Slacktivism. I don’t really like the term, because it suggests there’s a better activism people should be…
Slacktivism. I don’t really like the term, because it suggests there’s a better activism people should be doing instead (more on that in a second).
But the idea we can use these platforms to change the world is dangerous in multiple ways. /1
https://t.co/TlkJk6xIKn https://t.co/WN8mxvtPOB
It very quickly becomes just more team sports. The thing we want changed just becomes fuel to feed the social media teams and their solidarity and debates.
Meanwhile the problem being discussed remains mostly unchanged. /2
So the platforms allow the mobilisation and organisation of groups, around an issue. But they don’t really create any lasting change for the issue itself.
And then perversely the groups become dependent on the issue NOT being resolved. /3
Because to resolve it would dissolve the basis of the group’s existence. This is exactly like how we can’t get a rapid shift to EVs, because too much of society is so dependent on fossil fuel vehicle networks, for their (social) existence. /4
We become socially addicted TO problems. We become perpetual victims, because that creates and maintains our social cohesion.
To go back to why I dislike the term slacktivism. As if there’s a better activism. Activism exists within a wider model of how society works. /5
Which I Tweet about a lot. It assumes some nebulous thing called ‘the people’ drive social change.
Except ‘the people’ doesn’t exist. No human group, of any size, acts as an agency in that way. No group ever spontaneously all decides to suddenly agree or do something. /6
It’s always led, by a small number. About 5% of the group, history suggests.
The whole idea of activism is flawed. It’s correct in that it recognises that all change must be led into existence. But wrong in thinking that’s about ‘mobilising’ the change. /7
As if getting everybody informed and energised will bring about change. Ask those in the ‘third world’ about that. They’re informed, and energised. It’s never helped them.
We forget status. Only social status actually mobilises things in big ways. /8
That, and my broken record. Catastrophe. Only catastrophic disruption to existing status will shift what we’re all doing. The ‘puncture’ of our social equilibria.
Sadly usually that’s mostly natural disasters, or massive wars. /9
And most of all, we forget that most of the problems we currently want to shift, are in large part caused BY THESE PLATFORMS. Their relentless assault on the social institutions that used to do all of the things, that now aren’t being done. /10
Social media implements a libertarian political view. Not by accident, the founders are crusading zealots, for that political philosophy.
These platforms now absorb our anger at that stripping away from society too. A stripping away they largely do. /11
They absorb it, and then monetise it. They get rich first destroying society, and then monetising our anger at that destruction. They win at every point.
Why am I still here? Because the platforms vacuumed up what used to be called ‘society’, into here. /12
You can be a dissenting voice, to that vacuuming.
That’s real activism.
/end