Here are a few metaphors that I hear thrown around in activist circles that, as Inigo Montoya might say, “do not mean what we think they mean.”

Low-hanging fruit

The first is not unique to activism, business uses it left and right as well. In case you happen to have never been in a meeting when someone uses it, the phrase “low-hanging fruit” is meant to convey benefits that can be attained with minimal action. So, if I want to get 500 signatures to put in a bike lane, the low-hanging fruit might be bike messengers. I could probably quickly acquire a few hundred signatures with not a whole lot of effort.

The problem is, that’s not how you pick fruit. Fruit is normally picked starting with the “high-hangers” for two important reasons. First, pickers start at the top and fill their basket as they go down, otherwise they’d be climbing with ever-heavier loads. Second, the fruit lower on the tree is partially shaded by the higher branches and often last to ripen.

So, for the bike lane example, the “low-hanging fruit” would be folks whose names would make it more difficult to get others to sign and who probably aren’t high value names to begin with. Elementary school kids, maybe.

Silver bullets

Silver bullets often come up when we’re looking for a simple solution to a complex problem. An example might be installing solar panels in remote African villages. This fairly simple solution manages to address issues ranging from social (providing power without making the community reliant on fuel) to environmental (cleaner than coal or nuclear) to political (no foreign-owned powerplants requiring a government-owned grid).

However, the term comes to us from old European legends about werewolves. Werewolves, immune to normal bullets, can only be killed by silver ones. Far from being simple solutions, silver bullets are actually more difficult to make than regular ones and substantially less bang-for-the-buck, as silver is both softer and more expensive than lead. In short, you’d probably want to avoid using a silver bullet unless you’re facing something like a werewolf that can’t be defeated through conventional means (which addressing energy needs in developing nations just may be).

Radical

Perhaps the most understood metaphor, yet one that activists employ to the point of self-identity, is the notion of “radicalism”. Literally “radical” refers to the root of something, most often a plant. Activists who identify as “radical” maintain that they are getting to the root of the problem—with the implicit or explicit suggestion that all other strategies will fail to produce true change. Accusations of not being radical enough equate to not being serious about one’s beliefs.

Again, reality begs to differ.

Instructions for removing an unwanted tree all begin with cutting the tree down first. Once you’ve removed a tree’s leaves and its ability to photosynthesize its food, it’s much easier to deal with the leftover roots. The stump can continue to generate new growth, but diligence will ensure that it never amounts to a new tree, leaving the stump to eventually die. Removing stumps is so difficult that the most common methods include drilling poison-filled holes and setting them on fire.

Knowing the truth behind this metaphor encourages a remarkably different angle for activism than “radical”, namely removing the ability of destructive systems to feed and perpetuate themselves before attempting to address the “root” of the problem. Maybe everyone working on corporate power should switch to campaigning against advertising. Afterall, it would be difficult for companies to lobby Washington if no one bought their products.

Yesterday’s Yes Men antics re-awakened conversations around my office about doing more microphone stealing and “identity correction“. We’re no strangers to the method (at the time of this post, a search for “yesmen oil” on YouTube shows a past action as the second link) but my teeth still clench when I hear Aikido Activism misused. Hint: it doesn’t mean “use their strength against them”.

The phrase Aikido Activism, as far as I can tell, originates from an essay of the same name by Reed Burkhart, though the idea has been floating around for a while now (and even used by the bad guys). He describes it as:

a new form of activism combining corporate reform, financial markets strategies, entrepreneurship, et al.

In short, leveraging the power that corporations wield in today’s society by turning bad companies into good ones. That’s pretty close to the mission statement of my place of employment, but a greater understanding of aikido itself might illuminate exactly how such a thing is done.

I was part of a dojo for just over a year, reaching the rank of 5th kyu—which sounds impressive until you realize that a guy off the street starts at 6th kyu. Like the most effective activism, aikido is entirely non-violent. The goal is to neutralize an attack while having compassion for the attacker. It’s perhaps better described via explanation of the first three techniques I was taught and what I would consider their Aikido Activism analogs.

Iriminage. Meaning “turning throw”, iriminage is also called the 20 Year Technique (i.e., it takes two decades to learn it). The first step is to get out of the way of the attack. If you stand still, you get hit and violence wins. Get out of the way and your attacker may follow. If so, you have a chance to step behind. In order to press the attack, the attacker must turn to face you. You turn in place and quickly raise your center of gravity and your arm with it. The attacker, trying to avoid getting hit but also in motion, bends backward. If you step through the attacker completely loses balance and falls over.

Ikkyo. I think technically this means “first lesson” but, for reasons already mentioned, it’s best to get iriminage in the oven before moving on. The first step is to get out of the way of the attack—honestly, this is the first step in every aikido technique but the first urge in so many people is to go on the offensive and make it a contest of strength. Don’t do that. With ikkyo, you let the attack happen but not connect. Then you grab the attack as it zooms past, preferably by the wrist. Since the attack was trying to hit you, there’s power behind it (this is probably where the “use their strength against them” myth comes from). As you turn, put your other hand on the attacker’s shoulder and you create an axis around their hips that they will rotate on, in order to stay attached to their fist. Suddenly, you’ve got them pinned. It can surprise you the first time you get it right.

Kokyudosa. We would end all of our training sessions with kokyudosa. You sit on your knees, facing your partner. You lay your hands on your knees, palms up, and your partner grabs your wrists. You have to throw them from this position. Beginners twist and turn and writhe, teachers watching and probably trying not to laugh. Eventually you discover that if you settle into your own weight and project your hands beyond your partner—trying to grab a ball 100 yards behind them—the dynamic shifts instantly and they go flying. Like magic.

Doing these techniques at a protest, on riot cops, would land you in jail fast. Even though they’re “non-violent”, police officers like to be in charge and pinning them wounds egos if not bodies. Instead, consider them metaphorically.

Iriminage is about finding the moment where the cycle of destruction depends on you, and seizing the opportunity to end it. A boycott, for instance, is consumers realizing that corporations require people to buy their stuff in order to exist. For publicly traded companies, shareholder activism is a similar tactic. Once the corporation is listening, you can raise the expectations of social responsibility like you would your arm, to the point where they will either have to meet them or fall over backwards.

Ikkyo is about pitting the attacker’s desire for destruction against their desire for self-preservation. Sending the two in different directions means they can’t have both and they will almost always choose the latter. You can see this when activists raise the reputational risk around a project without explicitly targeting a corporation. Since the public is quick to damn corporate greed in the abstract but loath to criticize specific ones, this has the effect of giving corporations a choice of continuing an irresponsible behavior or keeping their name clean.

Kokyodosa is about projection. When we, as activists, are focused on the fight and not the future we wriggle and squirm and come up empty. When we formulate a vision for the world we want ten, twenty-five, or fifty years from now we can act with calm and confidence in the moment, which in turn gives us strength beyond our own expectations.

Of course, these are just simple examples and the Yes Men are black belts. They employ all sorts of advanced aikido techniques, like leading (gaining audiences’ trust before springing the trap) and stealing balance (turning normally stolid executives flustered and defensive). Since I’ve recently started to get calls at my office for someone who is not me, inviting me to have dinner with President Bush and serve on Business Advisory Councils, I think I need to enroll at their dojo and finally make it to 4th kyu.

Ended up as as pretty long post. Credit to Oscar Ratti for the art from Aikido and the Dynamic Sphere, the best illustrations of aikido in motion I’ve ever seen.