Feld's Laws of Advocacy (updated)

I recently had to try to dig these up  and discovered the last time I listed these out was 2016. I've added a bunch since then. Seems like a good time to post the new list where I can find it. Some of these are just aphorisms I like to through around.

Feld's First Law: Where brute force is sufficient, brute force is sufficient. You can clever yourself out of a win.
 

Feld's Second Law: All true change is culture change.

Feld's Third Law: Any sufficiently expensive card game is indistinguishable from Magic (tm). (not really public policy, but couldn't resist.)

Feld's Distinction Between Politics and Advocacy: Politics is the art of the possible. Advocacy is about making the impossible possible.

Advocacy and public policy are not about getting people to do the right thing for the right reasons. Advocacy is about getting people to do the right thing for their reasons.
 

Feld's First Law of Advocacy: Being right is not enough, but it helps a lot more than people think.
 

Feld's Second Law of Advocacy: Public policy is made by human beings (adapted from Clausewitz)

Feld's Third Law of Advocacy: Always make it as easy as possible for people to do what you want.

Corollary: When someone does what you want, you say "thank you." Not "what took you so long," "finally," or some other variation that vents your frustration. Do not explain how this does not make up for past wrongs. Did you want the thing or not? If not, why were you wasting your time? If yes, why are you denigrating your victory. Most importantly, don't you want more things? Make it easier for someone to give you what you want, not harder!

Feld's Fourth Law of Advocacy: Never ask an agency to do something it is prohibited by law from doing. But feel free to convince the agency something is permissible if you have an actual legal theory. Remember the difference between between a novel but supportable interpretation and "making stuff up."

Feld's Law of Expectations: Always be prepared for the best possible result.

Feld's Hand Grenade Rule of Public Advocacy:

1. Never threaten to use a hand-grenade unless you are willing to pull the pin.

2. When you pull the pin, the hand-grenade better go off. Even if it blows off your own hand, it is better to be known in Policyland as someone crazy enough to blow up his own hand to take out the other side than it is to be known as someone whose hand grenades are duds.

Feld's Ratio of Political Power: Your political power is directly proportional to your perceived ability to cause pain.

Feld's Reality Check: Is this about being effective or about feeling good? If it's more important to feel good than to be effective, then it's a hobby. Please leave public advocacy to the professionals.

Failure is always possible.

Cultivate functional delusions. These will keep you going in the dark times.

Sometimes, it really does hurt to ask.

When someone answers your question with "why do you hate consumers/hate freedom/hate the market/support piracy" or other variation on "why do you want to drown puppies and torture kittens," your shit detector should be going BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!


When people explain you to you or quote you to you without realizing you are the source, don't be offended -- you're winning!

Feld's Rule of Proof: This crisis proves my theory. Whatever the crisis, whatever the theory.

Fighting for what you love and care passionately about is going to break your heart. A lot. I'm sorry.

When you get what you want, say thank you and stop arguing.

 

A reflection on the nature of effective advocacy

The successful world-changing advocate must believe it is possible to achieve the impossible through passion and perseverance and planning. At the same time, the successful world changing advocate must be a horrible pragmatist, knowing when to cut losses or what evils to tolerate because diverting to tilt at windmills will stop you from ever reaching the dragons — let alone slaying them.

 

What this means is that the successful advocate exists in a peculiar state of functional delusion and cold calculation. It means having a pair of rose colored glasses but keeping them perched on your forehead, lest they obscure too much. It means spending oneself recklessly and, of necessity, repeatedly losing heartbreaking battles because failure is always, ALWAYS, an option. And despite utter, soul-crushing disappointment, getting back up and going for another round.

 

But even if one achieves this perverse state of functional madness, the successful advocate faces one last trap — the seductiveness of martyrdom. By this I do not mean true martyrdom of dying for one’s beliefs, or even genuine figurative martyrdom of those willing to endure in the face oppression so as to create an example of resistance or to shame others into action. By martyrdom, I mean struggle with no hope of victory and no goal in defeat.

 

Martyrdom allows you to define failure as success. Martyrdom converts bone crushing defeat into a sort of sick pleasure, and therefore defeat becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Martyrdom is its own reward, and its own prison. After a time, the failure becomes necessary, confirmation that previous failures were not your fault but the inevitable way of the world.

 

Those looking for world-changing advocacy should therefore embrace madmen but shun martyrs. The unfortunate history of social movements is that they tend to get this backward.