Talk:Saul Alinsky

Re non-NPOV and edits and WP:BRD

@ManfredHugh: re your recent edits: I recommend you read up on the "BOLD, revert, discuss cycle" – see WP:BRD. In particular: when your Bold edits have been reverted, do not simply repeat the edits (that would be WP:BRR), but open a discussion. Note that simply repeating questioned edits constitutes edit warring.

I reverted your edits (and will be doing so again) because they appear to be blatantly non-NPOV, evidenced particularly by your changing the section "Legacy and honors" to "Legacy and posthumous notoriety". Your other edits also seem inclined towards removal of postiive or laudatory content, with increased emphasis on contentious aspects.

I question why you have removed content about:

• his description as "the founder of modern community organizing".
• his graduation from UC.
• how the Depression changed his career plans.
• the "Employment" section, including is post-graduate work as a crimminologist?
• his comment on antisemitism.

And various laudatory comments that Alinsky:

• "championed new ways to organize the poor and powerless".
• is credited for laying the foundation for grassroots organizing.

For someone who has been editing for only a week (I presume you are not hiding any previous experience, correct?) you do need to come up to speed on the standards and modes by which things are done here. Do look into the various links in the "Welcome!" message on your talk page. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:13, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

@J.Johnson: Thanks. Yes I need to get up to speed on a number of things. I thought "NPOV" is all I had to go on. But I understand that your general objection is that my draft removes "positive or laudatory content, with increased emphasis on contentious aspects."

You wonder why I dropped the description of Alinsky as "the founder of modern community organizing". Although a reference is not provided for this, it is a legitimate un-contentious judgement (the gist of many of the contemporary references to Alinksy that I repeat). I grant that my introduction of Alinksy as "a pioneer of community organizing who won national recognition for his work though the Industrial Areas Foundation" seems unnecessarily weaker.

Where it reveals something of his contemporary standing and significance I do include laudatory praise, notably from Adlai Stevenson, but also Buckley's appreciation of Alinsky as being "very close to an organizational genius." There is also NYT report of Alinsky having been "hated and feared in high places from coast to coast", which for Alinsky himself would have been the highest praise. And that raises an important point.

The first objection to the original article (see above) was that omitted any and all "criticism". But this is not simply a matter of balance. Alinsky, and his strategic and tactical thinking, cannot be understood without appreciating the contention that surrounded him.

His Rules for Radicals were written as a "Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals" --a direct riposte to criticism from the would-be revolutionary New Left. You wouldn't know that for the original article. I mention and reference this criticism (while noting the New Left itself failed to link their own community organizing efforts to their larger ambitions and consequently abandoned the field). But note that I allow Alinksy, largely in his own pithy language, to dispose of his critics: revolutionary youth may have "few illusions about the system, but they have plenty of illusions about the way to change our world" etc.

It is also important to reference how Alinsky has figured in more contemporary political controversies, because it probably in relation to these that many readers will have first heard of Alinksy. I place the new right demonization of Alinksy in its obvious partisan light (as sticks with which to beat Hillary Clinton and Obama) so I don't think it requires much comment. But it is perhaps unfortunate that I did this under the section title "Legacy and Continued Notoriety". Replacing "Legacy and Honors" this might seem negative. Alinsky himself was proud of "notoriety" but it can suggest a value judgement. Perhaps better if I had written "Legacy and ontinued controversy".

A number of more specific points. My removal of:

• his graduation from UC. -- I mention that Alinksy received a graduate fellowship of UC, so it is clear he graduated.

• how the Depression changed his career plans. Actually, a fault with both the original article and mine, neither of us mention the Great Depression as such, but I explain what he was doing during those years (union organizing, resisting evictions, calling for pubic housing etc.) to move him toward community organizing. I didn't mention his aborted interest in archaeology--but how significant is that?

• the "Employment" section, including is post-graduate work as a crimminologist? All there and extended under "Path to community organizing."

• his comment on antisemitism. I did reference his response to being beaten up by Polish kids, and his Rabbi's wonderful admonition. But I think the comment about antisemitism being "so pervasive you didn't really even think about it" is important and should be included. (The reason I probably dropped is because Alinsky had tied this with the remark that as a child he had been "taught that gentiles were practically Mongoloids. And that kind of chauvinism is just as unhealthy as antisemitism"--which I didn't think it appropriate to repeat, not least because of the use of the term Mongoloid).

I think there is also I have been a concern in your reading about quotations that seem unnecessarily critical as descriptions of Alinsky's methods, such as rubbing "raw the sores of discontent' and compelling "action through agitation"--but that, I think, was Alinsky's own provocative language--I'd have to check.

Other points I will also try to address, and redraft. Thanks ManfredHugh (talk) 02:48, 21 November 2019 (UTC)ManfredHugh

Mentioning that he was headed for archaeology shows that there was a change of career direction, and could lead into why that happened.

"Continued [continuing?] controversy" would be part of his legacy, yes? Well, I'll leave that to you. Ask if you need any assistance or just want to discuss something. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:59, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Is there any particular reason for removing the mention of Alinsky receving the "Pacem in Terris" award? ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:56, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Frank Weissman doesn't have an entry?

/* "The myth of Saul Alinsky" */ Frank Weissman doesn't have an entry? https://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/14/nyregion/frank-riessman-79-dies-promoted-self-help-movement.html 71.11.254.3 (talk) 04:28, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Nitti liaisons...

This page is highly incomplete by not showing the ties between the gangster Frank Nitti and Alinsky. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 179.186.143.9 (talk) 17:39, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

This article reads like pop biography

This entire article is written like a 10th grade English assignment, filled with awkward quotes and folksy anecdotes.

Do quotes like these belong in a Wikipedia article?

The rabbi looked at him for a moment and said quietly, "You think you're a man because you do what everybody does. But I want to tell you something great: 'where there are no men, be thou a man'".

he hung out with Chicago's Al Capone mob (as they "owned the city", they felt they had little to hide from a "college kid"). "Among other things" about the exercise of power, what they taught him was "the terrific importance of personal relationships".

Alinsky said that he "knew the day of sit-ins had ended" when the executive of a military contractor showed him blueprints for the new corporate headquarters. "'And here', the executive said, 'is our sit-in-hall. [You will have] plenty of comfortable chairs, two coffee machines and lots of magazines . . . '". "You are not going to get anywhere", Alinsky concluded

FIGHT began to think of some "far-out tactics along the lines of our O'Hare shit in." This included a "fart-in" at the Rochester Philharmonic, Kodak's "cultural jewel." It was a proposal Alinsky considered "absurd rather than juvenile. But isn't much of life kind of a theater of the absurd?" No tactic that might work was "frivolous." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.47.233.127 (talk) 08:42, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

Your argument here is with Alinsky himself. These "folsky anecdotes" wouldn't belong in a Wikipedia article if they weren't his own. They betray his manner as a writer and as speaker which, no matter how we might ourselves judge them, is valid and important information for the reader.ManfredHugh (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 22:27, 23 November 2022‎ (UTC)

Further reading

Last month, to do justice to Alinsky, I inserted the category of 'Articles' under the heading of 'Further reading'. Doubtless those who are more familiar with Alinsky's legacy than myself will know that many more articles that have cited him have been published. I decided to stop citing articles arbitrarily, when I felt that I had cited enough of them. Perhaps other Wikipedians might have an opinion about whether it is appropriate to preface the articles that I have cited with a related disclaimer and/or to delete undeserving articles in favour of deserving ones. I should be very grateful for anyone's advice. John Desmond (talk) 09:53, 5 July 2023 (UTC)