Just recently, at a dinner, someone while introducing his friends added, "They are also social activists". For some reason this small piece added to their introduction intrigued me enough that I wanted to explore that when can you reach a point where you can start labeling yourself as a "Social Activist".
So first and foremost, like all people, I turned towards Wikipedia. It defines social activism as following:
"Social Activism, in a general sense, can be described as intentional action to bring about social change."
So, following the above definition, Social Activist can be defined as an agent who brings about the social change. However, what is change and how or what sort of change does a social activist brings about needs to be explored in more detail.
Change can be defined as anything becoming different than what it is. Please, do note: "different", and not better or worse, but, different. There is a famous saying that, "The only thing constant is Change". Change is inevitable, it will come whether we like it or not.
Social activist strive to be the catalyst of change to steer the society in the direction they feel is fit for it. Every person has his/her own perception of a Utopian society. It can range anything from "Society consisting of only one religious belief" to "a society where every man has access to World Wide Web and unlimited access to knowledge". Every person's Utopia is based upon his/her beliefs and ideas and longings. So, social activists are those who put their ideas into action to convert their dream of Utopian society to reality?
If all sorts of people striving for all sorts of Utopian society will be labeled as social activist, it could be quite a detrimental definition and qualification of it for society. Although common sense understands, and considers the above deduction of the definition of social activist to be a logical fallacy of faulty generalization (by reaching an inductive generalization based on insufficient evidence) yet, unfortunately, the reality is very much in line with this definition due to the absence of mutual agreement on what is "Absolute Good" for the society. Therefore, historically, all sorts of personalities have been characterized and certified as "Social Activists". We have social activists ranging from the likes of Mother Teresa to Che Guevara. To elaborate further on this, at this point, I would like to introduce the explanation of the word activism as described in Wikipedia,
"The word "activism" is often used synonymously with protest or dissent, but activism can stem from any number of political orientations and take a wide range of forms from writing letters to newspapers or politicians, political campaigning, boycotts , rallies, street marches, strikes, stoppages hunger strikes, or even guerrilla tactics."
This term covers quite a huge ground. One website says that there are two challenges that a Social Activist needs to overcome,
• To encourage community people to take self-determined actions, and
• To avoid harassment and obstruction by the more powerful who may feel threatened.
So… what sort of actions and for what sort of causes? In my opinion, reforms, resulting from the social activism of a social activist which lessens the sufferings of the oppressed of the society, may only be qualified as positive social changes. Hence, those actions which are performed by a so-called social activist following his/her fantasies of what could be a Utopian society, do not hold much weight if they are not helping any oppressed.
Loosely speaking, every person in his own right is to some extent a social activist striving for a change in society. However, the term should not be thrown around lightly while labeling people in such a manner. Only those people whose actions have brought about that change in society which has lessened the sufferings of the abused and tormented on a huge level truly deserve to be labeled and certified as Social Activist. Then, and only then, the society should certify that Mr. X has indeed become a "Social Activist".
So first and foremost, like all people, I turned towards Wikipedia. It defines social activism as following:
"Social Activism, in a general sense, can be described as intentional action to bring about social change."
So, following the above definition, Social Activist can be defined as an agent who brings about the social change. However, what is change and how or what sort of change does a social activist brings about needs to be explored in more detail.
Change can be defined as anything becoming different than what it is. Please, do note: "different", and not better or worse, but, different. There is a famous saying that, "The only thing constant is Change". Change is inevitable, it will come whether we like it or not.
Social activist strive to be the catalyst of change to steer the society in the direction they feel is fit for it. Every person has his/her own perception of a Utopian society. It can range anything from "Society consisting of only one religious belief" to "a society where every man has access to World Wide Web and unlimited access to knowledge". Every person's Utopia is based upon his/her beliefs and ideas and longings. So, social activists are those who put their ideas into action to convert their dream of Utopian society to reality?
If all sorts of people striving for all sorts of Utopian society will be labeled as social activist, it could be quite a detrimental definition and qualification of it for society. Although common sense understands, and considers the above deduction of the definition of social activist to be a logical fallacy of faulty generalization (by reaching an inductive generalization based on insufficient evidence) yet, unfortunately, the reality is very much in line with this definition due to the absence of mutual agreement on what is "Absolute Good" for the society. Therefore, historically, all sorts of personalities have been characterized and certified as "Social Activists". We have social activists ranging from the likes of Mother Teresa to Che Guevara. To elaborate further on this, at this point, I would like to introduce the explanation of the word activism as described in Wikipedia,
"The word "activism" is often used synonymously with protest or dissent, but activism can stem from any number of political orientations and take a wide range of forms from writing letters to newspapers or politicians, political campaigning, boycotts , rallies, street marches, strikes, stoppages hunger strikes, or even guerrilla tactics."
This term covers quite a huge ground. One website says that there are two challenges that a Social Activist needs to overcome,
• To encourage community people to take self-determined actions, and
• To avoid harassment and obstruction by the more powerful who may feel threatened.
So… what sort of actions and for what sort of causes? In my opinion, reforms, resulting from the social activism of a social activist which lessens the sufferings of the oppressed of the society, may only be qualified as positive social changes. Hence, those actions which are performed by a so-called social activist following his/her fantasies of what could be a Utopian society, do not hold much weight if they are not helping any oppressed.
Loosely speaking, every person in his own right is to some extent a social activist striving for a change in society. However, the term should not be thrown around lightly while labeling people in such a manner. Only those people whose actions have brought about that change in society which has lessened the sufferings of the abused and tormented on a huge level truly deserve to be labeled and certified as Social Activist. Then, and only then, the society should certify that Mr. X has indeed become a "Social Activist".
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