Easing Tensions Between Political and Cultural Work 

Written by John Rensenbrink, co-editor of Green Horizon Quarterly

Ever since the Green movement/Green Party was founded in 1984 in the United States, a debate has swirled over the relative merits of Green Party electoral activity and movement activity. The labor movement of the late 19th century and well into the 20th was embroiled in the same rugged debate. Efforts by Tony Mazzochi and other labor leaders to create a Labor Party in the 1990s provoked a similar question but the answer was to go slow on fielding candidates. The party gradually faded away. The New Party, also in the1990s, was strong on issue activism but hedged its bets on running candidates, running some in concert with Democratic Party candidates. The New Party also faded away.

The debate ebbs and flows, but it continues within the ranks of the Green Party and also among activists in various issue campaigns who might, or might not, be ready to join the Green Party.

One can fairly say that Green Party members divide three ways in this debate: those who put electoral work at the very top, those who put issue activism at the very top, and those who strive to do and balance both. True enough, they all try to support Green Party electoral campaigns, and support Green Party members who gain public office, but the nature and degree of that support varies markedly.  Tensions are chronic. Misunderstandings of one another’s commitment and motivation abound.

It should be noted that non-electoral activity itself divides into a variety of commitments and actions. These include but are not limited to: organizing and demonstrating for peace, creating an eco-community, setting up a mutual bartering network on the model of the Ithaca Hours, founding and maintaining an alternative radio station, initiating and maintaining a food coop or, even more ambitiously, a community-supported-agriculture food circle, pushing hard for single payer health care legislation, setting up an educational and cultural research center, creating a support system for alternative energy, preserving open space, promoting conservation at the community level, and engaging in confrontational direct action.  Some Greens with massive energy and time engage in more than one of these— as well as being available to provide their signatures to get Green Party candidates on the ballot and voting for Green candidates on election day. But usually, and generally, there is time and motivation for only one above all others.  Again this can be a source of divisive concern, misunderstanding and chronic tension.

The Green Horizon Quarterly is dedicated to doing two things to enable Greens and their like-minded allies to manage the debate and eventually to heal and surmount the hard edges of the debate. One of these things is to acknowledge and illustrate that the debate exists. It should not be covered up. The other thing is to explore ways in which the debate and the tensions surrounding it can be dealt with and overcome.

GHQ thinks that the heart of the matter is a tug-of-war. It occurs within each person as well as between persons and between whole groups. One is pulled towards political work and one is pulled towards cultural work. Actually, and at least in concept, there is no innate incompatibility between these two, even though the first, if pushed to its limits, is steeped in calculation and the second, if pushed to the its limits, is fixated on education.

GHQ believes that both impulses are valid and that projects and causes that acknowledge both are valid and necessary, just as projects and causes that claim priority for one or the other are also valid and necessary. This is not a smorgasboard of nice things to do and be for. Not at all. What is precious, when we find it, is the will and the willingness to see both ends of the spectrum and to respect all efforts in between with equal consciousness and life-giving support. It’s the exclusionary attitude that needs to be revealed and understood. The exclusionary attitude and approach is: “It’s my way (or my group’s way) of doing it, it’s my way of thinking about it, that is the only and proper way to go.” Though opposed to an exclusionary attitude and approach, GHQ wants not to sit in judgment, but to be a vehicle in which this is revealed where it exists and can be critically understood.

GHQ presents a kaleidescope of ways to do things and ways to think about these things.  We provide a space in which the full panoply of both political and cultural work is presented, critically examined, and celebrated.

GHQ believes that the Green Party only effectively swims in the sea of the Green movement, not outside of it.  We also believe that the Green Party is the political arm of the Green movement. Both of these statements need constant critical examination and full respect.  GHQ is dedicated to doing just that.

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