Who are you Guys?


This exercise was run in April 2024 at a weekly North Spaulding Renters Association (N.S.R.A.) cadre meeting.

Problems (i.e. why the exercise was done):
Problem 1:  As an organization develops and encounters new people, the way members describe the organization must also develop.

Problem 2:  It is often easier to explain your organization generally (i.e. we are tenants who fight our landlord) than to develop a description that incorporates any of the different aspects and principles of your organization.

Techniques Deployed:
Writing instead of talking
Describe it again

Modes:
Particularization

Materials:
Small (2in x 2in) slips of paper

Half sheets of paper

Large (3ft x 3ft) sheet of paper

Writing utensils

Pins may be useful

Participant numbers:
Minimum participants: 2

Maximum participants: n/a

Group size: All run in one group.


How long does it take?
20 minutes

~ Instructions ~

The facilitator writes one principle on each small slip of paper, making sure there are at least as many principles as participants. The point of these is to help each participant describe a concrete experience of the organization, so it is not essential that there is total agreement on the principles. You can come up with a list of your organization’s principles or you can choose them from the list below.

A list of 20 principles: Be Serious, Take Class Into Account, Develop Revolutionary Culture, Humility/Openness, Experimentation (Scientific), Patience, Attention to Detail, Habit of Criticism, Everyone Can Teach, Be Principled, Take Study Seriously, Think about Short Term and Long Term, Be Open to Discomfort, Take Risks, Work with the Masses, Develop and Present Theory Collectively, Commitment to Organization, Sacrifice, Focus, Archive Your Work

Pin the slips of paper up on the wall, with the principle facing the wall so no one can see what the principles are. During the whole exercise, only one person should see each principle. Alternatively, you can fold the slips and place them in a bowl.




[1 minute] Principle Picking
Take a slip of paper from the wall and take it back to your seat. Do NOT show anyone what is on your slip.                  

Distribute the half sheets of paper to each participant.

[5 minutes] Concretize your principle
Write for five minutes about a concrete example of when the organization has practiced this principle. Do not use the actual principle in your example e.g. do not say ‘We Take Class into Account when…’.

Give examples:

Take Class into Account
In our research for the summer, we looked at specific neighborhoods and then decided to visit laundromats rather than table at the same Logan Square Farmers Market again and again.

Habit of Criticism
Taking the time to write reports and reflecting on how we did, how others acted, and how we’d act differently.



[5 minutes] Describe the organization
Now pass your sheet of paper to the left while making sure that the original principle remains hidden/with you/in your pocket.

Now, read the example your comrade wrote. Think about what principle you think they were responding to. You can write this somewhere or keep it in your head.


The facilitator should then come up with a specific scenario where someone is asking about the organization. In April 2024, this scenario involved a working-class tenant asking about NSRA during a tabling session at a laundromat.

Imagine that someone just asked you about our organization [describe specific scenario]. Using the principle you derived from your comrade’s example, write for five minutes on the same sheet of paper as if you were describing the organization to this person.

Examples:

Original: Take Class into Account, Guess: Seriousness

We put a lot of time and thought into the work we are doing to make tenants take back control of their homes, together. It may seem crazy to some people the amount of time we spend working on this, but we feel there’s nothing more important.

Original: Habit of Criticism, Guess: ???

We are a tenant union. We help tenants fight bad landlords. Our organization is dedicated to learning from our mistakes. We want to help people really take control of their homes. The way to do this is never clear, there are many dead ends and false paths. Because of this, we have to always pay attention to what we’re doing and where it is leading us.

Original: Develop Revolutionary Culture, Guess: ???

We are an organization of tenants who work hard and study hard together in the pursuit of a brighter horizon. We figure out new ways to learn and teach from one another and our conditions to change ourselves and the org and the world around. We do our very best to welcome others into this curiosity with seriousness and dedication.


Pin the large paper up on the wall and divide it into even sections, as many as there are participants

[10 minutes] Share
Now each of you will come up and share what you wrote. The group will try to guess what principle you used. Write these in one section of the sheet of paper, and then say what principle you used.

Then read the concrete example written by your comrade that you derived this principle from, and ask that comrade to share what principle they took from the wall.

You will then pin your sheet in the section you wrote. Your comrade will come up and pin their principle beneath it. We will do this until we’ve all gone.




Criticism / Results of this exercise

  • This was originally developed as a criticism exercise, but there ended up being no explicit criticism involved. Two examples of how it could be turned into a criticism exercise are: 
    • critiquing pre-existing descriptions of the organization, by starting from the descriptors (as the ten principles) and then by the end adopting the new principles that the group had derived from the concrete examples. 
    • having people write concrete examples of when the organization failed to live up to the principles and creating critical descriptions of the organization from those (this would be a completely different exercise). 

  • It was often difficult to pinpoint the principle used in the descriptions, certain principles seemed to bleed into each other. This exercise should help people start to differentiate. 

  • The principles were derived from an exercise run at the School of Many Questions that involved a majority of the N.S.R.A. members who participated in this exercise. There should be at least an implicit agreement on certain principles in the organization in order to run this.

  • The last part has the potential to drag on and devolve into tiring discussion. It should be stressed that the goal of the last part isn’t to be correct and argue about what the principle was, but to make people practice abstracting things from the world in front of them. This should be done quickly, no more than a minute.

  • In one example where this exercise was run in England, people became invested in trying to ‘correctly’ guess the original principle. It’s possible that this can be avoided by explaining to people that the aim is to develop concrete descriptions, and that the initial principles are jumping off points for a more particular or concrete type of description.




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