Embrace Activism: G1
Activism demands Responsibility
Pressure for improvement is based on implicit current societal principles (as in "the Australian way") applied to the status quo. Ideally, it draws on recommendations that emerge from an official public inquiry into dysfunction.
The 7 styles of work, previously described, now form the G1- Monads in this .
Activist work needs to be performed with energy, passion and full commitment. The descriptor used here to capture this condition is: fervent.
While not everyone is willing to , everyone can be expected to accept that activism is important to society. Perhaps to avoid the pejorative flavour that can attach to the activist label and to encourage people, there is a tendency to use the term "change agent
" for those who want to make a positive different to a societal institution.
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Levels of Responsibility
G17: Demand Radical Transparency
A deep and pertinent transparency in relation to institutional functioning to serve specified needs may be a pre-requisite for knowing whether improvement is required, and (if that is obvious) then for knowing why and how the present unsatisfactory arrangements persists, or what may be done.
Even where transparency is compulsory, vested interests, including the government and its agencies, are intensely opposed to it, citing issues like cost, complexity, and confidentiality. But activists want the public to reject these defences and penetrate deliberate self-serving secrecy. Vested interests fight back by 'losing' relevant documents, 'accidentally' leaving video-cameras switched off, 'discovering' that computer discs were damaged.
G16: Challenge Damaging Perspectives
A variety of perspectives, typically organised as a paradigm or ideology, are at play in accounts of any institution. While many are contributory, some are counter-productive, and usually promoted by socio-cultural factions within privileged classes.
Activists need to confront distorted views of institutional needs and societally appropriate responses, explaining the harmful consequences.
G15: Highlight Comparative Statistics
Activists must take advantage of collections of institution-related data on needs and performance in their own society and in other societies globally. This permits selection of particular figures that reveal failings, gaps or distortions in the functioning of the institutions. By placing these in the context of other times and other societies, the rationale and arguments for change can be strengthened.
G14: Construct Alternative Narratives
The current narrative typically advances specific goals or interests and is used to manipulate or deceive the public. Activists need to provide a counter-balancing narrative that is also reassuring but re-centres the institution on core values and beliefs, and points to the need for different choices and regulations.
G13: Analyse Controversial Issues
The public is commonly paralysed by controversy and vested interests commonly stoke doubt to take advantage of this and stall progress. Exposing the disinformation and hypocrisy of vested interests is critical. Activists can foster improvement if they enable, draw on and publicize systematic investigations that get to the essence of the issue and show what can and should be done.
G12: Discuss Practical Remedies
Specific gaps often lead to promotion of solutions that appear simplistic, impractical, or unaffordable. However, activists can look deeper and focus on the potential to make a big difference by re-allocating resources or providing new simple regulations. These remedies may run counter to powerful interests but they highlight the values in play.
G11: Promote the Public Interest
Activists need to be concerned with interests in an impartial way. That means always seeking the public interest, however that may be defined, without being overly concerned with the condition of entities whose interests are currently served.
In all cases, the reference will be to social needs that are poorly met, and sometimes confronting counter-productive beliefs that interfere either with delivery or receipt of the relevant service.
Schema
Function:
To differentiate personal efforts for improvement that emerge from problems with the status quo based on application of widely shared principles, or from official public inquiries that have applied those principles.
Quality: Fervent i.e. an intensification of the spirit that enables the open active and intense pursuit of a relevant public interest.
Integration within the Group: Not applicable.
Integration across the Groups: Progression of focus from the most basic and specific to the most general and comprehensive.
Psychological Correlate: Identification with the principles driving activist efforts. Every person is potentially an activist and should reflect on how to handle their responsibilities as a citizen.
Institutional Tension: The public is ultimately responsible for the institutions that serve it, and there is a natural frustration with bureaucracy and government.
Practical Implications: Nothing happens if people are apathetic, fail to value the role of activism, or deny the existence of society-as-a-group (cf. Me-ness).
Transition
No matter how much effort activists and their supporters provide, the effect on the institution will be limited by the degree of receptivity of the public.
The next step, therefore, for those concerned to generate change is to , and that is possible by combining adjacent levels to form dyads.
- Continue with the Receptivity-G2 Dyads.
- Go to the review section to see the full picture in more detail.
Originally posted: 18-Mar-2024