Page 16 RAIN April 1981 ORGANIZING Preventing Burnout in the Public Interest Community, by William L. Bryan, Fall 1980 issue (Vol. 3, No.3) of The NRAG Papers, $3.00 from: Northern Rockies Action Group 9 Placer Street Helena, MT 59601 406/442-6615 You don't have to work for a public interest group per se to need this paper! Burnout affects us all: it makes us unhappy and less productive, causes the quality of our work to deteriorate, and pushes us to quit or move along ; it contributes to high staff turnover in our organizations, with consequent lack of continuity, follow-through, and momentum ; and it reduces the overall effectiveness of our organizations individually and collectively. Many of us working to create a more socially and ecologically balanced society find it hard to create balance where we can really have an immediate effect: in our workplaces and in our own lives. Bryan is a veteran social activist who discusses burnout with both the sensitivity of personal experience and the sensibility of holistic analysis. Among the causes of burnout Bryan includes external pressures, lack of direction in the work environment, inability to say "No," uncertainty of rewards, lack of security, "the Ralph Nader Syndrome" (one politically correct social change lifestyle-austerity coupled with overwork) , and inappropriate work habits. Organizational suggestions for preventing burnout include planning, evaluation, reward systems, and an "atmosphere of centeredness." For individuals Bryan discusses personal support groups and planning, stress management techniques , preventive heal til! 00 not bum yourselves out. Be as I am. A reluctant enthusiast and part-time crusader. A half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the west. It is even more important to enjoy it while you can, while it's still there. 50 get out there, hunt, fish, mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, encounter the griz, climb a mountain, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and elusiv~ air. Sit quietly for a while and contemplate the previous stillness of the lovely, mysterious, and techniques, having fun, and spirituality. Bryan's paper is full of good ideas and suggestions. Perhaps the most lmusual is that of "developing a public interest profession" in which, as in more traditional professions, people would help each other with skills and training, financial management, retirement policies, retreats, conventions, etc. While some might find this a rather corporatesounding model, one can make a strong case for it in terms of preventing burnout. To stimulate discussion on this and other issues Bryan raises, readers are invited to contri bute short comments for a proposed follow-up paper. If yours is a labor of love, dedication and commitment, it may also be a labor that is short-lived if you don't take care of yourself. We owe it to ourselves And to each other to make long-term social change work rewarding, satisfying and healthy. - MR f? :;: ~ ~ ~ The "Ralph Nader Syndrome." awesome space. Enjoy yourselves. Keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive. And I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound people with their hearts in safe deposit boxes and their eyes hypnotized by their desk calculators. I promise you this: You will outlive the bastards. -Edward Abbey, a speecll to environmentalists in Missoula, Montana, 1978. From Preventing Burnout The Backyard Revolution: Understanding the New Citizen Movement, by Hany C. Boyte, 1980, 271 pp., $14.95 from: Temple University Press Broad & Oxford Streets Philadelphia, PA 19122 If you think nothing happened during the '70s, this book will set you straight. The Backyard Revolution reads like an "insider's guide" to the citizen movement. Well-documented and drawing upon dozens of interviews, here is the history of the Fair Share and PIRG (Public Interest Research Group) organizations, the Midwest Academy, the Conference on Alternative State and Local Policies , etc. From the contributions of Saul Alinsky, often considered the father of community organizing, to the efforts of housewife-turned-citizen-activist Anne Johnson, this book chronicles the numerous and exciting achievements of the last decade, achievements which show that everyday people "can learn the public skills necessary for exercising some control over their lives and institutions and can rebuild community in an often depersonalized society." Positing that only the mobilized power of the people can prevail against corporate power in America today, Boyte roots democratic consciousness in democratic experience. " The citizen movement largely grows out of those places which have not been destroyed by the force of contemporary Iifefamilies, religious groups, civic traditions, ethnic organizations, neighborhoods, and so forth. And the movement incubates an alternative vision, seeking to preserve people's heritage while it also changes society." The citizen movement has not been much aligned with the left, a weakness Boyte attributes to the left. " The left- wing view of social movement is simply wrong, inattentive to the complexity of tradition, the internal changes that occur within traditional communities in the course of protest, and the multi-dimensionality of sodal movement itself. " Boyte and the people he chronicles are as pragmatic in their thinking as Alinsky himself was. Consequently movements like the women's movement or the antinuclear movement, which challenge not only single issues but the very legitimacy of the entire system, are sometimes considered with impatience. Writing about the antinuclear alliances, for example, Boyte argues that " anarchic meetings, organizations without structure, decision making that dragged on until a consensus was reached-all features of the chaotic 'participatory democracy' of the new left in the '60s-mitigated against involvement of ordinary men and women with family and work responsibilities and little interest in the counterculture." High points of the book include a good overview section on the economics of self-reliance; an excellent chapter on the demise of people from citizens to consumers to clients to computer cards, and the prospects for
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTc4NTAz