Hi Tweets,

Jim Lyles writes:

(snip)
> I cannot disagree
> with...observation that birders, collectively, constitute
> a notably wimpy special-interest group. (snip)
> (Long-time Doonesbury fans may recall the forlorn efforts of
> Lacy Davenport's husband, who labored to rouse his local birding
> society to polite and ineffectual political action when
> development threatened a bird sanctuary.)
(snip)
> Now, why is this? Hmmmm.

This is a really interesting question, one I've chewed on this one for some
time, and I'm still not sure there's a simple, single answer. Here's some
the pieces. If someone can form an intelligible context with them, I'd be
most gratified. Once again, I might offend, but my intention is salutary.

Sorry to quote from my own posts, but I relised something crucial was
missing to the previous one.

>Interestingly, the dog-owners didn'y have an
>association, just formed one, pro tem, and got out the vote in about three
>weeks, thereby showing birders how to do it, that it's not the work of
>titans to pack a meeting--just work.

I should have added "...just work. And passion."

Well, what is passion but love and anger intertwined?

Every group has leaders it relies on to represent its interests. In birding,
where are the leaders? But first, *who* are the leaders? Well, usually as in
other enthusiast communities, they're a mixture of several broad types--and
I offer them without prejudice; each brings something useful:

the idealist: wants to make the world right and fair(er); at worst, is
hopelessly naive, inexperienced, unpragmatic; at best, brings that rare,
cleansing, civilising light the illuminates and informs whatever it touches;
the committeeperson: in its unofficial sense of someone who prefers or
insists on procedure and form more than, and will subordinate content,
style, or quality to them; necessary to provide a consistent format of
transaction; trouble starts when he or she enters into unholy alliance with
the administrators to control, pervert, or sabotage;
the image-junkie: self-importance or corporate image is this one's
overriding concern; often leads to or marries, in a political sense, the next;
the power-junkie: power and control: telling others what to do; at worst,
insufferably oppressive; at best, when competent, can supply necessary
direction to those who don't know better;
the banker: well-off; wants to put something back into society; sometimes,
even often, but not always, has a guilty conscience about money, whether
justified or not; often useful in fundraising, and teaching the less
acquainted the mechanics of money and economy;
the social director: everybody make nice, now; at worst, puts a 'let's
pretend everything's *nice*' cheery smile as a bandaid over the gunshot
wounds of either factional warfare and/or challenges to the group's
authority; useful in bringing manners and civility, helping people enjoy
what the group's about;
the authority: a presumed or real competence in his or her field presumes an
equal competence in any other; sometimes yes, distressingly often no, and
always a problematical form of leadership;
the ideologue: often driven by rage and fear; at worst, creates and
perpetuates factional conflict; at best brings passion and combines it with
a theoretical framework that articulates not only what to care about but *why*;
the fixer: grooms and manipulates the factions created by the last; can be
useful, especially in dealing within outside groups and reconciling internal
factions; dangerous if not totally scrupulous or personal agenda diverge too
widely from that of the group;
the warrior: not far different from the ideologue, but applies the theory;
at worst, an unaffordable, often embarrassing encumbrance, like a large dog
of evil nature; at best, extremely valuable for his or her willingness to
confront directly and energetically a situation others would prefer doesn't
exist and will not face;
the diplomat: skilled at getting along with people or groups he or she
despises; good at seeing shared interests in competing groups; any group
needs at the very least one skilled negotiator to resolve serious internal
differences and attain external goals in the face of opposition;
the administrator: someone's got to make the wheels run smoothly, eh? deep
trouble arises when the leadership of a group is comprised entirely of this
type of person: stifling bureaucracy arises and, once born, is virtually
impossible to control, let alone eradicate; a healthy leadership will
*severely* lay down the law about the extent of its purview and hew to it;
the visionary: who brings the future to us; who sees the shining hills we
may ascend; who gives our tread its direction; who is a big pain in the
tookus to the everyday person; and without whom any group is blinder than a
stone;
the manager: is concerned with product and service, and getting to the
people who want it efficiently and quickly, where the administrator is
concerned with process and couldn't care less; often antithetical, and many
factional wars are fought between these two; ideally, they see where to be
complementary instead of competitive, then the result is often progress like
gangbusters;
the can-do hustler: every group could use an amoral, screw-'em-six-feet-deep
bargainer and opportunist; the natural fundraiser, schmoozer, and
scrounge-artist; always under direction, of course.
the lonely: the human condition: why else do we gather in groups and try to
belong?
the angry: compelled by an issue or several issues; at worst, reminds me of
the old line about fire: 'good servant, bad master'; at best, brings
forceful energy and stubbornness of purpose.
the philosopher: the visionary with logic on his or her side, the very best
type of ideologue.
the helper: often inspired by compassion and sympathy, looks for personal
significance in good works; at worst, sentimentality rules judgement; at
best, supplies the necessary pity of the oppressed, whether human or animal,
and attempts to heal the abuse.

