I disagree with a lot of this. As an overview of Saul’s work, it’s good. As something someone needs to know, especially in the digital age, it has very little relevance. Most current community groups have discarded Saul’s ideology altogether.

Saul’s flaw was in needing an external target. If Saul couldn’t find anyone to blame for the community’s current predicament, his efforts wouldn’t succeed. Saul could raise protests easily enough. But protests don’t build communities, they build angry groups and enmity.

Today, it’s far more important to understand community development than it is to understand community organizing.

Real power in a community isn’t in saying “we need you to do this”. Real power is “we are responsible for ourselves”. What do we have within us that can make the change we want? What if we stopped looking at our community from it’s problems, and began looking at the assets our community has? How can we combine them in unique and glorious ways? How can we build social capital amongst ourselves?

The problem is that community organizing is sexier. You have big battles (or sit-downs), you have heroes, you have media interest. But, ultimately, it doesn’t make as much of a difference as the far less sexy, but far more productive, community development.

I don’t want to sound presumptuous or spoiled, but I think it would be also helpful to include the books/blogs/links your concepts come from for this series. I know the first thing I thought when I finished reading this post was Where can I read more about this?

But like I said, great post either way.