Hashtag Chic and Raising Awareness

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
1

I find myself somewhat mystified by the new generation of activists. During the cultural revolution of the 1960’s radicals took to the streets and engaged in either non-violent or violent resistance. But then something changed. People lost the will to actually effect change so the focus shifted to acts of pointless and infantile symbolism - think of John and Yoko locking themselves naked in their hotel room “for peace.”

Today the new frontier of radical chic activism is “raising awareness” - as if being “aware” of something is somehow a means to end it. Thus, we get Angelina Jolie as a “UN Special Envoy” calling for an end to rape in war zones via “raising awareness.”

“The three-day summit, co-chaired by Ms. Jolie and Foreign Secretary William Hague of the United Kingdom, aims to create momentum against sexual violence in conflict…”

How this “momentum” is to be achieved is never specified - not even in an abstract sense.

Then we have the hashtag activism of social media and radical chic celebrities - “Kony 2012” How’s that going? Maybe we didn’t raise enough “awareness” and “momentum?” Or “Save Our Girls” - How? We didn’t actually progress beyond “awareness” did we?

The latest venture into infantile awareness activism is the “It’s On Us” campaign. A campaign to prevent rape on college campuses.

Leaving aside the irony of black men and Democrats lecturing us about rape, let’s examine the strategy itself:

Raise awareness > sign a “pledge” to stop rape > buy a t-shirt

Is this a sign of infantile naivete or senility in our culture? Is it a gesture of futility or actual insanity?

2

[quote]SexMachine wrote:
I find myself somewhat mystified by the new generation of activists. During the cultural revolution of the 1960’s radicals took to the streets and engaged in either non-violent or violent resistance. But then something changed. People lost the will to actually effect change so the focus shifted to acts of pointless and infantile symbolism - think of John and Yoko locking themselves naked in their hotel room “for peace.”

Today the new frontier of radical chic activism is “raising awareness” - as if being “aware” of something is somehow a means to end it. Thus, we get Angelina Jolie as a “UN Special Envoy” calling for an end to rape in war zones via “raising awareness.”

“The three-day summit, co-chaired by Ms. Jolie and Foreign Secretary William Hague of the United Kingdom, aims to create momentum against sexual violence in conflict…”

How this “momentum” is to be achieved is never specified - not even in an abstract sense.

Then we have the hashtag activism of social media and radical chic celebrities - “Kony 2012” How’s that going? Maybe we didn’t raise enough “awareness” and “momentum?” Or “Save Our Girls” - How? We didn’t actually progress beyond “awareness” did we?

The latest venture into infantile awareness activism is the “It’s On Us” campaign. A campaign to prevent rape on college campuses.

Leaving aside the irony of black men and Democrats lecturing us about rape, let’s examine the strategy itself:

Raise awareness > sign a “pledge” to stop rape > buy a t-shirt

Is this a sign of infantile naivete or senility in our culture? Is it a gesture of futility or actual insanity?
[/quote]
At its heart, I think this “raising awareness” style of activism (if you can call it that) has two driving forces behind it. One is that it allows people an outlet for their disgust/rage/sadness that is triggered by world events that nobody really has any means of changing. By “liking” something on Facebook, you feel like you’ve in some small way done something about it. While you obviously haven’t, at least you feel a little less impotent about it. Secondly, as is the case with pretty much all social media activity, this “activism” at its heart is a form of self-promotion. It’s a way of saying to your friends, family, followers etc. “look at how socially engaged and good a person I am” without actually having to donate any time or money to a particular cause. The term “slacktivism” has been applied to this and I think it is apt.

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I agree, the raising awareness thing gives people a warm & fuzzy for a few minutes and they move on. Younger people are just too wrapped up in their iphones, Face Book, games and not much else. It would take something really huge to get them off their asses and be part of something like went on in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Leaders like Abbie Hoffmann are now absent from our culture. Domestic groups like The Black Panthers (a bit over the top IMO…), they would be squashed like bugs.

With all the violence in Russia/Ukraine earlier this year, I found that to be quite refreshing. That people actually took to the streets and did something. But they were fighting for something very tangible… their personal freedom. It would take something like that here to get the youth buy in.

4

I think the concept of hashtag activism is essentially masturbation. There are ways to affect change, and there is liking something on Facebook.

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[quote]CMdad wrote:
Secondly, as is the case with pretty much all social media activity, this “activism” at its heart is a form of self-promotion. It’s a way of saying to your friends, family, followers etc. “look at how socially engaged and good a person I am” without actually having to donate any time or money to a particular cause. The term “slacktivism” has been applied to this and I think it is apt.[/quote]

I think this is the case more often than not.

It’s just pathetic bullshit.

6

It’s not really surprising when the youths of today were raised to interact in silico.
Even the lazy can be part of a “movement” simply by liking, hashtagging, dumping ice on themeslves, etc.
I like that slacktivism term CMdad, hadn’t heard it before, thanks.

