Chapter 5: The Art of Activism
Quote 1: “Information only makes sense when linked with other information.” (pg. 175)
· When information is presented to people about a particular social issue of some sort, they have a tendency of only wanting to acknowledge this information if it’s backed up with plenty of facts. If these facts are not presented in the manner that they expect it to, then the information being given is deemed pointless and redundant.
Quote 2: “… they will make sense of information in ways that are routine or most comforting to themselves.” (pg. 185)
· Furthermore, these same people will process this information and correlate it merely with their preconceived knowledge. For example, to provide a valid opinion on something, whatever it may be, the person providing the opinion should have plenty of knowledge on the matter or else it’s pointless to everyone but them. However, this won’t matter because their opinion and their perspective make sense to them, so therefore they can’t possibly deem themselves to be wrong.
Quote 3: “People are inconsistent and pointing this out will not further your cause.” (pg. 193)
· Similarly, people also tend to have beliefs and stances on social issues that contradict themselves. And taking time out of your day to point this out will not serve your original purpose any good because it’s difficult to change contradictory beliefs that people have. They will find any reasoning to back up two beliefs that do not correlate whatsoever. For example, a person may not agree with abortion, but they agree with the death penalty.
Chapter 6: The Art of Activism
Quote 1: “Promotion, of course, is key for any marketing campaign.” (pg. 218)
· Marketing and activism do indeed go hand in hand. As artists and activists, it’s at our best interest to think like a marketer to efficiently gain exposure. So, we must keep in mind things such as: our audience, locations for what we plan to do, our wins, our risks and losses, etc.
Quote 2: “we need to emphasize the things they have to gain, while assuaging their fears of what they might lose.” (pg. 226)
· Of course, as with every major self- started project, risks start to become more prominent. We may have $1,000 to fund our project and we may be worried or second-guessing the impact our project will or will not have. But we must keep in mind, that losses do happen, and it shouldn’t end there, especially if you’re passionate about said issue. Secondly, we must determine whether we care more about the losses or the impact that our project will possibly have.
Quote 3: “As artistic activists, we need to compromise between being effective and efficient.” (pg. 238)
· This is also a quote that stood out to me because it’s a vital step for the process of creating your issue’s activism process. During the reading, they also gave an example with this quote that illustrated it perfectly. If you have one person that has the same view or agrees with your take on said issue, then it would be effective and a success because you just found another person that agrees with your take. However, it is just one person, so this would take a while if you wanted a bigger group. Now, if you gathered five people of the same mindsets and they all equally agree with your perspective, you now have five people that can possibly join you on your activism journey. So this would be efficient.
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