Part of a Series: The Freethinkers’ Political Textbook

Summary:

• This post outlines the goals of an upcoming series of posts called “The Freethinkers’ Political Textbook“.
• The aim of the series is to provide practical, empirically-grounded advice for Humanist and freethinking organizations on how to conduct political campaigns, create advertising materials, write persuasive pamphlets, and generally influence the public more effectively.
• Author James Croft outline the experience and qualifications which equips him to write this series.

The Freethinkers’ Pictorial Textbook

In the late 1800s, Watson Heston, a freethinking cartoonist from Missouri, published the Freethinkers’ Pictorial Textbook, a collection of cartoons designed to depict and critique “the absurdity and untruthfulness of the Church’s claim to be a divine and beneficent institution and…the abuses of a union of church and state”. A blistering attack on the abuses of church authority, the Textbook is still one of the most powerful collections of freethinking images ever created, harnessing the power of evocative drawing to show the difference between a world exalted by reason and compassion, and a world dragged-down by dogma and superstition.

Take the Freethought Road!

Leading People Up the Freethought Road

The Textbook is not just a historical curiosity: it is a political work, seeking to use powerful, emotive images to sway the viewer toward supporting freethinking values and, as such, is represents one of the most effective uses of art to promote freethinking that has ever been created. Heston understood that we Humanists are working within a cultural marketplace of hearts and minds (in that order), and that if we want the world to become more reasonable, more compassionate, more scientific, less dogmatic, and less authoritarian – if we want more Americans to take the Freethought Road – we must persuade them to do so.

As I have argued elsewhere, the Humanist movement seems peculiarly averse to harnessing the arts, narrative, music, imagery, symbolism and, more broadly, the emotions to promote its values and persuade the public. We often seem emotionally tone-deaf when we reach out to the broader public, creating appeals more likely to enrage than to entice. Ad campaigns for atheist and Humanist organizations are often badly-conceived, poorly-designed, and lacking a clear emotional message. They are frequently targeted without a thorough understanding of the different audiences who might be receptive to our message. We tend to react to attacks on our values, rather than forcing our ideological opponents onto the defensive with initiatives of our own. As such, although the American public often shares our values (a commitment to science, or the the separation between church and state, for example), we punch below our weight, and find ourselves scrabbling to defend old victories against a better-organized, more energetic, more emotionally compelling religious right.

This state of affairs is particularly strange given the reams of evidence available regarding what makes for an effective political campaign. For decades scientists, pollsters, advertisers, marketeers and politicians have conducted experiments to determine what works, empirically, when trying to persuade the public. As a self-identified rationalist movement, one might think we would be up-to-date with the latest findings, and would be using them methodically to get our message across. On the contrary. It seems very few of our movement organizations have grappled with the necessity of framing, have investigated the political brain and what it can teach us, have studied the role of narrative and storytelling in persuasion, or have harnessed the insights of effective community organizers. Instead of developing a guiding persuasive strategy, based on the best science and expertise, the Humanist movement too often lurches from one ill-conceived campaign to another, with no master narrative, no connecting themes, and little grasp of the importance of the gut.

What’s needed, I believe, is a Freethinkers’ Political Textbook - a series of articles on all the latest findings relating to how to move people to your position, specifically designed to help Humanists and freethinkers effectively appeal to the public on issues that they care about. This introduction is the first post in such a series. It will tackle the principles of persuasion, analyze examples of effective and ineffective freethought activism, and provide concrete suggestions to improve current and create future campaigns. It will draw on a range of empirical findings from psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience, political science, organizing literature and more to ensure, to the greatest degree possible, that the insights offered are well-supported (what are my qualifications for writing this? Take a look at the “About Me” section below).

By taking to heart the best advice that science has to offer on the subject of effective persuasion, the Humanist movement will become better at convincing people to take up and support freethinking values. As our cultural and political influence grows, we’ll lead more and more up the Freethought Road!

About Me

In addition to my work as a philosopher at Harvard, I’ve been a political activist since my teens, working with the UK’s Liberal Democrat party in various roles as a volunteer in political campaigns. There I learnt how to go door to door convincing people to put up signs in support of our candidate, how to respond to constituents’ concerns over the phone, how to conduct effective petitions, and the traits of good political candidates. I continued my activism as a student at Cambridge, where I was Education Campaigns Officer for my Student Union. As an actor and singer with over 50 public performance credits to my name, I have honed the art of using my body as an instrument to convey ideas and emotions.  As a high school debater, and later a high school teacher, I learned how to speak effectively in front of a hostile crowd, and win them over.

Now, in Boston, I’m a board-member of Join the Impact MA (a direct action gay rights activist group), and travel around the country speaking on Humanism as a member of the Speaker’s Bureaus of the American Humanist Association, the Center for Inquiry, and the Secular Student Alliance. I help teach Persuasion: The Science and Art of Effective Influence with Gary Orren at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government – a class President Obama himself took as a graduate student, and which he credited for some of his success. I have studied and helped teach Public Narrative with Marshall Ganz, legendary community organizer who created Camp Obama, the community-organizing training program credited with much of the success of Obama’s Presidential Campaign. My final speech for that class is now used to teach Public Narrative to others, alongside speeches by Obama and Gandhi.