Howard Zinn
You ask how I manage to stay involved and remain seemingly happy and adjusted
to this awful world where the efforts of caring people pale in comparison to
those who have power? It’s easy.
First: don’t let “those who have power” intimidate you. No matter
how much power they have they cannot prevent you from living your life, speaking
your mind, thinking independently, having relationships with people as you like.
(Read Emma Goldman’s autobiography Living My Life. Harassed, even imprisoned
by authority, she insisted on living her life, speaking out, however she felt
like.)
Second: find people to be with who have your values, your commitments, but who
also have a sense of humor. That combination is a necessity!
Third: (notice how precise is my advice that I can confidently number it, the
way scientists number things) understand that the major media will not tell
you of all the acts of resistance taking place every day in the society, the
strikes, the protests, the individual acts of courage in the face of authority.
Look around (and you will certainly find it) for the evidence of these unreported
acts. And for the little you find, extrapolate from that and assume there must
be a thousand times as much as what you’ve found.
Fourth: Note that throughout history people have felt powerless before authority,
but that at certain times these powerless people, by organizing, acting, risking,
persisting, have created enough power to change the world around them, even
if a little. That is the history of the labor movement, of the women’s
movement, of the anti-Vietnam war movement, the disabled persons’ movement,
the gay and lesbian movement, the movement of Black people in the South.
Fifth: Remember, that those who have power and who seem invulnerable are in
fact quite vulnerable, that their power depends on the obedience of others,
and when those others begin withholding that obedience, begin defying authority,
that power at the top turns out to be very fragile. Generals become powerless
when their soldiers refuse to fight, industrialists become powerless when their
workers leave their jobs or occupy the factories.
Sixth: When we forget the fragility of that power in the top we become astounded
when it crumbles in the face of rebellion. We have had many such surprises in
our time, both in the United States and in other countries.
Seventh: Don’t look for a moment of total triumph. See it as an ongoing
struggle, with victories and defeats, but in the long run the consciousness
of people growing. So you need patience, persistence, and need to understand
that even when you don’t “win,” there is fun and fulfillment
in the fact that you have been involved, with other good people, in something
worthwhile.
Okay, seven pieces of profound advice should be enough.
Howard is a Professor Emeritus at Boston University and the author of A Peoples’ History of the United States.