Talk:Activism
From Academic Kids
Wow, first person to write here.
Shouldn't there be a Social Activiasm - as in activism conducted by groups of people to affect a change by getting the public support for a cause. This differs from political activism where you wish to dialogue with politicians to get governments to take action.
An example could be Clean up Australia Day which started in 1990.
I bring this up because I would like to write an article on "West Papuan Social Activism" -- to:
- list such groups from around the world;
- discuss possible reasons why there seems to be a lack of any such group in the US (and its not apathy from the American people; I'm thinking more like the vested interests of Freeport, Indonesia, and the Ford Foundation);
- and itemize what constructive actions such groups could work towards.
Daeron 18:06, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)
People, I think that the following:
Activism, in a general sense, can be described as involvement in action to bring about change, be it social, political, environmental, or other change. This action is in support of or opposition to one side of a controversial argument.
is what the activists call what they are doing, but I do not think that this makes for a quality encyclopedia definition. Thing is, anything anybody is doing is causing some kind of change. What the CEO of KillingNature Inc is doing is "change" too, maybe just not exactly of the kind that activists would prefer, and to judge what is and is not change by someone's criteria is POV. Needless to say, we need to keep it as a self-description, but we should not have it as a basic definition. A better definition should be more specific to what 'activism' really entails, in opposition to other human activities. I think part of it entails something like participating in activities that would not be considered a "legitimate occupation" for an individual. Basically, there are some occupations, sometimes paid ones, that do not "qualify" as a real "job", sort of like protesting against Walmart, fighting against wishy-washy school curriculum, or training suicide bombers for Hamas. So if you cannot say that this guy has such and such job, you would say he is an "activist" for whatever it is that he is trying to accomplish. I am sure there are other symptoms, sort of like a "deviant" goal of the activity. Anyway, I will try working on it later, but I just wanted to open up the discussion about it. Let's make this article more analytical and less of a teach-in-truth-out kind of broadside. Watcher 09:14, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)
