Common Roadblocks to Effective Activism

Activism on both the right and the left faces three problems, problems that lead to a huge wasting of energy and money on efforts and little or no return. Individual activists and activists in organizations tend to regularly fall prey to people marketing propaganda and conspiracies, false conclusions about the causes of problems, the tendency to look for problems that fit a solution, and the tendency to favor stunts over useful activities. Think of this article as an introduction to some forces that lead activists astray. I've observed these problems over and over in thousands of articles, social media posts, ad campaigns, editorials, and et cetera. 

So, take that as you wish. 

Availability Entrepreneurs

There is a big problem with individuals and organizations promoting awareness of a problem (why the problem and not a viable solution?) or alleged problem to an audience who wants to consume that sort of information. Want to know about “immigrant problems” or misogyny or “capitalism problems”? Want to know who dangerous the world is and how law-abiding gun owners are making things less dangerous? Well, there are plenty of people willing to supply that sort of information. There are also campaigners for permissive gun laws, white supremacy, radical feminism, and other causes who eagerly spread news about a "gun problem",  or the immigrant "problem", or whatever. Yes, liberal activists and just as guilty as right-wingers.

The problem with availability entrepreneurs is that these people drain money and time away from real solutions to real problems. At the extreme, they try to sell utopian visions that have effectively no value in the real world. Can we really end racism or save the planet or smash the patriarchy? Those goals are not even remotely close to being real goals. 

Out of Focus Visions

All of us want our time and money to be put to good use. This is just a logical extension of the human need to feel useful. It doesn't help if you get derailed by doing things that are trivial or ineffective or have an unknown effect on the problem. Sometimes a focus on doing one thing leads to wasted time and money, lots of time and money.

Activists sometimes fall victims to false narratives about what the problem is and why it exists, or where it is most serious. Are girls bullied in school? Yes, so we need to do something. While that is obviously reasonable, it ignores that certain types of bullying affect boys and girls equally, Are girls bullied more than boys? That sort of information should be used but often isn't. 

An ideological commitment to feminism might produce the assumption that girls need special attention to protect them from bullying, so money and staff time must be spent on giving them that special attention. Libertarians, socialists, environmentalists and other activists groups are vulnerable to the same problem. Perhaps this is because many activists "know" what the world needs and insist on giving us that, regardless of facts and logic. 

"If The Only Tool You Have is a Hammer"

This is a problem across the political spectrum. Is there a problem? Market forces are the solution. Are women having trouble getting science jobs? Feminism is the answer. Is the water dirty? Government regulation is the answer. Whatever the problem, feminism or government action is what we need.

A psychological foible known as confirmation bias may be at work here. An early experience or a persuasive and flawed essay convinced you that the government will always screw things up, or that the struggles women have in life are mostly caused by the patriarchy, or that capitalism is always bad. From there it is easy to look for ways that social problems can be solved:

1. Shrink the government, aka smaller is better.

2. Undermine the patriarchy with feminism.

3. Pass more regulations, demonstrate for economic equality, advance socialism. 

In no case does it seem useful to question whether the government is always inferior, feminist activism is going to help, or more regulations will necessarily help more than they hurt. Sometimes, that's true. The problem is that a persuasive example of the government seeming to screw something up quickly gets generalized to every area of social policy or economic policy. 

Stunts that Stunt Progress

Many activism efforts take lots of boring administrative work and letter writing and meetings to produce results. That’s the reality. Sometimes consciousness-raising stunts, slogans, social media campaigns, and cool labels soak up too much time and money.  

Consider sexual assault on college campuses. This is a problem. But what to do? Does there need to be a campaign to teach men not to rape? Either way, this is a thing that exists, as a slogan among feminists. What would this "teach men not to rape" campaign look like? 

Nobody knows. Surveys show that most college men and women know what consent is and what rape is. Do adults really need help learning to manage their sexual impulses? Do men who are prone to committing acts like forcible rape care about learning better ways to express their desire for power and control? Education will not reach the very people most likely to become rapists. In practice, all that can be done is to educate college students about what acts constitute sexual assault. 

But, many college students are uncertain about whether certain behaviors count as sexual assault. If a woman seemed sexually interested in a guy and she passes out later, is it still OK for him to have sex with her? Most college students would recognize this scenario as a form of rape. What about the rest? 

Maybe more education on consent and sexual assault is in order. Is University X doing a poor job of handling sexual assault claims? This is something to work on, so sexual assault victims are more likely to report their claim and stick with the whole process. I admit that "Reform sexual assault reporting and investigation " is not as cool as #teachmennottorape, a hashtag that says nothing about educating students on what counts as consent. Not everything that needs doing is cool or exciting. Sorry. 

Bypassing Roadblocks: Not Just for Evading the Law

How do activists avoid the insidious influence of availability entrepreneurs, confirmation bias, the bandwagon effect, lack of focus, and so on? That is a question for a whole book or a number of blog posts. For now, it is enough to remember that staging publicity stunts, making problems fit a favored solution, accepted flawed explanations of what causes a problem, and being misled by availability entrepreneurs.

Comments? Are there any roadblocks I should have mentioned?