>Forwarded By: Richard Thieme <richard@thiemeworks.com> > >Islands in the Clickstream: >Hactivism and Soul Power > >The danger with taking the moral high ground is that, once you take >it, you no longer have it. > >Saul Alinksy, a great community organizer, was committed to delivering >power into the hands of the powerless. He worked to create structures >that would shift the flow toward the dispossessed. He was an engineer >of the Tao, or "Way," which is often likened to a waterflow seeking >its own level. The Tao is impossible to resist because it's how energy >in the universe flows, it's the flow, and it's the energy, all at the >same time. So when we align our energies with the Tao, our actions are >boosted beyond anything we might achieve on our own. > >Alinsky focused on the flow, not the organizational structures. The >structures were necessary but temporary, like irrigation ditches >designed to channel the waters of a river. He helped organize the Back >of the Yards Council in Chicago, for example, to give power to >neighborhood people but when, a decade or so later, the Council has >become reactionary, he organized others against it. > >Once we seize the moral high ground, we lose it if we try to hold it. >We become what we are fighting. Organizational structures become >constraints instead of means of liberation. When we identify the right >with organizational structures and then act on behalf of those >structures, we can justify anything. Once we think we're right because >we belong to the organization instead of determining right action by >the context, we turn the Tao into a river of blood. > >Enter hactivism. > >We hear a lot these days about hacktivism. One form of hacktivism is >the use of hacking skills to crack web sites and deface them or >replace them with political messages. > >During recent Israeli-Palestinian battles, criminal hackers or >"crackers" affiliated with both sides attacked one another's Web >sites. In one incident, a Pakistani stole the credit card numbers of >members of a pro-Israel lobbying group and posted them on the Web. > >A single computer in the hands of a child has more leverage in the >digital era than a rock in the hands of a rioter. Destroy one node in >the network and another node becomes the center. > >Hactivism is celebrated by some as a sign that young technophiles are >growing up and using their skills to a purpose. Instead of leaving >graffiti, they are "hacking with a higher purpose." > >If we mean that technophiles are creating software like "Hactivismo," >a program that enables oppressed people to access human rights >information or news reports blocked by their governments, that might >be true. > >But the use of cracking skills to defame and deface, regardless of >one's side, always defeats the higher purpose. Whatever sense of >righteousness motivated the act in the first place is lost in the act >itself. > >Such hactivism is "hacking-and-hiding," throwing stones, then ducking >for cover, which merely escalates the level of virtual violence. It's >a power play on behalf of a power rush. > >Action on behalf of the Tao, that is, action on behalf of the >powerless, the dispossessed, the genuinely victimized, always >transforms the battlefield by revealing injustice in the bright light >of undeniable revelation. Such action manifests what Gandhi and Martin >Luther King, Jr. called "soul power," which is the power of a human >being with integrity, focus, and high intentionality to expose an >unjust law by confronting it ... and accepting the consequences. > >King's letter from a Birmingham jail sounds like it was written on the >Internet. > >"We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, " he wrote, >"tied in a single garment of destiny." > >This "systems approach" to human consciousness ought to resonate with >people who live on the Web. But for that to happen, we have to not >just live in a web - we all do, online and off - we have to SEE the >web in which we live, we have to see the luminous threads connecting >us indissolubly into a single field of consciousness. We have to see >that "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" because >life in our quantum world is non-local. > >"Whatever affects one directly," said King, "affects all indirectly." > >A hacker once suggested to me that the chat rooms in which he once >hung out resembled an island of lost boys, bootstrapping themselves >into adulthood without benefit of counsel. They needed an image or >icon of higher possibility, he said, which could disclose, illuminate >and called forth their hidden possibilities into the light of day. > >He too was talking about "soul power." > >First, said King, collect the facts to determine whether injustices >are alive. Then negotiate. Then comes self-purification, and only >then, direct action. > >Self-purification has a quaint ring to it, doesn't it, after decades >in which we extolled greed and self-indulgence? > >But listen to the words of a man who spent his life as a spy. > >"We need something like a 'holy knight,' he said. "We need people >trained in the deepest spiritual truths. In some of the situations in >which we put our agents, the only thing preventing a horrible death is >their capacity to tune into multiple levels of awareness. > >"We looked to the east, to martial arts and generic spiritual >disciplines back-engineered from other cultures, to train them in >those spiritual arts. But I think we have models in our own >traditions, we just don't know how to use them." > >He was talking about the will and discipline to act on behalf of what >we see in the depths of our souls. The structures we build on behalf >of liberation may constrain us or set us free, but ultimately, it is >right action that creates freedom: Right action on behalf of real >victims of injustice, after which we have the courage not to mistake >the means for the end, the tools for the task, or the people now set >free for the freedom they sought. > > >November 21, 2000 > > >********************************************************************** >Islands in the Clickstream is an intermittent column written by >Richard Thieme exploring social and cultural dimensions >of computer technology and the ultimate concerns of our lives. >Comments are welcome. > >Richard Thieme is a professional speaker, consultant, and writer >focused on the impact of computer technology on individuals and >organizations - the human dimensions of technology and work - and >"life on the edge." > >Feel free to pass along columns for personal use, retaining this >signature file. If interested in publishing columns online or in print >or employing Richard as a professional speaker, retreat leader >or consultant, email for details. > >To subscribe to Islands in the Clickstream, send email to >rthieme@thiemeworks.com with the words "subscribe islands" in the >body or subject heading of the message. To unsubscribe, email >with "unsubscribe islands" in the message. Or subscribe at the web site >www.thiemeworks.com. > > >Islands in the Clickstream (c) Richard Thieme, 2000. All rights reserved. > >ThiemeWorks on the Web: http://www.thiemeworks.com and >http://www.richardthieme.com > >ThiemeWorks P. O. Box 170737 Milwaukee WI 53217-8061 414.351.2321 >*********************************************************************
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