{"id":1550,"date":"2016-12-31T14:35:10","date_gmt":"2016-12-31T22:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/?p=1550"},"modified":"2018-05-16T10:28:05","modified_gmt":"2018-05-16T17:28:05","slug":"a-bigger-choir-a-countervailing-force","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/?p=1550","title":{"rendered":"A bigger choir \u2013 a countervailing force"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nOne thing Penny U1<\/sup> made clear to me is that many of us want to be active in new ways, or, if we\u2019re already active, we\u2019re ready now to step up our game, to build toward something bigger. It\u2019s also clear that there is not just one way, not just one cause to fight for. Many spheres of action emerged from our first post-election Penny U conversation and were discussed at the second. There is so much to do. It\u2019s easy to feel numb or even helpless when the need for action comes from so many directions.<\/p>\n

In his Penny U kick-off talk, Congressman Jim McDermott suggested that J.R.R. Tolkien\u2019s words might be helpful:<\/p>\n

It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us<\/em> for the succor of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Even with this, though, finding a specific focus for our own energy can be difficult, and it can be further complicated when, at the same time, we long for a cohesive movement. In fact, building such a\u00a0movement was one of the topics raised at Penny U. Don\u2019t we need to begin developing a unified voice? How would we even do that?<\/p>\n

For me, \u201cunified\u201d too often means singular, expressed as a desire for the kind of impact that can\u00a0come from\u00a0a powerful single voice. But I\u2019m not convinced that a single voice is what we need. A\u00a0better image is of many voices together, a choir or a chorus. Which reminds me that for years I\u2019ve been bothered when I hear the disparaging critique\u00a0of the phrase, \u201cYou\u2019re just speaking to the choir!\u201d In fact, that mindset should change. Instead, we should work to expand the choir, join new choirs, welcome different voices in our own, combine choirs, allow for differences. Dissonance is part of powerful music.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Can\u2019t we instead create a choir that incorporates the strength of our differences as well as what we share? I like a term I heard first from Robert Reich, who used it when he spoke at Town Hall in late 2015. We must create, he said, a \u201ccountervailing force.\u201d<\/p>\n

A countervailing force.<\/em> Before I learned the history of its use, the term conjured up something bigger than a single voice and much more powerful. A \u201cforce\u201d can have many attributes, with eddies and surges like a raging river or a giant surging wave. If I had the graphic skills of some of my friends, I\u2019d create a fearsome wave, perhaps like the Great Wave of Hokusai2<\/sup>, and it would be made up of many choirs, both secular and sacred, of people young and old, urban and rural, and of many races. For now, you\u2019ll just have to imagine it. This is the force to\u00a0strive for.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00ab\u2022\u00bb<\/span><\/p>\n

To provide a bit of history, \u201ccountervailing force\u201d appears primarily in discussions of the political economy. \u201cThe Concept of Countervailing Power\u201d is, for instance, the subtitle of a 1952 book by economist John Kenneth Galbraith.3<\/sup>\u00a0 Two quotes from Robert Reich, in a book he dedicated to Galbraith\u2019s memory,4<\/sup>\u00a0show something of the way it\u2019s used:<\/p>\n

Between the 1930s and late 1970s, centers of countervailing<\/em> power enabled America\u2019s middle and lower-middle classes to exert their own influence \u2013 labor unions, small businesses, small investors, and political parties anchored at the local and state levels. This countervailing force has withered in more recent decades.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And . . .<\/p>\n

The only way to reverse course is for the vast majority who now lack influence over the rules of the game to become organized and unified, in order to re-establish the countervailing power that was the key to widespread prosperity five decades ago.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I also like the way philosopher\/activist Cornel West used it:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThe only countervailing force against organized money at the top is organized people at the bottom.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00ab\u2022\u00bb<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I woke up after the second post-election Penny U wondering what I can contribute to strengthening a countervailing force. This force will necessarily consist of many separate efforts. At the same time, as we all find specific places to\u00a0direct our energy, it will be important to be aware of each other, to understand how big our choir really is, to learn from each other, and to be connected on occasion . . . agreeing and disagreeing, benefiting from what my friend Peter Pennekamp has called \u201cthe dynamics of difference\u201d \u2013 that is, working constructively across differences to find new solutions and new power.<\/p>\n

\u00ab\u00ab\u00ab\u00ab\u00ab\u00ab\u2022\u00bb\u00bb\u00bb\u00bb\u00bb\u00bb<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Photo notes<\/span><\/p>\n

The banner\u00a0image of waves comes from How-to-Geek <howtogeek.com>, \u201cOcean Waves Wallpaper Collection.\u201d<\/p>\n

Choir images\u00a0here are details from images found online.\u00a0I’m\u00a0grateful\u00a0to all the photographers.<\/p>\n

References<\/span><\/p>\n

1<\/sup>\u00a0 This\u00a0use\u00a0of\u00a0“Penny U”\u00a0refers\u00a0to\u00a0two post-election conversations at Town Hall Seattle. Reports on both are posted on this site\u00a0here<\/a>, here<\/a>, and here<\/a>. A description of\u00a0Penny U\u00a0and its\u00a0basic assumptions can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

2<\/sup> \u00a0\u201cThe Great Wave off Kanagawa\u201d by Katsushika Hokusai, color woodblock, 1830\u20131833. Many impressions have been made of this print. This print\u00a0is in the Library of Congress. The image of it here is from Wikipedia.<\/p>\n

3<\/sup> \u00a0John Kenneth Galbraith, American Capitalism: The Concept of Countervailing Power<\/em>, 1952.<\/p>\n

4 \u00a0<\/sup>Robert B. Reich, Saving Capitalism for the Many, Not the Few<\/em>, Alfred A. Knopf, 2015.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One thing Penny U1 made clear to me is that many of us want to be active in new ways, or, if we\u2019re already active, we\u2019re ready now to step up our game, to build toward something bigger. It\u2019s also clear that there is not just one way, not just one cause to fight for….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,7,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-after-the-2016-election","category-the-commons-civil-society","category-penny-u"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7pXN0-p0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1550"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2914,"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1550\/revisions\/2914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}