The Trap of "What Have You Done for the Cause?"
I’ve said for a long time both in my classes and books that resistance doesn’t always mean violence. In fact, there are hundreds of ways to engage in effective resistance that have nothing to do with violence, and are even perfectly legal. Considering few things seem to be perfectly legal these days, that’s saying something.
Unfortunately, those things aren’t always public. They don’t come with accolades or clout, and they don’t give would-be resisters the street cred they need to feel validated. As a result, people keep doing the public stuff, the dangerous stuff, and even the violent stuff. That’s where they get to feel like they’re accomplishing something—because that’s where they get seen by others.
That’s where they get something called action currency.
Weaponizing Political Action Against Allies
The need for validation is so strong that it causes normal people to become defensive and even angry with you if you suggest that they’re engaging in ineffective, overly risky, or plain stupid action. The go-to insult is usually some form of, “What have YOU done for the cause lately?” The insinuation, of course, is that they or the person they’re defending are “doing something,” and the challenge is for you to answer with your own ‘resume’ of action. In other words, they’re demanding to see your action currency.
This question has three facets you should understand, aside from the obvious point that it’s a trap.
It comes from a place of intellectual fallacy. According to the person asking "What have YOU done lately,” public action equals currency. If it is not public, it is not currency. Therefore, if you’ve engaged in private actions you aren’t wearing like a patch on a sash, they don’t count, because you’re not willing to brag about them.
It also falsely defines the concept of value in political action. This person only values the type of action he himself is engaged in because it’s the only one that offers him the validation he needs. Therefore, all other types are invalid and not good enough. Literally put: Since it doesn’t feed his need, it must not feed the cause either. That’s how it breaks down.
No matter what you tell him in response, no matter how many actions you’ve engaged in or things you’ve been involved with, private or public, you will not earn credibility with them. Once the conversation hits this point, they have already deemed you as less than themselves. There is nothing you can do to combat that, and the conversation is over. In their mind, if you were doing as much as they are, if you were as valuable to the cause as they are, you would be offering them validation through admiration and agreement, instead of asking for accountability or suggesting other options. You offer them nothing they want or need, therefore you are worth nothing.
By attempting to flip the script and paint you as lazy or undedicated to the cause, the person exposes their own desperate need for validation, which can only come from others seeing their efforts and offering approval. In order to feel like they’re worth something as a human, they need the validation to come from outside themselves, which means they cannot handle anyone questioning their efforts because it strikes at their human worth.
Transposing Onto the Idol
By the standards of the system, where public action equals currency and therefore validation of worth as a human, what/who will be the epitome of the cause (and by extension, humanity) to them?
Yup—someone who has done all kinds of public action. The household name. The guy who keeps putting up videos of him “standing up to tyranny,” usually in some loud and public but ultimately ineffective way.
Because of this twisted view of what constitutes “good” action, situations in which someone is arrested, injured, or even killed have a sick type of “point bonus” attached to them—and it all goes back to the basic trope that, “at least HE DID SOMETHING.”
Think about that in a logical way. To these people, it doesn’t matter if you got arrested with no plan and are now dead weight, with other people having to take care of and provide for your family. It doesn’t matter if you failed in a huge and public way; it’s not even a big deal if you actually took your cause BACKWARDS because of your screwups, and reduced it to some insulting hashtag that’s mockingly trending on Twitter—as long as you were “doing something.”
This means that literally any idiot, any grifter, any sociopath masquerading as a leader, can enjoy the adoration of (and donations from) all sorts of people. All he has to do is something public. He doesn’t even have to do it well; action currency is bestowed based on the effort, not the result.
As a result, you have all kinds of failed public actions in which people get arrested or even killed due to infiltration or incompetence, only to have the drooling masses look at them as heroes and their failed efforts as noble. In fact, you’ll even see people complain that said action would have worked if it wasn’t for all the undedicated and cowardly people who just wouldn’t rise up.
There are many out there subscribing to the action currency system, leaders and followers alike. The actions differ, the misconduct, incompetence, and hubris take different forms, but the results are all the same. For their diehard followers and fellow currency seekers, it doesn’t matter if they fail. It doesn’t matter if they’re exposed doing something wrong or stupid. At least they did something. At least they aren’t “hiding.”
Action Currency: A Means of Control
What you’ll find in many groups that subscribe to the “we aren’t hiding” philosophy is a variation on the “only public action counts” belief. The group wants to engage in all sorts of actions, usually without any kind of logical decision-making process, or even sanity check.
Even their so-called “secret” actions are only a secret until they’re done; then everyone who did them needs to tell everyone what they did. If no one knows you were involved, you see, you don’t get the action currency.