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[quote]beachguy498 wrote:
I agree, the raising awareness thing gives people a warm & fuzzy for a few minutes and they move on. Younger people are just too wrapped up in their iphones, Face Book, games and not much else. It would take something really huge to get them off their asses and be part of something like went on in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Leaders like Abbie Hoffmann are now absent from our culture. Domestic groups like The Black Panthers (a bit over the top IMO…), they would be squashed like bugs.

With all the violence in Russia/Ukraine earlier this year, I found that to be quite refreshing. That people actually took to the streets and did something. But they were fighting for something very tangible… their personal freedom. It would take something like that here to get the youth buy in.[/quote]

Abbie Hoffman was making futile gestures like throwing fake money at the stock exchange and trying to shock the establishment. A better example of an activist who actually made tangible changes would be Saul Alinsky.

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[quote]
Is this a sign of infantile naivete or senility in our culture? Is it a gesture of futility or actual insanity?[/quote]

None of the above.

It’s just a great way to sell t-shirts.

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[quote]MattyG35 wrote:
It’s not really surprising when the youths of today were raised to interact in silico.
Even the lazy can be part of a “movement” simply by liking, hashtagging, dumping ice on themeslves, etc.
I like that slacktivism term CMdad, hadn’t heard it before, thanks.[/quote]

Completely agree except for the ice bucket challenge-- and the reason is as follows: they’re actually doing something (donating money). Remember our two seeming criteria from above, I forgot who posted it, is that they refuse to give time or money for causes but just like things or share them. The ice bucket challenge has generated so much money for the foundation they don’t know what to do with it (hyperbole, but almost true). You donate money either way: a minimum of $10 if you accept the challenge or $100 if you don’t do it.

But in general I agree and slacktivism is very real and lame.

10

If people lose the strength and the will to maintain themselves in the political sphere politics(conflict) will not vanish from the world; weak people will. The problem is that people are not willing to fight and die for abstractions like “human rights” - universal human rights is not a serious organising principal. Universalism, pluralism and diversity are the problem. People fight for identity not values. And certainly not for abstract universal values.

11

[quote]SexMachine wrote:
I find myself somewhat mystified by the new generation of activists. During the cultural revolution of the 1960’s radicals took to the streets and engaged in either non-violent or violent resistance. But then something changed. People lost the will to actually effect change so the focus shifted to acts of pointless and infantile symbolism - think of John and Yoko locking themselves naked in their hotel room “for peace.”

Today the new frontier of radical chic activism is “raising awareness” - as if being “aware” of something is somehow a means to end it. Thus, we get Angelina Jolie as a “UN Special Envoy” calling for an end to rape in war zones via “raising awareness.”

“The three-day summit, co-chaired by Ms. Jolie and Foreign Secretary William Hague of the United Kingdom, aims to create momentum against sexual violence in conflict…”

How this “momentum” is to be achieved is never specified - not even in an abstract sense.

Then we have the hashtag activism of social media and radical chic celebrities - “Kony 2012” How’s that going? Maybe we didn’t raise enough “awareness” and “momentum?” Or “Save Our Girls” - How? We didn’t actually progress beyond “awareness” did we?

The latest venture into infantile awareness activism is the “It’s On Us” campaign. A campaign to prevent rape on college campuses.

Leaving aside the irony of black men and Democrats lecturing us about rape, let’s examine the strategy itself:

Raise awareness > sign a “pledge” to stop rape > buy a t-shirt

Is this a sign of infantile naivete or senility in our culture? Is it a gesture of futility or actual insanity?
[/quote]

The “raising awareness” term continues from the “raising consciousness” days.
It’s not necessarily effective in terms of action but the main aim is to get people talking about whatever the issue is and things may develop from there once enough people are worried or aware or savvy enough to start an action.

Few people if any will move beyond awareness to help the poor girls kidnapped by Boko Haram because that would entail fighting Muslims and no one wants that, (you could die) but eventually selecting a not too dangerous cause to effect change by creating flurries of activity and lots of speeches will occur.

Really depends on whether someone chooses a cause to champion out of the many whirling around.
IN addition, social media enables the speedy transmission of thoughts and impulsive assertions of support which might imply greater activity than there actually is.,

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[quote]SexMachine wrote:
If people lose the strength and the will to maintain themselves in the political sphere politics(conflict) will not vanish from the world; weak people will. The problem is that people are not willing to fight and die for abstractions like “human rights” - universal human rights is not a serious organising principal. Universalism, pluralism and diversity are the problem. People fight for identity not values. And certainly not for abstract universal values.[/quote]

Not everyone is a fighter. Some will get roused if it means a lot to them, but some people are simply not capable of fighting. That’s just how it is. You can call them weak, but people flourish in different conditions.

Some fighters are a loss in civilisation and need challenges outside of it otherwise they end up in jail or exile.
Others do best in civilisation and die in the wild.
Some people can adapt to anything.

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[quote]kamui wrote:

That dodges the question why people would buy them.