I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how society, and people in my profession (academics), think about activism. It seems to me that there is a widespread insufficient appreciation for the importance of activists in the world; often that attitude is even plainly dismissive. If this is true, then why is this the case, and why is this wrong?
First, I should clarify that I am only talking about activists for whom we have strong reasons to see the ultimate goal they strive for as justified, and the means they employ as reasonable. Hence, I’m only talking here about activists who fight against injustices, or want to make the world a better place. Now I realise this is a very tricky delineation, because in the world as it is, there will be people using activist means and tactics to advance immoral, or at least illegitimate goals, such as racists wanting to keep their settler-society predominantly White or Christian. And I also realise that even if we put those clear cases of activism for immoral causes aside, we will end up disagreeing about borderline cases, where multiple values and principles are at stake and people disagree whether the goals the activists are striving for is laudable or not (think of some cases where it might be seen that activists try to restrict the freedom of speech of those they accuse of using hate-speech).
Then there is also the question about reasonable means. This is again, a tricky thing on its own, as there is extensive discussion about what makes a means to reach one’s goal legitimate (recall our discussion on Andreas’s Malm’s book here, in which most of the commentators were very dismissive of his view that the climate movement should consider destroying property as part of scaling up its actions). I grant all these questions are minefield, but they shouldn’t rule out an appreciation for a subgroup of activists, which is the topic of this post.
Second, there is the question whether my claim that there isn’t enough appreciation for activists is true. I have no way to find out – which is why I thought I’d open it up for discussion on our blog. I have a sense that I’m living in a rather neoliberal society, where most people have unlearnt to see themselves as citizens who should be involved in co-ruling their polity. Perhaps my observations on this are particularly biased, since I’m working in academia, and there is this anxiety among [at least large parts of] academics to not being seen as activists. I had to experience this at first hand in the period 2018-2022, when I was involved as an activist leader in a campaign to restore the budget for universities in the Netherlands, which had slowly but steadily declined over the previous two decades, leading to unacceptable working conditions. The university’s formal leadership had failed, via the usual means of writing memo’s and lobby’ing, to solve this issue. It wasn’t difficult for the activist group in which I was involved to make the case for the need to restore the budget, and most academics agreed on this goal, but nevertheless the group of academics and students who were involved in putting the politicians under pressure to take this decision, was small. We were once able to mobilise a few thousand academics and students for a demonstration, but for any other activities the numbers were very, very small. Repeated calls (via social media or direct emails) to call on colleagues to help out led to very little support. Obviously, the very reason we were staging the activism – widespread exhaustion and burnouts among academic staff due to underfunding – is itself a reason to explain the lack of large numbers joining the activism, but I more generally sensed among colleagues and students a very concrete lack of understanding of what activism is, and lack of appreciation why it’s needed. Something similar may currently be observed with climate activists, where I also wonder why not more people are joining their ranks.
Third, if the claim that there isn’t enough appreciation for the work of activists is correct, then what can explain this? I am not quite sure, but I think dominant ideologies might explain quite a bit. We’ve come to see our relationship with the state and large organisations as one of being [akin to] a client, not as citizens in the republican sense of those who are co-responsible for shaping society. We’ve become depolitizised. Admittedly, that’s a very broad-brushed and hypothetical explanation; perhaps we have a scholar of activist movements among our readers who knows more.
Finally, the normative/political aspect: why do we need activists? I think that’s pretty obvious: in some democracies basic liberties are under attack; in other democracies the governing class has become pretty self-centred or captured by elite/business interests in its operations; in many places basic human rights still need to be realized; everywhere we have insufficient action on climate change and biodiversity loss; and then there is a myriad of smaller causes that are, in the grand scheme of things less important, but nevertheless also cases where change is needed yet has not happened and simply putting forward arguments/polite lobbying is leading to nothing (like the case in which I was involved).
Activists fight for a cause that is in general not (primarily) about themselves. It is about basic moral principles or human rights, about fighting against power abuse that our rulers do not properly address (or are themselves involved in), about changes for the better that will benefit everyone, including future generations. They put in a lot of their own time, energy, and effort. They might like to rather sit with a good book in the sunshine, or go for a walk in the woods. Instead, they fight, on behalf of a much larger group of people, for a common cause. In some cases it even gets much worse, and they are criminalized by the state, or run the risk of being killed. If they then experience a lack of appreciation for what they do, it is like adding insult to injury. At the very minimum, those who are not joining the activists but who agree with their goals and have no sound reason to disagree with their means (and I’m not talking about emotional reactions or gut feelings, but reasoned reflection), should voice their appreciation to the activists. And of course, it’s even better to join them.
{ 92 comments }
Chris Armstrong 08.23.23 at 10:04 am
Some political theorists / philosophers are happy to be activists, but I suspect others buy into some idea about the proper division of labour – the job of theorists is to argue in general terms at the level of principle; the job of activists (or politicians) is to argue for particular policies. What the first group do is careful and elegant; what the second group do is rough-and-ready, involves a lot of compromises, etc. To put it more negatively, some theorists might look down on scholars who ARE prepared to campaign for particular policies, if this involves them (so the theorists believe) ignoring a lot of nuance. For myself, I think this idea is quite unhealthy. I’m not sure I’d want to advise policymakers, but I see no problem with the activist role. I don’t see that it discredits the regular scholarly stuff we do – even if we have to accept that somewhat different standards apply to our actions / words in the different spheres.
engels 08.23.23 at 11:18 am
I agree with Marx that the “point is the change it” but to me the term “activism” has a lot of negative overtones and makes me think of morally inspired middle class people trying to “change the world” by getting on TV. Not that there isn’t a place for that but it has clear shortcomings in terms of durability and participation in comparison to older, more collectivist strategies like unions and political parties. I’m not an academic but it seems to me universities (along with the professional/corporate world) have recently become extremely favourable environments for this (provided the cause is something “safe” like climate change rather than something iffy like Palestine) and it’s hard not share a tiny part of the right’s cynicism about motives in some cases. What it is producing is clearly different from “pure scholarship” but not obviously superior imho.
Matt 08.23.23 at 11:27 am
Chris Armstrong said: I’m not sure I’d want to advise policymakers,
I’m intrestested to hear why not. I can see good reasons in some cases. If the current UK government called you up and asked for ocean policy advice, you might well think they were not serious and were using you as window-dressing, or that you’d just be wasting your time. Or that you’d be abetting a walrus role in a walrus and carpenter type story. But isn’t there some reason to think this might not always be the case? If a better government asked, and you thought your ideas wouldn’t fall of deaf ears, would there be good reason to object (other than simply wanting to do something else, I suppose)?
On the more general question, I guess that many activists seem to be more sure of themselves on many things than I find myself comfortable with. Now, I’m pretty sure of a lot of things, but perhaps significantly less, maybe especially on tactics and short-term goals, and sometimes on who is a sheep and who is a goat, than are many activists. It’s possible that I’m the wrong one here, especially on any given instance, and I suspect this is as much a matter of disposition as anything, but I offer it as at least a partial explanation, if not a justification.
Thomas Carnes 08.23.23 at 11:34 am
One contributing factor to the lack of appreciation may simply be a combination of what I view as very typical layman laziness and what we might call “activism fatigue.” It seems to me there has been markedly more activism about markedly more issues in the last decade than previous decades I can remember (which I take to be a good thing), and given the fact that I think a solid majority of everyday citizens just wants to be left alone to get through their days in peace, it would come as no surprise to me that people are simply tired of all the activism they see to properly appreciate it. I’m not sure what could be done to rectify that, but it’s one sense I’ve gotten.
other Kent 08.23.23 at 12:59 pm
There is a hoary tradition on my campus of activists talking to other activists and labeling these conversations/meetings/events as “activism.” But what is the point of activists only interacting with other activists? We should revive a better term, “organizer,” since an organizer is only an organizer if they organize folks who are unorganized. Activism promotes social silos, whereas organizing done right breaks the silos down.
Sophie Jane 08.23.23 at 1:09 pm
I think the most obvious reason activists are under-appreciated is that their very existence reveals flaws in the systems everyone else is invested in. “When you expose a problem you pose a problem” as Sara Ahmed says. To admit that activism is necessary is to admit that whatever change is involved can’t be achieved by working within existing systems, and that’s never going to be popular with people who are invested in those systems.