After actions like Bundy Ranch, Malheur, Sugar Pine Mine, and January 6th, a lot of the people who went there wanted everyone to know. I’ve heard people use the currency as vouching power: “John was at Bundy Ranch, AND Sugar Pine, so he’s good.” Or it’s used as proof that someone isn’t quite as dedicated: “Jack never went to any of the big actions; I’m just not sure if he is truly on board.” According to the rules of the action currency system, John is by default a stronger and better patriot than Jack, who was “hiding” and is probably a coward.
Never mind that Jack is actually funding a whole bunch of efforts behind the scenes and has recently infiltrated a local opposition group, where he’s currently corrupting their contact lists and draining their financial coffers on stupid stuff while funneling information to an underground resistance group. Jack can’t be seen on national TV getting interviewed at some patriot event, holding an AR-15 while wearing a T-shirt depicting a rifle round with the caption “Just the Tip, I Promise.” Sorry, Jack, the action currency mafia has determined you’re a lazy patriot with no dedication.
For the less scrupulous of group leaders, the “we aren’t hiding” motto is a ready-made weapon to be used as a control mechanism. If the leader wants to do something, by God, the group better get in line because if they don’t, they’re just not committed enough. This work isn’t for everyone, you know, so if you don’t feel like you can move forward for liberty there are no hard feelings. It’s okay, you can leave the real work to the real patriots. (See how easy that piece of gaslighting was?)
The flip side of this, of course, is that their followers are locked into whatever negative outcome they’re cruising toward. Even if they KNOW the outcome is inevitable, they won’t deviate from the road because they need the validation and the currency so badly. They’ve taken their need for validation and transferred it to their particular idol.
They’re past reason, past logical thought, past problem-solving in a sane way. All that matters is their own worth—and that can only be found in hitching their wagon to someone else’s actions, or engaging in some themselves with or at the behest of their object of adoration.
This means that when their idol or leader says it’s time to saddle up, those followers will go. Straight into the fire if they’re asked. Straight into a bullet, if it comes to that. Not because tyranny has reached a personal line past which they have purposed in their mind that they will not cross. Not because they have done the mental work necessary and have decided what their personal Waterloo is. Not even because that particular action will further the group goals. No, they’ll go because their Dear Leader says that if they don’t go, they aren’t dedicated and aren’t worth anything to the cause.
I’ve talked about some of these ridiculous failures before and how they went wrong. What are the odds that in each one of these, action currency was driving the decision-making for some of the members?
How Do I Combat the Trap?
It’s pretty simple in concept, not so easy to implement.
a) Understand first that activism is not a currency. Those who treat it like it is, are not worth acting with or on behalf of. People who like to offer their arrests, jail time, standoffs, or other public actions like it’s a special kind of patriot money are just looking for someone to tell them they matter.
b) If you’re being pressured by your leader, if he/she likes to say that you can either get on board or see yourself out, take the door offered. You’re dodging a bullet—possibly a literal one.
c) If you hear the “What have YOU done for the cause lately” challenge, understand that the person challenging you desperately needs validation and is not able to be reasoned with. Just withdraw from the conversation and walk away. It’s not worth your time, nor is it worth your effort to try and convince them. (If the person challenging you is your own group leader, that still applies. They’re looking for validation too. If they’re secure in their own worth, they don’t need to make your participation in a bad idea some kind of litmus test of YOUR worth.)
d) Consider whether you and that person have the same label, or identify with the same group. Are you willing to be painted with whatever brush that guy is going after for himself?
e) When you’re thinking about taking action, be smart about it. Do the mental work necessary first on yourself and your group. Who are you? What do you want to accomplish? Can it be done? Are the risks truly acceptable? How can you mitigate them? You shouldn’t be taking action at all without taking stock first of your mental readiness—and based on the results, you may end up taking a lot of different actions than you originally planned.
Whatever you do, don’t ever feel pressured to do something stupid by someone holding a fistful of action currency like it’s their proof of worth. It’s not. It’s just proof of their personal insecurity.
Kit Perez is a counterintelligence and deception analyst, and the author of The Mindset of Resistance, as well as the co-author of Basics of Resistance: The Practical Freedomista.
I work for a contractor on a military base. I supervise 13 employees, good ones. Every morning I have roll call and a short safety briefing, at this time I incorporate a small history lesson that I usually get from "Today In History" or "SurvivalBlog". I normally pick the favorites of the mass media or the commonly accepted "Good American" stuff and dissect it. Mostly I try to show my valued few, that some things they have always believed to be good things like the "Patriot Act" or obama care are actually rooted in a darker plot to control the masses or parts of the masses, or at least relieve citizens from certain rights that get in the way of "Progress". I always carry my little dollar pocket Constitution and Declaration of Independence. Some of my folks say I'm trying to indoctrinate them, but they still pay attention to every word. For about 5-10 minutes each morning I have a captive audience. I'm getting near retirement age, but I still try each day to my little part for my country and my granddaughter's country, and so far it has not required violence or revolt, I hope to keep it that way. By the way, I loved your book "Basics of Resistance".