Sustained political mobilization cannot rest on rational argument alone

Evidence

What follows is not a romanticization of the tribal. Indeed, “Pterodactyl” is a critique of any such effort. The following paragraphs outline a dream based on the conviction that large-scale mind change is hardly ever possible on grounds of reason alone. In order to mobilize for non-violence, for example, one relies, however remotely, on building up a conviction of the “sacredness” of human life. “Sacred” here need not have a religious sanction, but simply a sanction that cannot be contained within the principle of reason alone. Nature is no longer sacred in this sense for civilizations based on the control of Nature. The result is global devastation due to a failure of ecology. It is noticeable that the less advantaged groups among the Indian tribals still retain this sense as a matter of their cultural conformity, if only because they have been excluded from the mainstream. It is also true that more self-conscious First Nation groups such as the Canadian Native American Movement use this possibility of cultural conformity precisely to mobilize for ecological sanity as well as against historical injustice. What we are dreaming of here is not how to keep the tribal in a state of excluded cultural conformity but how to construct a sense of sacred Nature which can help mobilize a general ecological mindset beyond the reasonable and self-interested grounds of longterm global survival. — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader, 2204

Categorization

• XREF: This overturns the Enlightenment/rationalist assumption that reason alone persuades — echoes the rhetorical-persuasion lineage from Aristotle through Burke that large-scale conversion needs non-rational ‘sacredness’ that reason cannot authorize. — connects to: Political knowledge alone cannot enable visible political engagement — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics: how Americans…, 1189; Popular mobilization requires concrete concessions, not abstract appeals — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 501
• DEFINE: Clarifies that ‘sacred’ here means any sanction beyond the principle of reason, deliberately drained of religious content — a precise redefinition central to her ecological politics.

Broader Connections

• Political knowledge alone cannot enable visible political engagement #expands (0.85) — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics, 1189
• Popular mobilization requires concrete concessions, not abstract appeals #corroborates (0.85) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 501