And so it becomes necessary to explain why activism isn’t really as necessary as all that by trying to set bounds on what aims, methods, and expressions are acceptable, representing it as merely a trigger for moderates to work for change, or by quietly misrepresenting history.
EB 08.23.23 at 1:25 pm
I’m a little baffled by the idea that activists work primarily on issues that do not directly affect them on a daily basis. All of the great movements that I can think of are populated by people who are indeed directly affected: the labor movement, the Civil Rights movement, the women’s movement, and I would include the climate movement. Academics can be of great service to these movements by providing history, data, and ideas for programmatic improvements based on their expertise; this doesn’t mean that they have to participate directly, though they are welcome to do do.
Chris Armstrong 08.23.23 at 1:36 pm
<I’m intestested to hear why not. I can see good reasons in some cases. If the current UK government called you up and asked for ocean policy advice, you might well think they were not serious and were using you as window-dressing, or that you’d just be wasting your time. Or that you’d be abetting a walrus role in a walrus and carpenter type story. But isn’t there some reason to think this might not always be the case? If a better government asked, and you thought your ideas wouldn’t fall of deaf ears, would there be good reason to object (other than simply wanting to do something else, I suppose)?>
@Matt – I guess my position is that if I set my views out and (non-disreputable) policy people want to talk, that’s great. But that’s certainly not the audience I have in mind when I write, and it isn’t what I want to spend a large part of my time doing. I’m sure a part of my reluctance, as you suggest, has to do with the kinds of governments we tend to get, and the ways they tend to engage with academics’ ideas.
Alex SL 08.23.23 at 1:50 pm
While I am very much opposed to the vindictive crackdowns on climate protesters, I can understand the logic behind the Spießbürgers’ position: we have a democracy, so the legitimate way of influencing politics is by handing out leaflets, writing letters to the editor, and getting people to vote your way, not by blocking the road and inconveniencing people on their way to work or suchlike.
That is a very myopic and ahistorical position, because many movements whose demands have today become common sense started with protests by a minority in a nominal democracy, be it women’s suffrage, labour, or gay rights, but there is nonetheless a logic: we are collectively, say, destroying our future and treating refugees inhumanely not because a dictator wills it so against the expressed preference of the people, but because the vast majority of voters is totally fine with that, and that’s democracy functioning the way it is meant to.
Another aspect to this is the question of whether activism actually still works the way it did in the past. I have become convinced that sometime perhaps in the late 1970s to early 1980s politicians realised that (a) protests, even violent mass protests, cannot really hurt them and that / because (b) the masses aren’t seriously going to defect to the commies anymore like they might have in the 1930s. Since 1990, that latter risk has been completely removed. This means that activism cannot move politics anymore like it could when governments were still afraid they might end up getting a French haircut. All that is left is influencing the way voters will vote, and then the question becomes if chaining oneself to a factory gate has a better chance of achieving that than posting on social media. I don’t have data on that, admittedly.
Point is, taking these two together, I can understand people being dismissive of activism: the activist would have a less annoying way of influencing politics, and the annoying way they choose is not going to achieve anything except antagonise people anyway. Again, I don’t necessarily agree – Greta Thunberg has antagonised plenty but also inspired many others – but it is a coherent view.
MisterMr 08.23.23 at 3:20 pm
It seems to me that the way the question is posed in the OP, by avoiding “bad” activists, significantly changes the meaning of the question.
If you ask me what I dislike about activists, mostly it will be that activists for causes that I dislike go against my desires and, in a democratic country where my desires are expressed through a vote, it is like if they are overriding my influence through votes.
But of course, activists for causes that I don’t like are, from my point of view, “bad” activists.
An example could be the anti-vaxers: I have an anti vaxer in close family, and during the covid period we had a lot of heated arguments. If they had their way and influenced the government so to reduce the amount of vaxed people in Italy, I would have been very pissed of and would have considered them responsible of the death of many people.
But of course, from their point of view they were the good guys, I was the nazi-equivalent (I said we had heated arguments) and certainly they didn’t want to arm anyone.
So if we take away the activists I disagree with and keep only the ones I agree with, then obviously I like them, the question is not why I don’t like them but rather why I don’t follow them or I’m not an activist myself.
But this can depend on many things, included personal character: I’m a very introvert person and I would have big problem being part of a political organisation for example, even one for which I can cheer from the sidelines.
Also, the OP says:
“not as citizens in the republican sense of those who are co-responsible for shaping society”
but one can turn the argument and say that we are co-responsible for shaping society through the vote, and people generally trust their own vote to count. In fact some commenters above said that there has been an increase in activism in recent decades, but this could be the signal that people trust less and less their elected representatives to represent them, and therefore turn to activism.
Finally, engels above spoke of unions. For what I know of italian political history (before I had the age to vote) the main political parties had a really strong link with popular organistions: the Christian Democrats through the church and a lot of catholic organisations (such a catholic youth groups, charity organisations etc.) and the Communist party through unions. This model disappeared during the 80s – late 90s and was substitude by a model that was much more strongly media-centric (true of Berluconi but also of parties from the left).
Maybe with the growing importance of social media bottom-up activism will reproduce the previous sort of embeddedness, with both the good and the bad (increased eco-chambers and strife between activists of the two sides) of it.
J, not that one 08.23.23 at 3:32 pm
I’m not at all familiar with the idea that people who are vocal in defense of the status quo or of reaction would be called activists. In fact it surprises me that academics would automatically have negative associations to the term (I’m not sure whether the OP means unappreciated by the public in general or in certain circles). Though if the distinction is between academics who do or don’t engage in politics, I may have misunderstood the post
I also think it’s increasingly common to view activists as most likely to be people who are affected by an issue and take public action on it, rather than accepting it.
Salem 08.23.23 at 4:48 pm
Most CT readers live in democracies, where activism for uncontroversial positions is by and large unnecessary. So activism “to make the world a better place” is almost always in cases “where multiple values and principles are at stake and people disagree whether the goals the activists are striving for is laudable or not.” What OP describes as “borderline” is in fact the ordinary case.
Take climate change, for example, which OP seems to describe as an area where activism is justified. Whatever one thinks about the desirability and efficacy of what JSO/XR/etc are doing, it can scarcely be denied that (1) the majority of activists are absolutely sincere and (2) the public have heard, and rejected their arguments.
In other words, if we extend the mantle of “good activism” to those who are trying to make the world better in an uncontroversial way, then it covers (say) Václav Havel, but almost no-one in a democracy. If we extend it to those who are trying to make the world better absolutely, then great, but how do we know? Part of living in a liberal society is that we don’t think any individual or organisation has a monopoly on truth or morality, and we need to work that out messily amongst ourselves. If I extend it to those I think are trying to make the world better, and you extend it to those you think are trying to make the world better, then the term is empty and we’re back where we started.
If “good activism” is to mean anything in a liberal democracy, then it must mean something like trying to make the world better according to one’s own sincerely held beliefs, by a set of commonly-held-acceptable methods. And the problem with this is pretty obvious, in that you’ll end up with “good activists” on both sides of the issue, and activism appears to be zero-sum. For example, huge amounts of time and money are spent on both sides of the abortion issue each year. Without drawing an equivalence between the sides, it would be good for society if they could somehow de-escalate, where the current “weight” of activist pressure were maintained but at lower mutual cost (perhaps an analogy would be arms control between the USA and the USSR, or “pairing” among MPs, which do not rely on seeing the two sides as equally worthy).
From this point of view, activists are engaged in social wrongdoing.
Ingrid Robeyns 08.23.23 at 5:23 pm
Just a quick reminder of Crooked Timber’s comments policy: https://crookedtimber.org/notes-for-trolls-sockpuppets-and-other-pests/ – I’ve had to delete one and will delete more if need be.
Tm 08.23.23 at 6:15 pm
I’m surprised by the assertion of several commenters that activists are a
putting themselves „outside the system“ or even calling democracy into question. This is obviously a question of terminology but I have always understood activism to encompass a wide range of political, well, activity (and also to be neutral wrt goals – a right wing activist is obviously an activist). Among the most common of those are petitions, demonstrations, and volunteer work for parties, unions, and grassroots organizations, things that are legal (not everywhere of course) and perfectly within the system.
