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A general comment on the nature of activism and the political process: one of the goals of activism in the political area is to move both public sentiment (awar

A general comment on the nature of activism and the political process: one of the goals of activism in the political area is to move both public sentiment (awareness / consciousness raising) and public policy. Now, one of the things to realize here is that this is a never-ending back and forth process, and sometimes the same battles are fought in different forms over time - and this can be incredibly frustrating unless you realize that this is the case. It's easy to believe that it's like fixing a bug; once you've patched policy/changed the mind of society on a topic, that it's fixed forever. Not so. New forms of an idea pick up; your favored policy falls out of favor due to changing events/other beliefs/ideologies/cultures that become popular; a new generation is born that has none of the bad experiences you had, and can have bad policies foisted on them; zombie ideas rise from the grave once more. This can be disheartening, frustrating, even despondency-inducing. I've been there more than once, and activists across the world have probably been experiencing this since the first protest happened outside the first town hall. For those stating "it will do nothing" - it can sometimes be hard to see the distant / second-order effects, but they do matter. Registering dissent matters. Now, I would add that there is a threshold beyond which activism loses its potency (for a variety of possible reasons) and you need to go to the next level (everything from non-violent resistance to revolutions.) In this particular case, we're nowhere near that, and by the looks of it, the tide is firmly against the anti-surveillance bloc, so pile on. Finally, I'd say that the idea that the arc of the universe bends towards justice is wrong; people bend societies towards it.

PavlovsCat 13y ago
I would like to add that there is another goal of activism, IMHO: solidarity among activists. Demonstrations don't just demonstrate to the outside world, they also demonstrate to the participants. When things look bleak this is very important. In the 60s, people would do sit-ins and sing together - maybe not because that was the most effective way to bring about change, but simply because it was a good additional thing to do. Every bit helps, nothing is wasted.

PavlovsCat 13y ago

I would like to add that there is another goal of activism, IMHO: solidarity among activists. Demonstrations don't just demonstrate to the outside world, they also demonstrate to the participants. When things look bleak this is very important. In the 60s, people would do sit-ins and sing together - maybe not because that was the most effective way to bring about change, but simply because it was a good additional thing to do. Every bit helps, nothing is wasted.