Viva la revolution
27 October 2010
I recently read Malcom Gladwell‘s article in the New Yorker called Small Change, it is about the differences between social activisim in the 1950-70s compared with so called social activism today that is focused through facebook, twitter, and other social networks. The point is basically that to have high risk social activism like during racial segregation here in the U.S., you can’t just be loosely acquainted with someone involved, you have to have a strong relationship with someone involved. The article also mentions that “networks” of people typically don’t have leaders and without leaders a successful strategic initiative is off the table. This is because everyone will have their own way to go about doing things, have different objectives, and possibly be manipulated from outside. Nowadays by joining a group or posting a status update anyone can be involved in whatever flavor of social activism that speaks to them most at that time. To quote the article todays brand of activism “makes it easier for activists to express themselves, and harder for that expression to have any impact.”
After I read this article I checked my facebook. I see that a group of acquaitences from high school are trying to raise awareness via status update about congenial heart defects. Some sorority girls from college are trying to raise awareness for cancer, again via status update, only because someone they know was diagnosed and trying to get others to join in by saying they know their friends are better than average. Someone asked all of her facebook friends to pray for her grandpa who is in the hospital. Another girl asked all of her facebook friends to pray for her sister who is mentally challenged AND to celebrate the first “deathday” of a friend who died one year ago on that day.
Thats a lot of awareness raising and prayer for just a single look through my news feed.
I can understand why awareness raising and prayer usually go hand in hand, it is usually because that awareness raising started off with someone affected by whatever they are raising awareness about in the first place. Do people really believe that psychically talking to which ever “man upstairs” they subscribe to is not insane? There has been a scientific study done on the power of prayer and it has no effect on patients getting better, where the patients who know they are being prayed for have an increased risk of complications. Still sure you want to pray?
I would like to point out that if all you are going to do is post a status update, join a group, or pray for something; you may as well do nothing at all. It seems to me that you just want attention if this is the case because none of this effects the status quo. If you truely want to make a difference, do something about it, don’t just post it to your news feed and then bow your head and pray.