Many academics are reluctant to be seen as activists, in part for understandable reasons. You want to make it clear that your scientific positions are not merely opinions. Climate scientists especially have only recently started to be more politically outspoken after realizing that their meticulous scientific work gets ignored by political actors. Their move from the scientific ivory tower to active politics is really an attempt to make it clear how dire the situation really is. When hundreds of Swiss scientists went public in support of the Climate protection act that was voted on in June (and was approved 59% in favor), that was exceptional and was also controversial (https://ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2023/04/why-we-are-taking-a-stand-on-the-swiss-climate-protection-law.html). Perhaps scientists should take a political stand more often. Interestingly, economists are doing this all the time and nobody questions their legitimacy.
Ingrid Robeyns 08.23.23 at 7:56 pm
just came across what one could see as an interesting example of (climate) activists by academics, in the UK: https://royalsocietyletter.uk/ – I should say, I don’t see my Dutch colleagues doing this. So, we might also be looking here (in the entire discussion in this thread) at country-specific differences. As a friend commented on FB, in France there is much more appreciation for activists than in the Netherlands.
engels 08.23.23 at 9:30 pm
I think it may be worth viewing today’s efflorescence of activism in the context of two phenomena: Mair’s void and Brenner’s political capitalism.
https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii42/articles/peter-mair-ruling-the-void
https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii138/articles/dylan-riley-robert-brenner-seven-theses-on-american-politics
MisterMr 08.23.23 at 9:34 pm
@TM14
Activists are not outside the system (apart extreme cases), however it is implicit in the concept of “activist” that the activist does more than the normal voter. If all voters sent letters to politicians, went continuously on marches etc. this would not count as activism anymore IMHO.
Tim Dymond 08.23.23 at 10:30 pm
My experience with union organising in ‘white collar’ workplaces is that even fairly low level activism (wear a badge, sign a petition, join a rally, join your union) is seen as somewhat undignified. The ‘real’ issue was getting a ‘good argument’ – compared to which activism was just trivial game playing. The idea that management/employers have interest that simply aren’t amenable to arguments (crudely put: they want more work for less pay and no ‘argument’ is going to change that) seemed almost offensive to a world-view that insists all positions can and will be rationally evaluated by somebody with authority.
engels 08.23.23 at 11:13 pm
#9 I can’t remember the quote now but I think George W. Bush said in response to the mass protests before the Iraq war that they demonstrated why the invasion had to happen: so Iraqis could enjoy the the right to protest in the same way.
John Q 08.24.23 at 3:40 am
The strong anti-activist position, hinted at above, is that we get to choose between policy packages every few years, and should just stay quiet between times. Putting this point clearly makes it easier to see some of the problems
(i) In a system with only two or a few dominant parties, there are going to be lots of issues where neither party reflects widely held views (eg the view that the UK should rejoin Brexit). This is particularly problematic with plurality voting, where voting for a third party achieves nothing.
(ii) Donors and other powerful groups have continuous and largely unseen access to political parties, which activism may partially counteract.
(iii) Even if people support one party on balance, they may reasonably want to change its position on particular issues. Elections don’t give any opportunity to do this.
John Q 08.24.23 at 3:46 am
In Australia, there’s no big problem with the kind of activism in which academics have a comparative advantage – writing opinion pieces, signing public letters and so on. Obviously it makes you unpopular with people who disagree with you, but that’s inevitable. And to a limited extent impact can be diluted if you are too predictable and comment on too many things. But with a tighter focus, the more you say on a given issue the more likely you are to be “on the radar” for journalists looking for someone to talk to.
Peter Dorman 08.24.23 at 4:10 am
The tension between activism and academic position-taking has always interested me, since I was an activist long before I had any inkling I would become an academic. For me, at least at first, it was the academic approach that seemed problematic. (I’m properly brainwashed now.) Some random thoughts:
Activism typically bases itself on an a self-certain attitude, unlike the provisional opinions that academics are supposed to have, but that doesn’t have to be the case. To me, there’s no contradiction between harboring a measure of self-doubt and also acting strongly on what you (provisionally) think is right. The core insight is that not acting is a form of action; there’s really no escape from the responsibility that goes along with judgment, even if judgment is hedged.
Unfortunately, some academics have come to think of themselves as activists in a caricature of activism. They are self-certain and condemn anyone who doesn’t follow them down the same road. But the domain of their activism is strictly academic, under the mistaken view that a challenge to knowledge is a challenge to power, which it isn’t. What we are seeing now, of course, is the pushback of real citadels of power to the performative radicalism of a portion of the professoriate.
I’m intrigued by the observation of @9 that raising a ruckus hasn’t had much effect on political outcomes over the past half century or so, at least in Western democracies. I agree that, to the extent this is a real effect, it probably reflects the disappearance of the top rungs of the rebellion ladder, the potential for disruption to escalate into a serious challenge to the existing order. Those rungs have been absent for at least two generations, and it’s not just about the collapse of the Soviet Union; there is no credible politics of “system change” that encompasses actions that escalate progressively from piecemeal protest. (I hope that can be reversed.)
Alex SL 08.24.23 at 4:10 am
John Q,
Weak as it is anyway, yes, the anti-activism argument makes at least a little more sense in a proportional representation system. You don’t like how things are? Well, found your own party, make an offer, and see how many voters take you up on it. However, one may expect the anti-activist to say that the activist could do entryism with one of the two major parties instead of hanging a banner from a coal plant.
A problem underlying this entire thread is the definition of activist. My hunch would be not to count somebody writing an opinion piece under that term, because if that is the bar, it would be difficult to draw a line before anybody who expresses political opinions in conversation, and then it is so diluted as to be meaningless. I would expect at least collecting signatures, being active member of an organisation that lobbies or organises protests, trying to get others to join the organisation or donate to it, handing out leaflets, joining protest marches, something along those lines.
nastywoman 08.24.23 at 7:25 am
some time this autumn hundreds of ‘activists’ -(if you would like to call them like that) will come together when the clock strikes 12 midnight in Europe and will defend Europe against all of the Propaganda which get’s posted every evening when Americas Right Wing Racist Science Denying Sex Abusing lying Propagandist try to peruse the World to see the ‘sinks’ just the way they see them.
And you guys need to understand that the World Wide ‘Internet Activism’
to MAKE THE WORLD HATE
(and defame and insult)
any ‘Others’
(GREENS – Refugees – Blacks – Orientals – Jews – or basically EVERY so called Liberal – called ‘Communist or Socialist’ )
is just a simple game –
like back in school – (or even Kindergarten)
where each time when bad little Donny pointed to somebody he HATED –
and thusly yelled all the nasty and degrading words at him –
HE didn’t get stopped by ‘the Teachers’ –
(YOU GUYS!!)
and so – WE – and y’all can call US simply ‘activists’ HAVE to make sure that all of these poisonous Right Wing Racist Science Denying Narratives don’t WIN the game!
Capisce?!
Fake Dave 08.24.23 at 10:03 am
It’s a little strange to get this far into a discussion of academic ethics without any commentary on the teacher/student relationship. Sure, there are academics that are more focused on research and publication than molding masses of impressionable young minds, but (in my limited experience, at least) those are often the professors that have the most devoted followers and the fewest scruples in rallying them to a cause. Workaday lecturers seem much more aware that theirs is a power that can be abused than many elite academics and I don’t think it’s just because they have less freedom or more scrutiny.
There are cautionary tales about teachers who recruited their students as (sometimes literal) foot soldiers for various causes and the liberal arts tradition has justifiably recoiled from that. Even if we’re not talking about directly indoctrinating students to go die for their country like a WWI boarding school (or Russia right now), leading them off into the hills to play guerilla, or making little socially stunted Jordan Peterson culture warriors, there are risks associated with urging students to action.
Most teachers I’ve met (and respect) are not willing to put students at risk for their cause and see that as a betrayal of their primary purpose of helping students make informed decisions for themselves. To borrow a cliche, the job isn’t teaching what to think, but how to think. Even a teacher who is willing to be the activist themselves and doesn’t ask anything of their students would be remiss if they didn’t understand their own position as authority and potential role model and consider the possibility that students will follow them without being asked. That thought should give them pause.
engels 08.24.23 at 10:18 am
[Repost without links] Mair’s void and Brenner’s political capitalism seem germane to much of this discussion.
