Facilitating Travel Along the Arc of Moral Justice

I've talked a lot about Getting to Yes as an effective guide to win-win negotiation.  But sometimes the other side is too powerful and won't negotiate in good faith.  An effective technique in these circumstances may be to expand the audience, as suggested by Ian Welsh in an article about the 2020 presidential election.  This fits well with my UU values, which are essentially humanist (plus respect for the interdependent web of all existence).

We UUs are humanist in the sense that we value humanity in general more than any particular race or ethnicity or other tribal affiliation.  We often find justice is attained as the participation in a discussion or democratic process is broadened to include more ethnicities and other types of sub-groups.   Fortunately, this happens more often as civilization evolves to a global level, with technology facilitating wider trade and broader and faster communication.

In the early days of our nation, societal decisions were made by a restricted class of white men.  Now other races and genders participate and have power more commensurate with their numbers.  This "arc of moral justice" was facilitated not only by trade and communications technology, but also by explicit efforts to expand the discussion to include underrepresented points of view.  Thus, abolitionists made visible the injustices of slavery and featured the African American perspective.  Suffragettes expanded democracy to more specifically consider the concerns of women.  The progressive movement and the New Deal elevated the concerns of manual laborers to a more visible platform.  Gandhi, MLK, and Mandela brought similar tactics to their respective movements, forcing conflict out into the open, on favorable terms and on favorable ground.

This is how the arc of the moral universe is made to bend towards justice.  As Ian Welsh said,

In peaceful social movements, “winning” means winning the hearts and minds of the majority of the society’s stakeholders to the point where they actively choose sides. First make them witnesses, then convert them into participants in the conflict.

Thus, at the societal level, we are guided by democratic humanist principles such as universal suffrage, free speech, majority rule, and respect for minority rights.  At the personal and small group level, we are guided by the humanist methods of Getting to Yes, striving for win-win negotiations wherever possible.  Here is a framework for building political values upon a solid foundation of personal values.  Form win-win coalitions to achieve personal and small group success.  At the societal level, success involves getting as many people into the discussion as possible, and forming a majority which rules based upon that constituency.  We want win-win relationships all the way up.