Agitation is something we always say to do but what is it? In short, it's asking questions and poking buttons on your target to get them to think "is this really acceptable?". For example, in my unionizing salt work, we would agitate our coworkers by asking them if they really liked the job, the bosses, the pay, the conditions, etc.. Often, this is be met with initial push back but as you build that rapport, you will inevitably get your target to reveal and admit that there are in fact problems. It is also used to push your target to take action. Drawing from unionizing work again, this can take the form of writing and signing petitions to change something in the workplace (this usually doesn't work, but it is a tactic in the grader scheme of getting targets to do further action). Agitation is the first step in getting workers out of apathy and into caring about and doing stuff. It can also be considered a kind of survey where you find out what the issues most pressing to your targets are. Targets also don't have to be limited to singular individuals; you can target groups or entire sections of the population. Each audience will require different approaches, and answer to different questions as each groups conditions and contexts are different.
Inoculation, on the other hand, is the opposite pair to agitation. This tactic is used once your target has done some processing and agrees that the status quo is unacceptable. At this point, they'll want to do something, be it a petition, walk-out, a march, or protest, or something else entirely. But the thing about having little to no power is that you will fail a lot of the time. We do not want these failures to discourage our targets back into apathy or inaction. Thus, inoculation is used to, well, "inoculate" the target against failures. Drawing from the previous example about the petition, you might say "what if the boss ignores the petition?", "what do we do if not enough people sign it?", "what if the petition is accepted but nothing changes?". Sometimes, this can get the target to think further on their own; they might suggest a walkout or a sit-in- or a group meeting at the managers, or they might want to retreat, in which case, we try to agitate them back into action again. This repeated exposure thus builds confidence in the target. On a larger scale, repeated large protest action is also a way for larger target groups to become more used to taking action.
Agitation and inoculation go hand in hand and act as a dialectical force in the organizing effort. It can be applied both to the individual case, and to large collective cases. These are some of the most crucial rhetorical tools that we use to reach the backwards, convince the intermediate, and spur the advanced into action.