I don’t at all agree with the “activists are outside the system” take but think it might be consistent with Schumpeter’s model of democracy.
Tm 08.24.23 at 10:38 am
MisterMr 14, that’s understood. But it should be obvious that a democratic system needs citizens who are willing to do more than just vote.
The position that activism is somehow antagonistic toward the democratic system is absurd. There’s a reason why liberal democratic constitutions explicitly protect the rights to petition, protest and demonstrate. Activists often frame their activism in one of the following ways:
– we are speaking up for interests that are neglected or underrepresented in politics
– we are putting pressure on politicians to do what they promised
– we are protesting against policies that are morally wrong/ against the law or the constitution/ do not agree with what the people really want.
E. g. the climate action protesters in Germany, who are using slightly illegal means (blocking streets), refer to themselves as Verfassungsschützer, protectors of the constitution, on the grounds that the government has a constitutional responsibility to protect the population from climate disaster, and is failing that. Which btw is true and has been confirmed by the Constitutional Court.
Sure there are activist fractions who see themselves as outside and against the system, but they are clearly a minority. Although they may be very online.
Tm 08.24.23 at 10:55 am
„I’m intrigued by the observation of @9 that raising a ruckus hasn’t had much effect on political outcomes over the past half century or so, at least in Western democracies.“
I’m somewhat skeptical of that claim but it’s really difficult to judge the political success of activism. Remember that the immediate result of the French May 1968 was a landslide election victory of the Right. Nevertheless many people think that the events changed society in important ways, but hardly in the way the participants had hoped. And those were the times when the specter of communism still scared the ruling class.
Zamfir 08.24.23 at 11:47 am
@AlexSL, the creation of new parties is itself a form of activism. Not just from a semantic point of view, but in practice as well: the people who set up parties (especially dedicated “issue” parties) are often drawn from a pre-existing network of activists, and they consider the party as one part of a wider strategy where they are also involved in other forms of activism.
That’s a double-cutting action. In one direction, the party is the outcome of other actions – those actions have gathered the people to run the party and have created the willingness to vote for the party. But in the other direction, a party is also a support for other types of action. Even a small party can be a highly effective means to generate media attention, and it can act as a focal point further organization.
On the topic of academics in activism – people in this thread talk as if professional academics are reluctant to be activist. I wonder what people are using as comparison there- compared to other jobs, the level of activism seems high to me, and academics are fairly likely to involve their job in their activism. There is a Scientist Rebellion organization in the Netherlands, but not (say) a separate Bakery Rebellion, even though these are similarly sized professions.
Trader Joe 08.24.23 at 1:19 pm
Activism is always about creating a cause for action. In acute situations like the labor conflict described in the OP its relatively easy to direct attention towards a deficiency and advocate for a desired change. In those cases the effectiveness depends upon creating sufficient sympathy for the cause that the establishment sees greater benefit to acceding to a change than allowing the status quo to exist.
Where activism by academics and most everyone else is much more challenged is in directing change on diffused topics like racism, climate or inequality. Here the challenge is primarily to keep the narrative in the news and a topic of debate and hopefully over time it can result in lasting change. Its rare that one can organize an activist campaign against these vast issues and achieve much more than small moral victories (it happens and shouldn’t be discouraged, but the risk-return on such efforts is pretty low in the short term).
For academics in particular they are basically a comfortable bunch – well educated, rarely starving and viewed largely as part of the professional world rather than working class. Their willingness to put any or all of this at risk for a “cause” however noble is going to inevitably be a matter of personal choice.
Most will opt for doing what JQ describes and contribute “perspective” or “data” or some other analysis that can hope to push the narrative in the right direction – their highest and best use is normally not manning the barricades (so to speak) and potentially flaming their reputation in the process.
my 2 cents on a valuable topic
SusanC 08.24.23 at 4:27 pm
A distinction could be made between groups that do or don’t engage in Direct Action.
A) the purpose of protest is get (one of) the political parties to take s desired position on an issue, by convincing the politicians that there are lots of people prepared to vote differently depending on what position the pols take
B) political parties and democratic process is regarded as dysfunctional and hopeless. Purpose of protest is to put pressure on organizations directly, bypassing government.
(B) is kind of a strong version of a direct action position, but I’m hearing something like it from some of the environmental protestors.
SusanC 08.24.23 at 4:32 pm
As an example of an intermediate form of direct action, if I remember correctly:
Dutch government proposes holding elections with computerised voting machines, like in the US.
Protestors object that this will compromise the integrity of elections, as computers are easily hacked.
Dutch government says it will be fine
(Direct Action part) protestors proceed to hack the computers used in the election (compromising secrecy of the ballot by using a Tempest attack on the voting machines).
Dutch government now doesn’t dare use voting machines in an election.
… 6. A bunch of computer security consults make some money out of tbis
SusanC 08.24.23 at 4:37 pm
Two interpretations of the above:
A. The hackers are proving evidence in favour of their arguments (prove that the voting machines are hackable) as an input to the democratic debate over whether to use voting machines
B, the hackers are terrifying the government into fearing that if they don’t back down on the use of voting machines, the result of the next election is going to be whatever the hackers want it to be. That sure gets the politicians attention
hix 08.24.23 at 10:07 pm
The standard anti activist position would be that one should do the slow grunt work within a political party of ones broader preference that really matters instead. Put up advertising for your party, get elected to the city council 5 years later, be happy if you say got one public building wheelchair accessible upon retirement and made a few non binding policy proposals that are not voted down at the lowest level within your own party.
Maybe 20 years after your death, someone with your positions will be elected to parliament. Come to think of it there is an even duller route – get into the corporatist boards running for example in mental health support as the nice non challenging patient representative. Not my position.
John Q 08.25.23 at 3:35 am
We’ve talked around the question of what kinds of things constitute “activism”, with a general presumption that the C20 model of in-person activism (marches, meetings, selling newspapers) is still the most relevant. But the great bulk of political involvement is now online.
A great deal of online activity is ineffectual. But, in retrospect, so was lots of C20 activism then, and even more so when we try to reproduce it today.
nastywoman 08.25.23 at 9:13 am
@’A great deal of online activity is ineffectual.
Now isn’t that the question as –
supposedly –
somehow –
even a US President believes that he mainly got elected. by ‘online activity’ (Twitter)
and as WE once joked – online – that Hillary has a Pizzeria and eats Liddle Children and so many Crazy Right Wing Americans took that joke seriously and voted for Trump because ‘they don’t like Pizza’ – nothing seems to be more effective in these times – where nearly everybody stares at her or his cell – as ‘online activity’ just ‘sink’ about yesterday –
when ONLINE this war about ‘Wagner’ got waged and in Germany one of the major victims
ONLINE
became the German (Female) Foreign Minister – who got insulted by tweet after tweet of being, very, very nasty to Putin by pointing to the fact that the War Criminal Monster likes to get rid of his enemies by killing them –
AND all it would have taken that for every single one of these Putin Propaganda Tweets activist all over Germany would have answered with:
NO!
NO it isn’t a GREEN German Women who is nasty here – it is the War Criminal Monster who (with a very high probability) had just killed AGAIN!
nastywoman 08.25.23 at 9:36 am
AND we have proof that with a certain amount of online activity we effectively can ruin anybody’s name –
AND we have proof that with a certain amount of online activity we effectively can’t even ruin the name of ‘Trump’
As it’s all about the utmost effective Propaganda Narratives (as Trump has learned form studying the book ‘Mein Kampf’ – on his fightable)
And if you have successful established the narrative of the ‘Lügenpresse’ and that responsible for EVERYTHING EVIL are ‘the Jews’ (or ‘Greens’ or ‘Dems’ etc -etc) it’s easy to make even an American wearing a T’Shirt with the proud word:
I’m rather Russian
than
a US Democrat!
