Getting beyond the impossibly perfect standard

Paul Rogat Loeb

Gandhi's grandson, Arun Gandhi, tells the story of how his grandfather's family mortgaged everything they had--their land, their jewelry, everything of value--to send Gandhi to law school. Gandhi graduated and passed the bar but was so shy that, when he stood up in court, all he could do was stammer. He couldn't get a sentence out in defense of his clients. As a result, he lost every one of his cases and was a total failure as a lawyer. His family didn't know what do to. Finally, they sent him off to South Africa, where he found his voice by challenging that country's racial segregation.

I like viewing Gandhi not as the master strategist of social change that he became later, but as someone who at first was tongue-tied and intimidated. His story is a caution against the impulse to try to achieve perfection before we even begin our journey of working for social change. "I think it does us all a disservice," says Atlanta activist Sonya Vetra Tinsley, "when people who work for social change are presented as saints--so much more noble than the rest of us. We get a false sense that from the moment they were born they were called to act, never had doubts, were bathed in a circle of light. But I'm much more inspired learning how people succeeded despite their failings and uncertainties. It's a much less intimidating image. It makes me feel like I have a shot at changing things too."

Sonya had attended a talk by one of Martin Luther King's Morehouse professors, in which he mentioned how much King had struggled when he first came to college, getting only a C, for example, in his first philosophy course. "I found that very inspiring, when I heard it," Sonya says, "given all that King achieved."

I was similarly inspired to learn that, when union organizer and Montgomery NAACP head E.D. Nixon bailed Rosa Parks out of jail and then called Martin Luther King to help lead the bus boycott, King initially resisted. He was new in town. People were just getting to know him. Since he was only twenty-six, he was reluctant to take the lead. He had all sorts of understandable reasons to demur. But Nixon persisted and when he called him back, King responded, "Brother Nixon, I can go along with you on this." Had Nixon not approached him, King might never have taken his own first steps toward deeper involvement on a stage that ended up making him a national figure.

King's hesitation matters because, once we enshrine our heroes on impossibly high pedestals, it becomes hard for mere mortals to measure up in our eyes. Then, however individuals speak out and for whatever cause, we can always find some reason to dismiss their motives, knowledge and tactics. We fault them for not being in command of every fact and figure, for not being able to answer every question put to them, or for the smallest inconsistencies in how they act or live. We can't imagine how an ordinary human being with ordinary flaws might make a critical difference in a worthy cause.

Others will also apply the perfect standard to us when we act. The approach is the same: Identify a perceived flaw, large or small, then use it to write off us and our entire effort.

It's hard enough to be the recipients of perfect standard dismissals. It's worse to subject ourselves to it. Whatever the issue, we never think we have enough knowledge or standing. Then if we learn more or gain more experience, we raise the bar higher, ensuring that it's always out of reach. We decide that, to take an effective public stand, we must first become a larger-than-life figure--someone with more time, energy, courage, vision, knowledge or certainty than an ordinary person like us could ever possess.

No one is immune to the crippling effects of the perfect standard. In this time of massive technological and economic change, many of us who have been active in social causes before feel daunted by both the size and array of contemporary problems. Even when we know better, we sometimes think we have to tackle everything at once. If our efforts don't instantly achieve results, we are quick to criticize ourselves and doubt that our efforts can make a difference. And we can apply the same impatience toward national leaders, like Obama.

We face a parallel trap in seeking endless information before acting. As the body of knowledge continues to grow, the effort to know everything grows increasingly doomed. We can spend our lives trying to gather facts and arguments from every conceivable source, but the perfect standard leaves us with a permanent insufficiency of knowledge--and a convenient way to abdicate responsibility for taking a public stand.

The perfect standard can also limit our time horizon. In this view, we tell ourselves we shouldn't begin working for change until the time is ideal--when we are out of school, say, when our job is more secure, when our kids are grown or when we retire. We wait for the time when the issues will be clearest, our supporters and allies most steadfast, and our wisdom and courage greatest. But public participation will always require a shift from our familiar and comfortable way of life. What's more, the issues that most need our attention will probably always be complex, difficult and forbidding. As Rachel Naomi Remen reminds us, "Being brave does not mean being unafraid. It often means being afraid and doing it anyway."

Social change always proceeds in the absence of absolute knowledge or certainty. In the 1960s, psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott developed the now-accepted concept of "the good-enough mother." Winnicott argued that the goal of errorless child-rearing is a destructive and impossible standard that produces guilt and recrimination. As Jon and Myla Kabat-Zinn explain in their book about parenting, Everyday Blessings, "There is no question about doing a perfect job, or always 'getting it right.' 'Perfect' is simply not relevant, whatever that would mean."

In this vein, maybe we should all aspire to become "good-enough activists," remembering that, though some of our actions will be flawed and some will fail, our contributions matter all the more because we've proceeded despite our uncertainties and doubts in a way that can then inspire others to also take the risk of acting despite theirs.

The above excerpt is adapted from the updated new edition of Paul Rogat Loeb's book, Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in Challenging Times (2010, St Martin's Press). Reprinted in PeaceMeal, May/June 2010.

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