So what does this have
to do with the price of fish? Well, I realised that when talking
about liberty and freedom to random people I have often taken the
same approach as Barry. “What? You don't know about fractional
reserve banking?! Sit down while I lecture you aggressively for
twenty minutes. Don't worry, it's going to be okay.”
When Caity and I
interviewed Darrell Becker from VoluntaryVisions.com he gave us some
great ideas for strategies when talking to other people based on
non-violent communication. But a week or so after our interview I
found myself getting over excited and lecturing people just as I
always had.
Since realising this a while ago I have tried to figure out why I am so aggressive. I could put it down to extreme passion to spread the philosophy of liberty or extreme frustration that more people don't understand (or don't care about) this stuff. Either way, this is clearly not the approach that is going to work. I realised that you cannot bully people into accepting your philosophy. Then I had a more disturbing realisation, who are the real Barry's of the world? They clearly are the statists, dictators, politicians etc. I say this because even though Barry sold the records, he was selling them through coercion and shame – the same way the public is sold welfare and government schools. “You don't want to help the poor? Don't tell anyone.” And as you begrudgingly hand over your tax money you hear “Don't worry, it's going to be okay.” And so just like the bemused man in the movie handing over his money for the records he feels he must buy because of the shame and aggressive sales tactics so the average person is left with useless government programs that help no-one but feels (out of misplaced guilt) that they must hand over their money for them.
I began to contemplate
people who had inspired me philosophically (not just libertarians)
and I immediately thought of Murray Rothbard, Walter Block, Alan Watts, Bill Buppert
and Neil Kramer (among others). When I think of how these speakers talk and what
drew me to their work, I realised that it was largely the humour and
the lightness they bring to their subjects. They engage on a
conversational level without having to raise their voices and jump
all over the person they are talking to. In tone they are more like
Dick than Barry and in reaching me it certainly worked.
The conclusion I have
come to is that if we are serious about spreading liberty we have to
be more like Dick in this analogy. We have to find common ground and
build on it gently and in good humour, we can't preach non aggression
physically and engage in aggression verbally to get our point across,
all that does is make us look philosophically inconsistent not to
mention alienating the people with whom we are speaking. What I am
saying here is not new, many libertarians (and people with other
beliefs) have said the same thing many times, it's just that many of
haven't been really listening and if we truly want liberty then
that's what we must begin to do.