And wearing such a T-Shirt isn’t that… mind boggling ‘activism’?
engels 08.25.23 at 9:59 am
The standard anti activist position would be that one should do the slow grunt work within a political party… Not my position
Fine (as I said above it takes all sorts) but then you probably ought to think about who is going to do that grunt work, or if no one does it, how things are actually going to change after you go viral/get on the 10 o’clock news.
engels 08.25.23 at 1:13 pm
a US President believes that he mainly got elected. by ‘online activity’ (Twitter)
That, and money, and decades of TV boosterism (don’t forget Fresh Prince).
Tm 08.25.23 at 2:46 pm
Grunt work in a political party is a form of activism. Same for unions. We could debate whether those who get paid for organizing or party work are still activists or only volunteer activism counts. But certainly no political party functions and no election campaign is waged without volunteer activism.
We like to make a distinction between talk and action. Activism is supposed to be the move from talking to doing something concrete. But many forms of activism, like demonstrating and handing out leaflets, are just another form of talking, of propaganda. One could argue that only action that has a material effect, like strike or sabotage or blockade, constitutes real activism. That seems overly narrow to me in light of the fact that even much activism that does fall into this category aims at least in part at attracting media attention and raising awareness, thus propaganda. The 19th century anarchist concept „ propaganda by the deed“ is characteristic. The acts of violence that were advocated for were seen as a means of propagating ideas and rallying like-minded people. The acts themselves weren’t enough to change the system. Nowadays the most determined climate activists engage in mostly symbolic acts of resistance clearly with the aim of raising awareness.
We are facing unprecedented ecological collapse and the not unprecedented rise of fascism. It seems to me that we need to do something, urgently. But when I ask what could be done that has a chance of success, beyond some form of propaganda, I come up blank. And ultimately I end up thinking that it still mostly depends on election outcomes, which activism might influence.
Any better ideas? If your response is „revolution“, please kindly explain which concrete actions you suggest to reach this goal.
Tm 08.25.23 at 3:00 pm
P.S. Let’s not forget that the most meaningful antifascist activism in our time is the people of Ukraine fighting back Putin’s aggression.
William S. Berry 08.25.23 at 4:09 pm
“engels” @19 sums up the neocon “philosophy” of “spreading democracy”
I picture Wolfowitz licking his comb contemplatively and quietly suggesting: “We invade and occupy the entire country (which might, incidentally, involve a few hundred thousand civilian casualties; very unfortunate, but unavoidable, I’m afraid). They won’t have any choice then but to be completely free and democratic, just like us!
“Yes, it will be a tough job. But it’s our challenge (and our destiny) as Americans to do the tough jobs, and the world knows, must know, that we’re up to that challenge.
“When the going gets tough, the tough get going’s what I always say!”
hix 08.25.23 at 5:31 pm
True, after most definitions of activism the more formal party work also counts as such. Come to think of it, so does getting involved in the corporatist board. I suppose my inner mind frame was that this typically involves little to no input into what could be called policy choices or how the campaigns is done and hardly ever even asking nicely for something that is marginally different from the status quo.
engels 08.25.23 at 6:43 pm
when I ask what could be done that has a chance of success, beyond some form of propaganda, I come up blank… Any better ideas?
https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2649-how-to-blow-up-a-pipeline
Tm 08.25.23 at 8:08 pm
Hix, corporate boards members are not volunteers.
„this typically involves little to no input into what could be called policy choices or how the campaigns is done and hardly ever even asking nicely for something that is marginally different from the status quo“
Most activism is in fact like that. Many people take part in demonstrations but only a small number among them decide what messages to promote, who gets to speak, etc. Have you ever been involved yourself? Or anybody here?
Ingrid Robeyns 08.25.23 at 9:57 pm
Tm @45 – yes, obviously yes (and I would hope so most of our readers would answer affirmatively to your question whether they’ve every been to a demo) – but in my view “going to a demonstration” is one of the least demanding forms of activism, since everything has been arranged for your. You only need to sacrifice a tiny little bit of your time, and be willing to be outside, possibly in tthe heat or the rain, and that’s about it. On the 1-100 scale of activism, that surely is in the first ten percent of least demanding forms of activism (together with buying a share from a green sharhold activist group such as https://www.follow-this.org/ – you pay them thirthy dollars/euros/pounds and they do all the activism work for you. Still, if everyone where to join demo’s and buy a share in a shareholder activist group, it would at least make me somewhat less gloomy about the prospects of the livability of the planet for human beings in the future.)
engels 08.25.23 at 10:12 pm
Sure. One of my faves was the 2010 student protests which got a bit out of hand when people tried to burn the Trafalgar Square Christmas tree and occupy the National Gallery, and surrounded Prince (now King) Charles’ car chanting “off with his head!” Fun times. But “you won’t believe what happened next”…
nastywoman 08.26.23 at 11:14 am
@
‘But “you won’t believe what happened next”…’
Meghan much less old-fashioned and more successfully deconstructed ‘Mainstream’ Royalty –
Right?
WHAT CONTEMPORARY ACTIVISM!!
And that’s why she is now one of the utmost hated ‘Activists’ on this planet –
(even more hated than my sister Greta)
OR
to say it in other words:
‘there is a widespread insufficient appreciation for the importance of SUCH activists in the world; often that attitude is even plainly dismissive. If this is true, then why is this the case, and why is this wrong?
nastywoman 08.26.23 at 11:25 am
and talking about
‘Contemporary Activism’
do you guys ‘sink’ that there is such a widespread insufficient appreciation for the importance of activists in the world; often that attitude is even plainly dismissive.
BE-cause creative clever contemporary Activist don’t do it the old-fashioned way anymore – when ‘sinks’ get ‘out of hand and people tried to burn the Trafalgar Square Christmas tree and occupy the National Gallery, and surrounded Prince (now King) Charles’ car chanting “off with his head!”?
Harry 08.26.23 at 1:54 pm
Fake Dave’s comment (which nobody has taken up) probably deserves a separate thread. I’ll try to figure out how to do a post which raises the question (that maybe noone wants to take up!). But. I share FD’s view that as a professor my job is to teach them how, not what, to think. And for my larger courses I am scrupulous (and, according the evidence I get when I survey them after class, successful) in witholding my own views about the issues we explore.
I’m also pretty scrupulous, though not as obsessively so, about withholding even when I get to know students quite well. But: that tells them something about my values, and in particular my gentle insistence on listening to and trying to understand people that you disagree with about politics (or whatever) reflects a particular worldview. And I have pretty good evidence that that influences some students to be more open-minded and less dismissive and to be open to friendship across disagreement — inadvertently recruiting them to my side, as it were. Is that ok? (That’s a genuine question: I’m not convinced it is, but don’t really know how else to proceed).
engels 08.26.23 at 2:42 pm
In (most of) C21st USA it’s not possible to directly drill substantive normative beliefs into students but the idea it’s possible to teach a course on political philosophy or ethics without your own biases influencing the choice of material or its presentation and that in turn exerting an influence on some students seems incredible to me and its not clear that refusing to explicitly acknowledge them would advance that aspiration.
nastywoman 08.26.23 at 2:48 pm
but Kant says:
it is “the first and most important concern of philosophy, once and for all, to avoid any adverse influence by blocking the source of errors”
engels 08.26.23 at 2:54 pm
“Don’t teach what to think but how to think” may be a good goal for teachers to have to but also good to acknowledge it’s one they can’t possibly attain.
engels 08.26.23 at 3:10 pm
Apologies for triple post but I also think in most subjects there must be particular assertions of fact that if you believe them mean you missed the point of the course: eg someone who took a course on evolutionary biology and ended up a creationist.
hix 08.26.23 at 6:48 pm
“Hix, corporate boards members are not volunteers.”
Good that I was not talking about corporate boards then, but about corporatist arrangements.*
Either way, I had a very particular example in mind and rest assured in that case the afflicted representative does not get paid a penny to participate. The other people involved get their hourly wages for the job role they represent.
*Corporatist as in the technical political science meaning of the term. We could now argue about the appropriateness of the translations board and committee, interchangeable used above, but workgroup while more literal correct would not do the arrangements role and non formal formality any justice either.
John Q 08.27.23 at 7:27 am
Harry @50 I’m open about my own views, and don’t see that as inconsistent with teaching the students how to think. I emphasise that I am looking for original thoughts, not a restatement of what I’ve said.
