Sometimes, there are things that you know with your head — like “mountaintop coal mining is evil” — but you don’t feel in your heart until you see a leveled mountain in person. Or vice-versa; you know in your heart that our medical system is inhumane, but can’t envision how a new, better system would work in your head.

For example, the BosDSA immigration working group helped out with a campaign to block a specific eviction in Massachusetts. The campaign gathered support from every public official possible, up through Liz Warren and Ed Markey; several excellent lawyers threw themselves into the work; there were many, many rallies with unions and community groups; and the campaign got major press, including multiple pieces in the Globe. Even after all that work and energy and time, the man we’d mobilized around was still detained. And that was just one of the multitude of deportation cases processed every day in this country. It was hard to see how we could ever fight back enough to make a difference.

I understood the problem with my heart. But something was missing. I needed to understand the vision that I was fighting for; what does immigration look like under socialism? What is the hope that can keep us pushing through when everything looks bleak?

The bottom line is: we will need both an emotional, gut-level understanding of the work needed to address inequality **and** an understanding of the end goal we’re working for in order to achieve the world we want. We know with our heads that we want a world without borders; what is the first thing we do now, with our hearts, to help us get there?

WHAT WE DID

So far, Boston DSA has only done one Head & Heart event, but we have plans for many more & have similar ongoing programs with parallel learning and doing pieces.

Head & Heart events have four components, and you can’t skip any! The minimum length is about 3 hours, so plan accordingly.

READINGS: Choose three or four pieces ahead of time that folks can read through within a week.

DISCUSSION: Meet up for an hour or so to discuss the readings & the socialist vision for this topic.

ACTION: Join or create an action related to this topic. Can be a coalition event that you’re supporting, a component of one of your ongoing campaigns, etc. the important thing is to do something together! Budget about an hour to an hour and a half & try to limit travel time (e.g., meet very close to where the action will be).

REFLECTION: After the action, talk about how the action you just took is connected to the overall vision of the future we share.

EXAMPLE

We chose immigration as our topic for our first Head & Heart.

READINGS:

DISCUSSION:

We were lucky enough to have one of the authors of our readings, Daniel Denvir, come and help lead our discussion. He spoke for a while about how we got to the state we’re in now, gave a historical perspective, and helped us to understand the issue more deeply. After a Q&A, we moved on to:

ACTION:

We’d assembled packets ahead of time with Know Your Rights materials the Immigration WG had previously helped to distribute alongside Jobs with Justice organizers. We held our discussion in the same part of town where we’d done Know Your Rights walks before, so after the discussion, we split up into teams of 2 or 3, each took stacks of KYR packets, and distributed them to businesses and homes in the neighborhood.

REFLECTION:

This section was added to the H&H structure after this event; initially, we just ended with the action, but many felt that it would have been a lot better if we’d had time to cohere our thoughts. Later, we tried this after a different event & agreed that it helped us gain clarity and strategic understanding.

One of the things folks in Boston DSA have been consistently struggling with is how to connect our working groups & keep them from getting silo’d; specifically, our political education working group and our coalition-building working group(s). This is an opportunity to have folks from both groups work together to realize a project & understand each other more deeply.

LIMITATIONS:

Time: these events can run very long, which can be challenging. Try to respect folks’ time, and if your event will be lengthy, communicate clearly that it’s likely to take a full afternoon. At the same time, keep in mind that people tend to peel off near the end of long events, especially if the event structure changes (e.g. “I can say for the discussion but not the action,” which defeats the purpose); try to keep it as short and sweet as you can and add an incentive for staying all the way through (everyone gets a button for completing?).

Accessibility: Depending on the action, it can be difficult for folks to participate. If possible, offer a couple of options for actions to include as many folks as possible.

Try it out! If you have feedback, let us know! Tell your friends!