Sunday Sermon: does negativity work?

In this week’s Sunday Sermon Jim Jepps wonders whether negative campaigning actually works.

We are all doomed. In the long run everyone of us will die. At some point in the future even the human race will cease to be. And then, at last, the universe itself faces a slow and steady heat death followed by emptiness.

These are just some of the thoughts we don’t tend to consider when popping out for a pint of milk or washing the kitchen floor. Mainly we crack on with life without debilitating ourselves with paralyzing negativity about facts that are undenbiably true.

It’s an ongoing dilemma for campaigner too. When people want change it’s often because they want to end something they see as bad in order to replace it with something they see as good. This inevitably involves convincing others that the bad things are bad then, as an optional extra, you might want to propose an alternative that would be better. Or you could just stick to how rubbish everything is.

The problem is that to motivate others you need to convince them that there’s  problem, but if you spend all your time extolling how imperfect the world it is as likely to provoke apathy as anarchy as people add your issue to the list of things they don’t feel they can do anything about.

Add to this that in our personal lives we don’t tend to want to hang out with people who are always moaning or, even worse, angry. When we don’t find anger or negativity attractive in our personal lives why would we think this would attract recruits to a political campaign? The last thing most people want to do is hang out with people who are really angry about something, even if it’s justified anger. But if we haven’t convinced people of the need for change then they aren’t going to join the cause either. Bugger!

Some examples

Climate activists are increasingly aware that consistently screaming “WE’RE DOOMED!” turns people off as well as light bulbs. Promoting positive and practical local change has been far more effective at winning new recruits but there is little chance of transforming those actions into the kind of significant political, social and economic changes required to avert climate chaos.

Likewise with the current cycle safety protests that have done such a sterling job of highlighting dangerous junctions in the capital. Without a layer of angry, militant cyclists and road safety campaigners Transport for London and the Mayor would have happily trotted along ignoring the issue in the name of keeping cars flowing. Nor is the war won yet and we’ll no doubt have edgy confrontations to come on the issue in order to save lives.

However, there is a kernel of truth to one argument the Tories are making on the issue. They’ve argued that, in fact, cycling is one of the safest forms of transport going and that by highlighting deaths on roads it will discourage others from getting on their bikes. One of the biggest factors in encouraging people to ride, particularly women, is convincing them that it is safe to do so.

This is not a justification for ignoring road safety, just the opposite in fact, but the more effective protesters are at highlighting road deaths the less likely people are to keep pedaling away on London’s roads.

So cycle campaigners are caught in a bind. It is imperative to prevent the needless loss of life due to carelessly designed junctions but it is also essential to get more cyclists on the roads, which involves promoting the idea that it is good for you, fun and that you’ll arrive at your destination with all your limbs attached to your torso.

What to do?

Perhaps part of the answer is to simply ensure that we only get negative when it’s absolutely necessary. After all if we have the reputation of moaning about everything we’ll get ignored when it really counts. It’s important that a large bulk of what we have to say, whatever our sphere of interest, is useful, practical and positive.

Part of the answer is certainly that we should never complain about something without suggesting a positive alternative. No opposition without proposition as London’s Green MEP Jean Lambert is fond of saying. If we protest about a library closing but have no idea how it might be kept open then we’re just wasting everyone’s time.

I’d also say it’s worth looking at how we campaign *against* problems. It’s not practically possible to always frame things in a faux-positive way. Being against a war is, technically, being for peace – but the key point is to stop the bombs not set up peace gardens, and that can’t get lost in well intentioned waffle. However, when it’s possible to do so the right thing to do is to demonstrate a better way.

In the London Mayoral elections we’re likely to hear a lot of negative baiting between rival candidates. Sometimes that’s unavoidable, if boring and difficult for most of those not involved in politics to relate to. I’d far rather hear the case for voting Green, for example, than hear the case for why Boris Johnson is rubbish as Mayor. Perhaps that’s just me.

I used to know a photographer for a local paper who, whenever he had to take pictures of a protest or picket, would ask everyone to frown, or look angry. I always used to argue we should smile and look happy to be there.

Of course we were angry about the issue at hand, but we were also feeling good to come together and try to do something about it. We were doing something positive about a negative thing and we should feel good about that. As it happens we also wanted others to join us next time so giving the impression we were all humourless rage-bots wasn’t likely to bring in anyone but the most dogmatic. Certainly violent demonstrations and kettling in recent years has kept some would be protesters away from the marches – even ones that were extremely unlikely to get violent.

So, essentially we’ve been handed an insurmountable problem by life. If you campaign negatively you limit the number of ‘normal’ people who are likely to pitch in and help, but if you don’t do enough to convince people the world needs changing then you wont motivate anyone at all. I guess the key is to bear it in mind, avoid rhetoric and hyperbole and most of all at least try to pretend you’re a normal human being rather than a seasoned campaigner with the battle scars and distorted personality to prove it.