My course is about climate change, so I ask questions about individual vs state action, whether the problem can be resolved under capitalism and so on. To the extent that a left-right spectrum applies, most of the students, though not all, are to my left (more concerned with individual responsbility, less belief that the problem can be solved under capitalism), but that’s fine.
Chris Bertram 08.27.23 at 11:19 am
Since the “democratic” objection to some kinds of civil disobedient and resistant activism has come up in this thread, I think it is worth making the point that in a world of states, even democratic ones, the demos is involved in imposing its will on people who don’t have a say: outsiders such as migrants or foreigners facing the impacts of our collective refusal to take effective action on climate change. And democratic governments are often involved in human rights violation against outsiders. The problem then isn’t that I have been involved in a choice to impose bounds on myself and out to work with others to change that choice democratically, but rather that the collective of which I’m a part is a dictatorship with respect to others. As a part of the agent of injustice in such cases, I have a responsibility to its victims to act in their defence, partly in order to expiate my own blame in the matter.
engels 08.27.23 at 11:34 am
NPR weighs in:
Reminds me of a hymn British schoolkids used to be taught:
Good to know that all time we were learning to be r-r-r-radical.
engels 08.27.23 at 11:56 am
An interesting piece (by one-time timberer Astra Taylor!) “Against Activism“:
Ingrid Robeyns 08.27.23 at 1:36 pm
Harry @50 – I don’t see the problem, as long as one stresses very clearly that as teachers we have a specific role to make students learn and intellectually grow, and that this implies impartiality in our teaching. But we are also scholars, and – at least in my country- we are expected to engage in ‘social impact’, which for philosphers means sharing our analysis and conclusions with the public (didn’t, say, Habermas have any students?). Also, students get taught (in other courses, at other universities) what we have written about, and we’re encouraged to write ‘public philosophy’.
etc. etc. etc. … some of us are visible with our ideas, critiques and analyses outside the classroom, and this is generally appreciated, even by those who disagree.
In short, I don’t see how we can hide our personal values and views and social critique from our students, and I don’t think that is a problem AS LONG AS we are clear that in our role as teachers we are wanting them to form their own views and analysis. But we are not just teachers; we play mutiple roles.
I have never had any complaints from students that they feel that I am imposing my own societal analysis/critiques (on which the activism I’ve been engaged in is based) in my teaching; on the contrary, students approach me after class because they’ve found some of my arguments in newspapers or, indeed, here on this very blog, and want to discuss this or ask for more information/readings etc.
Definitely worth a seperate post! :) (one in which I very much hope that students from different countries would share their views).
Phil H 08.27.23 at 1:41 pm
I think it’s the certainty problem. I dunno about everyone else but the one thing that I think I know in the 21st century is that I don’t know anything. Politically, ethically… To give concrete examples: I’ve been veggie, and changed my mind about it; on the climate, I think that it’s going to be a techno-fix, and I cannot even begin to assess the real value of activism; on academics’ salaries the idea that the 1990s is some kind of good objective seems extraordinary to me. I have no reference points to make a judgment.
So I would start with lack of consensus as the primary reason for a lack of interest in activism. I’m not sure whether any further level of explanation is necessary.
Kevin M 08.27.23 at 2:26 pm
Hi Harry, I know you’ve written about this quite a bit before, but I’m still surprised to read you say this: “And I have pretty good evidence that that influences some students to be more open-minded and less dismissive and to be open to friendship across disagreement — inadvertently recruiting them to my side, as it were. Is that ok? (That’s a genuine question: I’m not convinced it is, but don’t really know how else to proceed).” What’s the concern here? It doesn’t seem to be the same as the concern about disclosing one’s own views, since the open-mindedness and non-dismissiveness you refer to are the result of withholding those views. So I’m wondering what could be the problem with encouraging open-mindedness and non-dismissiveness if such encouragement doesn’t pressure students into aligning their views with your own?
TM 08.28.23 at 8:04 am
hix 55: Apparently I misunderstood you. I’m not sure your what “corporatist arrangements” in your sense are, something like the Bauernverband or Industrie- und Handelskammer? If they do volunteer activism on behalf of a political cause, then yes I would say they are activists. It’s a neutral term, in my understanding, there are plenty of activists who are not left-wing.
(*) Which raises the question what is a political cause. I would use the term in the wider sense, e. g. I would count union activism, one could argue for a narrower definition.
TM 08.28.23 at 8:56 am
Ingrid 46: Attending a demonstration is indeed a relatively undemanding form of activism (although even in supposedly liberal democracies, repressive police action against predominantly peaceful assemblies is far more common than most people care to know), still in my experience a mass demonstration is a very powerful and motivating experience. The question for activists, after a successful mass rallye, the difficult question is what now? How do we keep up the pressure?
In your OP, you say about your university activism that apart from a demonstration with several thousand participants, “for any other activities the numbers were very, very small”. I’m curious, what other activities are you referring to?
Anyway my point was that it’s to be expected that in any activist group or movement, a relatively small group of activists is doing most of the activist work and a much larger group is limited to mostly “participating”.
This reminds me of a post by Erik Loomis about unionism, where he criticizes the idea that unionism is only meaningful if most of the members actively participate in the running of the union: “I most certainly wish more members were actively involved in my union. But isn’t the point of the dignity that union provides you is that you have the space in your life to do what you want? … If you want to sit around and watch Wheel of Fortune instead of going to a union meeting where the same people bloviate for hours on end, then I don’t see the problem with that. That’s your call. Again, the ideology behind all of this assumes that workers actually want to go to meetings in their off hours.”
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2023/07/the-unreflective-nature-of-union-democracy-activists
Ideally we would all be much more politically involved, but most people aren’t able or willing to put in that kind of comitment. That is a problem but it’s also what you have to expect.
Moz in Oz 08.28.23 at 9:51 am
Tm@45: Have you ever been involved yourself?
Yes. There’s an obvious selection effect – many actions are called but few are answered. But there’s also the flip side, that much persuasive effort is required for even the most successful protest. And especially with the increasingly overt fascist elements of modern democracies, that selection effect necessarily requires many sumpathetic organisers to do their bits in complete isolation from each other. I live in Australia but I understand that protest is increasingly criminalised in other countries too.
One of the more entertaining things to do is volunteer to engage with bought media on behalf of a protest. You are standing up to be pilloried (not literally, but in the modern social media sense) and the question is whether you can be sufficiently entertaining to get promoted by the billionaires who
run the countryown the media (“it was the sun wot won it” as the saying goes).But one of the more important things that us rich folk can do is send money to the kids who are getting fined on the streets. Think of it less as expressing your direct support for their actions as for the importance of those actions being possible. And if you’re a lawyer, pro bono work is important and appreciated. Especially when people are being arrested for telling juries that jury nullification is something they can choose to do.
MFB 08.28.23 at 10:02 am
Activism . . .
Down in the Tyumie valley, below the hill where I live, there’s a problem; the water projects installed in a hurry twenty years ago have broken down, not having been intended to last this long. Meanwhile, the local municipality is bankrupt and corrupt, so doesn’t have the money to spend on replacing the infrastructure even if it hadn’t decided to spend the money on councillors’ salaries. After months or years of unsuccessful attempts to do something about all this, the locals decided to block the road to my village with burning tyres, rocks and broken glass, successfully keeping me away from my classes at the university.
After a few days the riot squad got round to Tyumie (they are often fairly busy everywhere else), the activists’ activities were curtailed, the activists rounded up, the fires put out and some of the broken glass swept off what remained of the scorched roads. And so, nothing changed, except everybody’s indignation quotient went up another few notches.
Activism is necessary, but it requires a thorough understanding of what the problem is, how to resolve it, and what resources you have to devote to your activities. The problem with activists in the modern world, it seems to me, is that none of this is true. A case in point being the Occupy movement, which was obviously doomed from the start and had no idea of what it was doing, and yet was taken quite seriously by many people who should have known better.
Incidentally, let’s not forget that there’s a lot of disinformation out there. Remember that many of the head-choppers that NATO was sponsoring in Syria were solemnly referred to as “activists”.
TM 08.28.23 at 1:32 pm
MFB: “The problem with activists in the modern world, it seems to me, is that they have no understanding of what they are doing…” (slightly rephrased)
Gosh I’m glad at least the premodern activists knew what they were doing.
