What is activism?
Feb. 9th, 2011 09:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
moominmuppetSince I mentioned in a previous post that activism is really central to my sense of self, I was thinking about what that means. One of the things I think is worth noting is that for me it's as much about how I mentally frame my interactions with the world as anything else.
Wikipedia's definition sounds about right to me:
Activism consists of intentional action to bring about social, political, economic, or environmental change. This action is in support of, or opposition to, one side of an often controversial argument.
I think intent means a lot when it comes to defining activist work; the same action may or may not be activist, depending on whether the person performing it is doing so with the express intent of influencing the world in some particular goal-oriented way. (I think intent matters similarly in the question of what is and isn't art, incidentally)
A lot of what I consider activism in my life is on a very small scale; it's about how I choose to interact with people on a daily basis. For me, sharing information is activism. Conversation can be activism. Living in ways that I hope will set an example of alternate options is activism. I seriously doubt that everyone here in the household considers it activism, but creating and working to maintain it definitely is for me. Treating people with the greatest amount of justice and care I can accomplish is activism. And the reason I consider those things activism is because I try to approach them in the context and framework of intentionally attempting to influence the world. Intent may not be magical, but it certainly is something that's key to this kind of broad concept, imo.
I've said in the past that one of the best things that changed in my own brain when I became an atheist was the shift from faith to hope*. I often describe it in the context of a tapestry metaphor; once one knows that nothing else is going to come along and fix things for us if we screw up, it really drives home how very important it is for each of us to pick up our own little thread in the tapestry, and pull with all our might in the direction we each believe is best (whether one is right on that or not is, of course, one of the great questions in life). There's nothing guaranteeing success, no faith that it will necessarily turn out how we want, but there's room for great hope that we might just pull it off. I think humans have such amazing potential, could accomplish such incredible things, but I think the path of least resistance is toward annihilation as a species. We'll all have to pull pretty damn hard, hopefully in some similar directions, or we may not make it. Overall, I'm much less depressed by the risk than exhilarated by the hope that we just might, just maybe, be able to pull it off together. And I frame my life largely in the context of tugging away on my wee little thread, in the wisest way I'm capable of. That's why "activist" is so central to my identity.
*how this worked for me is solely about me, not a commentary on how I expect it works for others; please do not interpret it as a generalization about how religion, atheism, or activism work for other folks.
Wikipedia's definition sounds about right to me:
Activism consists of intentional action to bring about social, political, economic, or environmental change. This action is in support of, or opposition to, one side of an often controversial argument.
I think intent means a lot when it comes to defining activist work; the same action may or may not be activist, depending on whether the person performing it is doing so with the express intent of influencing the world in some particular goal-oriented way. (I think intent matters similarly in the question of what is and isn't art, incidentally)
A lot of what I consider activism in my life is on a very small scale; it's about how I choose to interact with people on a daily basis. For me, sharing information is activism. Conversation can be activism. Living in ways that I hope will set an example of alternate options is activism. I seriously doubt that everyone here in the household considers it activism, but creating and working to maintain it definitely is for me. Treating people with the greatest amount of justice and care I can accomplish is activism. And the reason I consider those things activism is because I try to approach them in the context and framework of intentionally attempting to influence the world. Intent may not be magical, but it certainly is something that's key to this kind of broad concept, imo.
I've said in the past that one of the best things that changed in my own brain when I became an atheist was the shift from faith to hope*. I often describe it in the context of a tapestry metaphor; once one knows that nothing else is going to come along and fix things for us if we screw up, it really drives home how very important it is for each of us to pick up our own little thread in the tapestry, and pull with all our might in the direction we each believe is best (whether one is right on that or not is, of course, one of the great questions in life). There's nothing guaranteeing success, no faith that it will necessarily turn out how we want, but there's room for great hope that we might just pull it off. I think humans have such amazing potential, could accomplish such incredible things, but I think the path of least resistance is toward annihilation as a species. We'll all have to pull pretty damn hard, hopefully in some similar directions, or we may not make it. Overall, I'm much less depressed by the risk than exhilarated by the hope that we just might, just maybe, be able to pull it off together. And I frame my life largely in the context of tugging away on my wee little thread, in the wisest way I'm capable of. That's why "activist" is so central to my identity.
*how this worked for me is solely about me, not a commentary on how I expect it works for others; please do not interpret it as a generalization about how religion, atheism, or activism work for other folks.
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no subject
Date: 2011-02-10 04:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 11:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-10 06:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 11:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-10 11:00 am (UTC)Oddly enough though, my feeling of citizenship is not at all limited to our nation. It's codified for us in our constitution and all but I never bought into the notion that the rights of the people is really supposed to be limited to citizens.
My frustration is that we, as a nation and as a species, seem to agree pretty much on what we want and how everybody ought to be pulling and then we keep getting distracted by nonsense, "your thread doesn't look like mine" or "but I'm pulling up here and you're pulling down there. We CAN'T be really pulling the same way"
My comfort as a citizen of the world and of the USA is how perfectly just it is. We always get the world we deserve. We all say we'd like nobody to starve to death or die for lack of clean water but we don't act like it and so we justly get a terribly unjust world.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 11:07 pm (UTC)Possibly so, but this is one where we disagree I think.
It's probably also relevant that I came into activism primarily through feminism and the queer community, both of which place a great deal of emphasis on The Personal Is Political.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-11 12:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 11:03 pm (UTC)