Answers From LaRouche Q: How do you know you are really organizing and not just pushing emotional buttons? - from February 15, 2023 International Cadre School |
Question: Hi, Lyn. I don't really know how to say this question--I'm still thinking about it in my head. I was reading in The Science of Christian Economy on how you were saying the oligarchy--people like Russell, or the environmental movement--how they organize people by pushing emotional buttons, like "Well, don't you like clean water," and things like this. And sometimes, in the field, when you do a good job, and you're like, okay, well, how can I replicate this? Because you were saying the Socratic methods was scientific. Then sometimes, it's just like, well, did I just push a lot of emotional buttons, and tell people that the kids are starving in Africa, or--. How do you actually replicate having a good organizing day, and know that you've used the scientific methods, and not the same method as the oligarchy? LaRouche: Well, the first thing you do, usually, when you start any performance, musical composition, or otherwise, your attack on the first tone is crucial. It does not determine where you go, because if somebody attacks the first effort at conversation, and they may succeed in getting attention, but they lose it afterward, where do you go from there? So, as in any good composition, the first thing you do, is you get attention, get the person's attention by the attack. Now, do you lead them into the domain of the imagination, or don't you? The domain of the imagination is: You're coming up along the street on this guy, you know, or someplace else, and you say these magic words to the guy. And the guy turns around: "Nya, nya, nya. Waddaya want?" Now, if you give him a simple, straightforward answer, you may succeed, or you may not. But generally, if you tell him something which does not surprise him, it may end right there. He may take a piece of literature, read it, be interested, and talk to you about it in a later encounter. But it didn't work, otherwise. You didn't get an immediate response. Well, sometimes you're not going to get an immediate response, in any case. It doesn't make any difference. You're doing your job. You're impacting the population as a whole, which is what you intend to do. But also, you have to impact some individuals in an individual way, as a percentile of all your impacts. So, the question is: Are you getting them into the domain of the imagination? What's the domain of the imagination? They think you're going to say something. They've anticipated a whole list of things they think--. "I know what you're gonna say. What you're gonna say is this. Or you're gonna say this." "I wasn't going to say any of those things to you. What I was going to say was--." That's how it works isn't it? Because what you do, is you show insight into the population, and into the person who's coming up. And you've got to--you get an indication of someone who's approaching, you get a smell of what's going on there. You get a sense of a reaction, a body-language reaction, or something of that sort. Or you see the newspaper he's got under his arm, or something of that sort. So you've got an idea of what's on his mind, from what's happened in the world that day, from other things, from conditions. Therefore, you say, well, what he's thinking about is this. What he's not thinking about--which is more important to him than what he's thinking about--is the following. And now you've got music! "You were worried about the economy? You think it's gonna recover? Do you know that leading bankers don't believe it's ever gonna recover? Do you know what the solution is?" For example, just an example. But the way you're effective is: When you're thinking about not thinking at the person you're addressing, but thinking about the state of mind of the population, the members of the population, and reading the signs of the person you're encountering. Or, if you're really smart, and you've got a team of four or five people out there deployed along a sidewalk, and you've got a chance to qualify and size these guys up as they go through the barricades you've set up there, so to speak. And so, maybe the second or third person in the line will catch on to the psychology of the guy you're encountering, and will be smart enough to know what to say to get the guy involved in a serious mental exchange. "What'd you say? What'd you say? Well, maybe you're right. I dunno." And that's the way it works, isn't it? So the point is, is being alert. You have to be conscious of the mind of the person you're dealing with, you have to read the signs of the population that day, figure out what's on their minds; don't use a trite, obvious answer, say something which is not simply a trite thing they expect; because if you're saying what they already expect, what use are you to them? You're no use to them. If you present them, however, an idea that they didn't have, which is relevant to what's bothering them, then you have performed a useful act, for them. Now they're interested in what other kinds of useful acts or ideas you might also be a repository of. So the trick here is to be alert, to be artistic. Be like Furtwaengler: Always catch the performers by surprise, and then, you'll catch the audience by surprise, and then the performance will be successful. [applause] -30-
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