Also MFB: “let’s not forget that there’s a lot of disinformation out there. Remember that many of the head-choppers that NATO was sponsoring in Syria were solemnly referred to as “activists”.” Indeed, there is a lot of disinformation out there. No need to bring it here though, you can just leave it “out there”.
Ingrid Robeyns 08.28.23 at 4:22 pm
@TM/64: off the top of my head: we organised an alternative opening of the academic year (with speeches, so basically a ‘static demonstration’) which had a lot of attendees in one year, but that number plunged the next one; we collected complaints to the Dutch labour inspection which we bundled, analysed, and took to the Ministry that hosts the labour inspection; we organised a public debate with the minister of higher education herself in a buiding from one of the centrally located universities (Leiden), where there were an embarrasing low number of attendees; we organised a day with public lectures in open air and needed people to oragnise those; we called for people to hang up flyers repeatedly; we called for volunteers to lobby the differnet political parties before the last elections, and we wrote endless argumentative notes, opinion pieces etc. For all these activities we looked for volunteers to help. Given that this activism was about the very working conditions of university staff themselves, which are also [at least to some extent] the learning conditions of our students, it surprised me that most were not willing (or able??) to become active, even not for a shorter period of time (say, one activity, or one academic year).
One thing that did change, though, was that union membership went up – we were unable to do our work without the practical support and strategic alliance with the unions, and we constantly called upon our colleagues to at least join a union; I heard back from the unions that they could see the effects of our activism in their membership increase.
Ingrid Robeyns 08.28.23 at 4:29 pm
MFB/66 – try, if you can, to imagine what the world would look like without the activism of the civil rights movement, or the feminist movement, or the labour movement, to name just a few. Except for those who embrace racism, patriarchy, and workers’ domination, the answer must be that the world would be a much, much worse place. That doesn’t mean that all activist are wise people – indeed, I made that qualification in the OP – but what you say makes me wonder what kind of person you are…
engels 08.28.23 at 4:35 pm
isn’t the point of the dignity that union provides you is that you have the space in your life to do what you want? … If you want to sit around and watch Wheel of Fortune instead of going to a union meeting
This is idiotic (in the original Greek sense).
TM 08.28.23 at 4:57 pm
Thanks Ingrid. That people wouldn’t even show up for a public debate with the minister (a pretty undemanding effort and potentially impactful, if lots of people show their righteous anger) is really embarrassing and betrays a high degree of indifference.
nastywoman 08.28.23 at 5:32 pm
@
but what you say makes me wonder what kind of person you are…
the kind of person who writes:
‘Remember that many of the head-choppers that NATO was sponsoring in Syria were solemnly referred to as “activists”.
and thusly the type of person we are focusing on our activism against HATE and RACISM on the Internet.
engels 08.28.23 at 6:03 pm
From Taylor’s essay:
Moz in Oz 08.28.23 at 10:49 pm
One of the problems with activism si that when it works it’s often invisible, or to put it another way, it’s only visible while it’s not having a notiveable effect. There’s also the MLK effect, where activists are flipped from “terrorists who must be stopped by any means necessary” to “hero of the revolution” only after public opinion changes.
If you look at the history of women’s suffrage that can be quite eye-opening. Even the most reactionary part of democratic societies today accept that women should vote (with some notable exceptions, but often those are “I’m ok, but other women should STFU” types). Meanwhile suffragist women were branded violent criminals (they were) trying to overthrow what was right and proper (they were). Many people very very upset, not least those they were trying to murder to make some kind of point about power or something (no-one really knew).
It’s also interesting that we have such high standards specifically for people upset about getting fucked by the current system. But such low standards for those in power. In that sense the deluded right are correct: our rulers do harbour paedophiles and rapists as well as a whole collection of other criminals right down to tax evasion (which is normalised!). And our government actively protects them from prosecution. Plus our ruling class can obviously be angry, incoherent, badly dressed, rude and that’s portrayed as normal and necessary “of course he’s upset, he faces the faint possibility that in the future he might have to obey existing laws”.
But some poor black person upset that a family member was mudered by police officers “by mistake”, and those officers are told they have done nothing wrong? That person had best be quiet, polite and grateful if they’re allowed to speak at all.
So when activist do “the wrong thing” or undertake actions that don’t immediately lead to the change you say they should want… why is that not a normal and necessary part of them being human?
TM 08.29.23 at 9:22 am
Astra Taylor’s essay (thanks for the link) leaves me unimpressed. “To be an activist now merely means to advocate for change, and the hows and whys of that advocacy are unclear. The lack of a precise antonym is telling. Who, exactly, are the non-activists? Are they passivists? Spectators?” ““Labels are certainly not new to collective political action,”, … the term activist is suspiciously devoid of content. … But activist is a generic category associated with oddly specific stereotypes: today, the term signals not so much a certain set of political opinions or behaviors as a certain temperament.”
and so on.
As if the most important question in political activism/organizing/whatever you want to call it is what labels to use. Seriously?
Parts of the essay are valuable. But none of this is really new.
“The work of organizing has fallen out of esteem within many movement circles, where a faith in spontaneous rebellion and a deep suspicion of institutions, leadership, and taking power are entrenched.”
Implicit is always this golden age nostalgia. “*fallen out of esteem” – when was that golden age of organizing before it “fell out of esteem”?
MFB 08.29.23 at 9:36 am
Dr Robeyns, you are apparently incapable of responding to a challenge to your prejudices without stooping to personal abuse.
The feminist trade union and civil rights movements of the twentieth century were highly imperfect organisations which accomplished some things for a limited set of people. Unfortunately they then failed to build on these limited accomplishments and then died — or, to be more precise, shrank into impotence or allowed themselves to be co-opted by the plutocracy. They were not replaced by people who knew what they were doing, but rather were permitted to supplant the more genuine activists of the past. This is why conditions for women, workers (and the bulk of the middle class) and all those other oppressed groupings are deteriorating amid choruses of te deums from the false activists of the present.
The fact that people can deny that NATO was financing Wahhabi terrorist murderers in Syria is a not insignificant matter; the support was no secret at the time (and was not did not cease even after NATO decided to murder some of the murderers with illegal invasions of Syria) and that anyone can refer to this as disinformation is very disturbing in what was once a purportedly liberal forum.
TM 08.29.23 at 9:59 am
engels 70, idiotes for the Greeks were private citizens that didn’t hold public office. There seems to be some debate but according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiot, the term was not meant derogatory. Citizen (keeping in mind that was a tiny minority of the population) involvement in public affairs was expected and encouraged in Athens but Athens also introduced a payment for participation in the Assembly (which met several times per month). Apparently neither civic duty nor social pressure were enough to motivate citizens, compensation was needed. And guess what, we moderns are not that different. Most people aren’t willing or able to invest hours of their spare time every week in organizing work. I think that’s perfectly ok and understandable and anyway, what I or you think doesn’t matter much.
Trader Joe 08.29.23 at 1:10 pm
Not to be pedantic, but I think there is a difference between labor union activism and more generalized activism in favor of some broader cause.
Much of what unions get up to benefits a very narrow segment of population (i.e. the workers themselves) and can as effectively be described as a negotiating tactic as actual activism. This doesn’t excuse the many union members who apparently were too apathetic to get involved in even basic assembly – but I would put some of that to union leadership itself. If they cannot motivate their base to participate perhaps the base is questioning the value of the union?
Back in the old days of unions (1970s and prior) unions had fairly regular mandatory meetings and people could lose their cards for non-attendance. While this was a chore, it affirmed a degree of solidarity and enforced participation is better than none at all. The fact that food and liquor was usually available (at union expense) at least made it a bit more palatable. Perhaps something like this needs to be revisited to reduce the number of unionized “free riders” and get them to put some skin in the game.
Northern Observer 08.29.23 at 2:37 pm
The problem is that we live in the dictatorship of the activists, reified by the money power through foundations, NGOs and the UN. Sometimes to derail the activists goal. Sometimes to force the goal, to the benefit of power, social costs be damned. This leads to all sorts of problems as the activists will to activity accommodates itself to power, viewing such accommodations as indicators of success and drives the activist further and further away from the cries of the citizenry, cognitively and often physically. Net Zero is the obvious example. The more local and limited a cause the more likely it is to retain moral fitness. Scale up and watch out. Yes this is a type of anti-politics. But how would you not interpret the 20th century as too much politics and too much blood?
