, then we have reconciliation.

Always remember the first rule of power tactics: Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have. The second rule is: Never go outside the experience of your people. When an action or tactic is outside the experience of the people, it results in confusion, fear, and retreat. [...] The third rule is: Whenever possible go outside of the experience of the enemy. Here you want to cause confusion, fear, and retreat.

Alinsky is interesting to me because it seems like he was one of the first to notice a new, likely to be effective method of social change - and he used up all the effectiveness of the technique.

I wouldn't expect non-violent protest (in America) to be capable of that kind of social change in the future, because those in power have learned how to deal with it effectively (mass arrest for minor infractions and an absolute refusal to engage in political grandstanding). By this point, mass protests are quite ineffective at creating social change here in the US (consider the relatively pointlessness of the Occupy movement)

I'm sure there are other examples of techniques of social change becoming totally ineffective as authorities learned how to respond better, but I can't think of any off the top of my head.

I'd also like to mention that the American Right's treatment of Alinsky is really depressing. Just one random quote: "Alinsky got what he wanted in the form of 90% illegitimacy rates among American blacks and poverty wholly dominated by single mothers."

Really? A guy who taught little people how to stand up for themselves in ruthless tribal politics... somehow single-handedly (or with his evil college student henchmen) caused a complicated social problem that existed since Segregation's end - instead of, I dunno, making communities more unified and more conscious of the war that is life (like trade unions become with good non-dogmatic leadership)?

(Another stunning lie: "Alinsky’s entire adult life was devoted to destroying capitalism in America — an economic system he considered to be oppressive and unjust."

He talked of working within the system and changing it slowly and patiently all the time - for moral as well as tactical reasons. "Those who enshrine the poor or Have-Nots are as guilty as other dogmatists and just as dangerous", he wrote. And: "The political panaceas of the past[2], such as the revolutions in Russia and China, have become the same old stuff under a different name... We have permitted a suicidal situation to unfold wherein revolution and communism have become one. These pages are committed to splitting this political atom, separating this exclusive identification of communism with revolution."

"Let us in the name of radical pragmatism not forget that in our system with all its repressions we can still speak out and denounce the administration, attack its policies, work to build an opposition political base. True, there is government harassment, but there still is that relative freedom to fight. I can attack my government, try to organize to change it. That's more than I can do in Moscow, Peking, or Havana. Remember the reaction of the Red Guard to the "cultural revolution" and the fate of the Chinese college students.[1] Just a few of the violent episodes of bombings or a courtroom shootout that we have experienced here would have resulted in a sweeping purge and mass executions in Russia, China, or Cuba. Let's keep some perspective.")

Sadly, even M.M. chimed in when that hysteria was at its peak around the 2008 elections, with Obama's supposed methodological connection to the evil treasonous commie terrorist trumpeted everywhere on the "fringe" websites. And that's the kind of people most likely to boast of their reasoning and objectivity online?

Mencius also blasted the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) who used Gandhi's nonviolent tactics to attack the very literal Ku Klux Klan rule in Mississippi during the so-called Freedom Summer, risking life and limb, and a small part of whose members formed the semi-violent terrorist group Weather Underground a decade later.

[1] Yep, the "Cultural Revolution" was less a government-initiated purge in the image of 1937 than it was a little civil war between two slightly different factions of zealots.

2] For a brilliant example of this madness dressed as conservatism, just look at this idiot. He took Alinsky's sardonic reference to those revolutions' hype as "panaceas" as a sign of approval!

America, Fuck Yeah.

P.S. To be fair, here's a voice of sanity from some libertarian dude, who has the misfortune of posting at a site that even Moldbug rightly called a useless dump.

Oh lawd!

After organizing FIGHT (an acronym for Freedom, Independence [subsequently Integration], God, Honor, Today) in Rochester, New York,[9] Alinsky once threatened to stage a "fart in" to disrupt the sensibilities of the city's establishment at a Rochester Philharmonic concert. FIGHT members were to consume large quantities of baked beans after which, according to author Nicholas von Hoffman, "FIGHT's increasingly gaseous music-loving members would hie themselves to the concert hall where they would sit expelling gaseous vapors with such noisy velocity as to compete with the woodwinds."[10] Satisfied with the reaction to his threat, Alinsky would later threaten a "piss in" at Chicago O'Hare Airport. Alinsky planned to arrange for large numbers of well dressed African Americans to occupy the urinals and toilets at O'Hare for as long as it took to bring the city to the bargaining table. According to Alinsky, once again the threat alone was sufficient to produce results.[10] Conceding that his tactics were "absurd," the community activist rejected the contention that they were frivolous, arguing "[w]hat oppressed person doesn't want, literally or figuratively, to shit on his oppressors? [At the Rochester Philharmonic] was the closest chance they'd have. Such tactics aren't just cute; they can be useful in driving your opponent up the wall. Very often the most ridiculous tactic can prove the most effective."

Now just imagine what Anonymous could've done today with him around!

Alinsky planned to arrange for large numbers of well dressed African Americans to occupy the urinals and toilets at O'Hare for as long as it took to bring the city to the bargaining table.

I weakly suspect that this was in fact the inspiration for /b/'s infamous "Pool's Closed" raids.

If people feel they don’t have the power to change a situation, they stop thinking about it.

Interpreted as a conditional statement this is almost certainly false (I completed a degree in political science even though half-way through I understood that me trying to achieve "positive change" was hopeless). What do you think he means? How could we test such a claim?