What's Our Problem?: A Self-Help Book for Societies

by Tim Urban

Common-humanity rhetoric Look at a successful progressive movement of the past and you’ll hear a lot of “common-humanity” rhetoric—the kind captured by civil rights activist Pauli Murray in her essay An American Credo: I intend to destroy segregation by positive and embracing methods. When my brothers try to draw a circle to exclude me, I shall draw a larger circle to include them. Where they speak out for the privileges of a puny group, I shall shout for the rights of all mankind. This kind of language, which speaks directly to people’s Higher Minds, builds the broad coalitions that can create seismic change. SJF speaks instead to people’s Primitive Minds using the “with us or against us” language of “common-enemy” rhetoric—while stigmatizing common-humanity rhetoric like “there is only one race, the human race” as bigotry. Common-enemy rhetoric creates division and limits the movement’s size and ability to make enduring change.