Ingrid Robeyns 08.29.23 at 8:09 pm
MFB@76 – I responded to your blank general claims about “activists”. Yes, I think what you write about activists as a general category is bullshit and I can’t interfer from either of your posts that you have any recent experience of actual activist groups that are working hard, and often making great personal sacrifices, to fight against injustices and improve the societies in which we live. I said nothing about your last line – hence also no need to respond to what you said there. And apart from this, I’ll leave it to others to judge whether I’m “stooping into personal abuse” but will apply our comment policy – https://crookedtimber.org/notes-for-trolls-sockpuppets-and-other-pests/ – much more stringently on further comments.
@All – it’s clear from reading all the comments that people clearly have very different groups, causes, and activist events/strategies in mind when forming their judgements on how necessary/helpful (or not) activists are.
TM 08.29.23 at 9:29 pm
I thought we had reached the low point but…
“The problem is that we live in the dictatorship of the activists” A bit over the top even for a troll, don’t you think?
TJ: “Not to be pedantic, but I think there is a difference between labor union activism and more generalized activism in favor of some broader cause.”
It’s debatable but I think it makes no sense to exclude any activism that is even partially motivated by self-interest from this discussion. You’ll exclude most. And how “broad” is a broader cause? And unionism can be conceived of as narrow or broad, that depends.
“Back in the old days of unions (1970s and prior) unions had fairly regular mandatory meetings and people could lose their cards for non-attendance.” Didn’t know that, do you have more details?
Lee A. Arnold 08.29.23 at 10:09 pm
I think that in general, what is going on is 1) the longstanding modernist assumption of automaticity, 2) the new realization of cognitive limits, and 3) the increasing crowding and complexity of the world.
1) Automaticity: “Modern science will progress toward truth. Democracy and free speech will lead to good decisions. The free market will lead to the best outcomes.” –These combine into a default position of modernism: the hope or dream that a system can be set up that automatically gets better anyway. This has always tended to limit activism.
2) Cognitive limits. Computers and social media have brought home to everyone that there is a lot more going on than you can think about, a lot of distractions, and it is quite overwhelming.
3) Increasing crowding and complexity. We actually have even more problems than we used to: climate acceleration, disappearing wildlife ecosytems, growing pressures of immigration.
The end result is not, I think, going to be a cessation of activism, but we have been in a temporary hiatus among the serious-minded, regarding strategies to address more things simultaneously and completely.
Meanwhile the widespread feeling that things are falling apart is leading many people into hopelessness, or silly opinionating, or mindless populism.
KT2 08.29.23 at 10:21 pm
Australia’s Reserve Bank Govenor is pleased activists are active. Perhaps the site of activism, ANU, was a factor:
“But anyway, we are on a university campus and I am pleased to hear there is still some activism that goes on.”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-29/michele-bullock-incoming-rba-governor-climate-change-inflation/102789070
J-D 08.30.23 at 12:06 am
Any thoughts on how this situation came about?
Fake Dave 08.30.23 at 5:34 am
I was way too deep in the online Syria discourse for a couple years and “head chopper” is absolutely a tell for the sort of people who say the Arab Spring was a CIA plot and the rebels gassed themselves. The immediate pivot to calling anyone who disgrees a brainwashed imperialist neocon sellout establishment stooge is typically cynical, as are the fairly random invocations of left wing causes and fighting oppression in the abstract.
The purpose is to leave us feeling disoriented and defensive and questioning everything. Up is down. Left is right. Liberal democracy is chauvanistic and hegemonic. Fascism is iconoclastic and anti-imperialist. While we’re trying to get our bearings and defend our political identities, they’re slipping slightly irregular “facts” into the conversation — trying to make us look foolish or goad us into defending frequently indefensible western institutions or worldviews while they plan the next attack. They don’t have good arguments, but they never, ever show self-doubt and their idiot certainty plays to the peanut gallery. They’re not activists, but they play them on the internet.
nastywoman 08.30.23 at 8:23 am
@85
thank you for:
The purpose is to leave us feeling disoriented and defensive and questioning everything. Up is down. Left is right. Liberal democracy is chauvanistic and hegemonic. Fascism is iconoclastic and anti-imperialist. While we’re trying to get our bearings and defend our political identities, they’re slipping slightly irregular “facts” into the conversation — trying to make us look foolish or goad us into defending frequently indefensible western institutions or worldviews while they plan the next attack. They don’t have good arguments, but they never, ever show self-doubt and their idiot certainty plays to the peanut gallery. They’re not activists, but they play them on the internet’.
and today in Kant’s Germany –
‘Gut ein Viertel der Menschen denkt, dass die Politik in Deutschland von “geheimen Mächten” gesteuert werde. Ein Viertel meint, die Regierenden “betrügen das Volk”. Ein Fünftel bis ein Viertel der Befragten sieht seitens der Massenmedien Manipulation: Sie würden die Bevölkerung systematisch belügen.
“Rechtspopulistinnen und Rechtspopulisten nutzten immer wieder die gleichen ‘Erzähl-Elemente'”, erklärt Kommunikationswissenschaftler Frank Brettschneider. Sie dächten, dass es einen einheitlichen “Volkswillen” gebe, den innere und äußere Mächte unterdrückten. Dazu gehörten politische Eliten, Massenmedien, die EU, die Globalisierung und der Islam’.
And most of this ‘Sinking’ is Internet Activism by distributing recycled fascistic Ideas about some ‘Lügenpresse’ (aka ‘the enemies of the people)
And why could such poisonous propaganda be distributed for such a long time that
even in Germany – where the people had learned that Right Wing Racist Science Denying Populism just doesn’t ‘sink’?
Trader Joe 08.30.23 at 1:42 pm
TM@81
My experience is fairly specific. Back in the 1970s my mother was the leader of her local chapter (Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals PASNAP). Once a quarter there was a meeting of everyone in the local – attendance was taken and people earned “de-merits” if they didn’t attend. Twice a year there were meetings that were more regional in nature and these were considered mandatory with locals also enforcing demerits. If you accumulated enough demerits you were put on probation which could then lead to expulsion if it persisted. These rules were consistent (at least at the time) with the larger national union which was National Nurses United.
I don’t know if these rules translated to the Teamsters or any of the other larger unions, but back in the 1970s in the U.S. the unions were pretty strong (certainty relative to today).
I guess where this is on point with the OP is that if you allow people to sign-up to a cause and don’t force them to take any action that’s likely what you’ll get. If you give them a personal reason to care their willingness to participate at some level is likely to go up.
As an aside – at least twice I can recall her union/local went on strike. Once myself and younger brothers went with her to the lines when she couldn’t find a sitter for us (we were between 5 and 10 yrs old). Another time a strike was threatened and was either averted or it only lasted a day or two. From that experience I tend to have more than average bandwidth for supporting the cause of workers/unions than for other comparable social causes.
engels 08.30.23 at 6:40 pm
when was that golden age of organizing before it “fell out of esteem”?
In US it probably means the 50s when about a third of workers were unionised (as oppressed to 10% today) but even in 1980 about 20% were I think.
engels 08.30.23 at 6:47 pm
Someone else can dig out the figures on party membership but Peter Mair (mentioned above) is a great overview of all this.
Tm 08.30.23 at 8:19 pm
Engels: Union membership was higher in the 50s but my question would be: was that because organizers were more skilled or more politically conscious, or was it due to different economic and legal conditions? The latter seems more likely. Taylor seems to blame the subjective attitudes of contemporary activists who, she claims, don’t understand the value of organizing any more. I would be careful with such attributions.
TJ: interesting. I see the point of incentivizing participation at least a few times a year (but not say every week). Especially with a relatively small organization. But it is still likely that some activists will be far more involved than others.
engels 08.31.23 at 10:14 am
Activists: “Be the change you want to see in the world.”
Also activists: “Unionisation declined due to structural conditions outside anyone’s control…”
TM 08.31.23 at 12:37 pm
engels: I’m not pretending to speak for “activists” (who is that btw? These generalizations are so useless…) but I’m sure you can give us the Marxist take on the story ;-)
Comments on this entry are closed.