In most groups, the leaders are usually the ones who have the most
experience, the most knowledge, the most aggressiveness, and the widest
networks with the best connections. Here's a problem for birders, then:
people who best fit this description in birding tend to be two types: the
best hardcore listers, and government and academic ornithologists and
biologists.

Okay, some of it is that the part of birding that requires and generates the
most aggressiveness--hardcore listing--is essentially competitive,
individualist and non-cooperative, tending to be exclusionary of group
consciousness and action, particularly beyond its own narrow focus. The
payoff is individual increase and solidifying of personal status, rather
than advancement of any collective aim. Let me stress that hardcore listing
is not necessarily antithetical to conservationist aims, but that the
philosophical and political prerequisites to such collective action as
conservation requires are not strong in any group whose members can fairly
be typified as highly competitive, therefore highly individualist.

Partly this is because birding at this level is essentially a male activity,
with women in a supplememtary rather than associate role. I hope this
doesn't sound too pompous or abstract, but men's socialisation within this
culture is still usually away from cooperation and toward competition.

Of the second group, academic/private/government scientists and students,
they are most often constrained from activism, partly because such might or
would sometimes have them in a conflict of interest, partly from academic
conservatism, and partly from very real and valid fear of job loss if they
work to an offensive public or administrative agenda that they might
privately deplore. Locally, more than one federal or provincial government
scientist in the wildflife branches who is not in outright favor of hunting
or knows something that controverts the department's official position on
some development issue has--literally, voice shaking--whispered into the
phone, "This will cost me my job if you say who it's from, but...." Don't
tell me it doesn't happen: that's been direct personal *experience* several
times, and I know of other people who have had precisely the same experience
often enough to demonstrate that a deep chill is at work here. I don't know
if the situation in Washington State is similar. I hope not: the blacklist
for those who don't conform totally is an dirty, ugly, demeaning device to
ensure obedience, conformity and, above all, silence; it is the tool of
oppressive administrators.

So, that said, where do the birding leaders come from?

A third piece of this is a word which I've used in lots of other contexts
but never been able to in the realm of birders' relationship to the
environment: passion. Yes, there are enthusiastic, even obsessed, birders,
but they are individuals driven by idiosyncratic personal desires. There are
people who are passionate about aspects of birding knowledge, such as field
ID skills, breeding bird atlassing, raptors or gulls or shorebirds,
migration chronologies and so on, but where is that feeling when it comes
time to save a marsh or shoreline? But what is passion but love and anger
intertwined? What is passion in this context but expressed and
constructively directed anger? The next two questions are then glaringly
obvious: why aren't more birders angrier? what does it take? And if they
are, why do they swallow their anger instead of expressing it in political
organisation and action the way other groups do? What do dog-owners have
that birders don't? The answer may be instructive: they love their dogs. If
we love anything collectively as birders, we fold our hearts into our
checklists.

There's more, but that might be a good place to leave this open for comment.

Michael Price We aren't flying...we're falling with style!
Vancouver BC Canada -Buzz Lightyear, Toy Story
mprice at mindlink.net