Moderates and Militants

As applied to protests against institutional policies or practices, moderates are the embodiment of reason, civility, and decorum. They get angry but do not shout, issue pamphlets but never manifestos, inveigh against social mores but always in the value language of the social order. Their "devil" is a condition or a set of behaviors or an outcast group, never the persons they are seeking to influence. Those persons are assumed to be capable of "listening to reason."

If moderates assume or pretend to assume an ultimate identity of interests between the movement and its antagonists, militant rhetors act on the assumption of a fundamental clash of interests. Each can boast support from proud philosophical traditions. The moderate's commitment to friendly persuasion is rooted in the Greco-Roman democratic tradition, in Judeo-Christian conceptions of the brotherhood of man, in Emerson's faith in human educability, and in John Stuart Mill's conviction that truth will survive any open competition of ideas. Militants, by contrast, are inclined to be mistrustful of ordinary citizens or to assume that the systems they oppose are likely to be intractable. Like Karl Marx, they are apt to believe that the masses have lost sight of their "real" interests or that those in power are unlikely to surrender it willingly. Although Machiavelli wrote for princes and not for protestors, the militant is inclined to accept that writer's view of persuasion as an adjunct to force rather than its alternative. Likewise, the militant would probably go along with Henry James when he wrote, "Life is, in fact, a battle. Evil is insolent and strong; beauty enchanting but rare; goodness very apt to be weak, folly very apt to be defiant; wickedness to carry the day; imbeciles to be in great places, people of sense in small, and mankind generally unhappy."

This is not to say that militants offer no appeals to shared values. They do, indeed, but in ways that call into question other widely held values. In general, the militant tends to express greater degrees of dissatisfaction than the moderate. Whereas the moderate tends to ask "how" questions, the militant asks "whether" questions. Whereas the moderate sees "inefficiencies" in existing practices, the militant sees "inequities." Whereas the moderate might regard authority figures as "misguided" though "legitimate," the militant would tend to regard these same figures as "willfully self-serving" and "illegitimate." Whereas both might pay homage to law, the militant is more apt to derogate human laws in the name of "higher" laws. Thus, for example, some anti-abortionists have interpreted biblical writ as justification for bombings of abortion clinics.

The actions of militants are not all of a piece by any means. The practice of classic civil disobedience, for example, borders on being intermediate between militancy and moderacy. To test the constitutionality of a law, that law is violated. However, the law in question is violated openly and nonviolently, no other laws are breached in the process, the rights of innocent persons are not interfered with, and, if found guilty the law violator willingly accepts punishment.

Contrast this strategy with acts that can more clearly be labeled combative in nature: strikes, riots, political bombings and kidnappings -- all the way to organized guerrilla warfare. By means of verbal polemics and direct action techniques, protestors who practice combative persuasion threaten, harass, cajole, disrupt, provoke, intimidate, coerce. Although the aim of pressure tactics may be to punish directly (strikes, boycotts), more frequently they are forms of "body rhetoric," designed to dramatize issues, enlist additional sympathizers, delegitimize the established order, and -- except in truly revolutionary situations -- force reconsideration of existing laws and practices, or pave the way for negotiated settlements.

So different are the rhetorical conceptions of moderate and militant strategists that it strains the imagination to believe both approaches may work. Yet the decisive changes wrought by militant rhetorics on the left and the right in recent years give credence to the view that friendly persuasion is not the only alternative. What, then, in general terms are the strengths and limitations of moderate and militant approaches?

(1) Militant tactics confer visibility on a movement; moderate tactics gain entry into decision centers.

(2) For different reasons, militants and moderates must both be ambivalent about success and failures. Militants thrive on injustice and ineptitude displayed by their targets. Should the enemy fail to implement the movement's demands, militants find themselves vindicated ideologically, yet frustrated programmatically. Should some of the demands be met, they are in the paradoxical position of having to condemn them as palliatives. Moderates, by contrast, require tangible evidence that the larger structure is tractable in order to hold followers in line; yet too much success belies the movement's reason for being.

(3) Militant supporters are easily energized; moderate supporters are more easily controlled. Strong identification by members with the goals of a movement -- however necessary to achieve esprit de corps -- may foster the conviction that any means are justified and breed impatience with time-consuming tactics. The use of violence and other questionable means may be prompted further by restrictions on legitimate avenues of expression imposed by the larger society. As a result, leaders may be required to mask the movement's true objectives, publicly disclaim the use of tactics they privately advocate, promise what they cannot deliver, exaggerate the strength of the movement, and so on. A vicious cycle develops in which militant tactics invite further suppression, which spurs the movement on to more extreme methods. Having aroused their following, however, the leaders of a militant movement may become victims of their own creation, unable to contain energies within prescribed limits or to guarantee their own tenure. Leaders of moderate groups frequently complain that their supporters are apathetic, lip-service adherents who cannot be depended upon for the work of the movement.

(4) Militants are effective with power-vulnerables; moderates are effective with power-invulnerables; neither is effective with both. Targets of protest may be labeled as power-vulnerable to the degree to which (a) they have something to lose (for example, property, status, high office); (b) they cannot escape from a source's pressure (unlike suburbanites, for example, who could escape, physically or psychologically, from the ghetto riots of the sixties); (c) they cannot retaliate against a source (either because of normative or physical constraints). Such targets as university presidents, church leaders, and elected government officials are highly vulnerable--especially if they profess to be "high-minded" or "liberal"--compared to the mass of citizens who may lack substantial possessions, be able to escape, or feel no constraints about retaliating. The latter are power-invulnerables.

In choosing between moderate and militant strategies, the protest leader faces a series of dilemmas: neither approach is likely to meet every rhetorical requirement or resolve every rhetorical problem; indeed, the introduction of either approach may create new problems.

So it is that the leadership of a protest movement may attempt to resolve or avoid the aforementioned dilemmas by employing intermediate strategies, admittedly a catchall term for those efforts that combine militant and moderate patterns of influence. They may alternate between appeals to common ground and threats of punishment, or speaking softly in private and stridently at mass gatherings. They may form broadly based coalitions that submerge ideological differences or utilize speakers with similar values but contrasting styles. They may stand as "conservative radicals" or "radical conservatives," espousing extreme demands in the value language of the social order or militant slogans in behalf of moderate proposals. In defense of moderacy, they may portray themselves as brakemen holding back more militant followers.

Intermediacy can be a dangerous game. Calculated to energize supporters, win over neutrals, pressure power-vulnerables, and mollify the opposition, it may end up antagonizing everyone. The turned phrase may easily appear as a devilish trick, the rationale as a rationalization, the tactful comment as an artless dodge. To the extent that strategies of intermediacy require studied ambiguity, insincerity, and even distortion, perhaps the leaders' greatest danger is that others will find out what they really think.

Still, some strategists manage to reconcile differences between militant and moderate approaches and not simply maneuver around them. They seem able to convince the established order that bad-tasting medicine is good for it and seem capable, too, of mobilizing a diverse collectivity within the movement. The key, it would appear, is the leader's capacity to embody a higher wisdom, a more profound sense of justice: to stand above inconsistencies by articulating overarching principles. Few will contest the claim that Martin Luther King, Jr., epitomized the approach. Attracting both militants and moderates to his movement, King could win respect, even from his enemies, by reconciling the seemingly irreconcilable. The heart of the case for intermediacy was succinctly stated by King himself: "What is needed," he said, "is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love."