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Be Empowered: !. “Perhaps the greatest utopia would be if we could all realize that no utopia is possible; no place to run, no place to hide, just take care of business here and now.” -– Jack Carroll, Canadian politician. Theories of societal relations and social movements. Ferdinand Tonnies.
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“Perhaps the greatest utopia would be if we could all realize that no utopia is possible; no place to run, no place to hide, just take care of business here and now.” -– Jack Carroll, Canadian politician
Ferdinand Tonnies Societies shifted from gemeinschaft (societies based on intimate relationships in which everyone knows everyone else and shares a sense of togetherness) to gesselschaft (societies dominated by impersonal relationships, individual accomplishments, and self-interest).
Karl Marx • a change in economic systems-capitalism, led to the change in social relationships. • the breakup of feudal society drove people off the land, creating a surplus of labor. • As the masses moved to the cities, they were exploited by those who owned the means of production, dividing the social classes into capitalists and workers. • Alienation, by producing only part of a product or contributing to only one part of the production process, workers became alienated from the product of their labor, their creativity, their being, and their understanding of social life as social beings.
How Technology Changes Societal Relations Technology refers to the tools used to accomplish tasks and to the skills or procedures to make and use those tools. The new technologies of postindustrial society greatly extend people’s ability to analyze information, communicate, and travel.
How people relate to one another • It can change how people organize themselves. For example, the introduction of machine technology changed where most workers did their work, moving them from their homes to factories. • It also changed the nature of their work, taking them from the production of an entire item to specializing in particular tasks that produced only one part of a product or involved only one part of the production process.
Propaganda • A key to understanding social movements is propaganda—the presentation of information in the attempt to influence people. • Public opinion: how people think about some issue • Propaganda: the presentation of information in attempt to influence people
Social movements consist of large numbers of people, who, through deliberate and sustained efforts, organize to promote or resist social change. • Proactive • Reactive
Why do people join Social Movements? • mass society theory, • mass society makes many people feel isolated. Joining social movements helps these people fill the void in their lives by offering them a sense of belonging • relative deprivation theory, • contending that it is not people’s actual deprivation that motivates them to join social movements, but their relative deprivation • ideological commitment theory, • many people join social movements because of moral issues
… … agent provocateur, someone who joins a group to spy on it and sabotage its activities, is a special type of social movement participant.
Solutions to social problems are complex ,to correct these problems social movements do not appear over night, and individual efforts are needed to get social movements underway.
Tactics of Social Movements • The choice of tactics is influenced by the predisposition of the group’s core members, the number of its committed members, the potential effects of its tactics on outsiders who may be interested in its goals, and the group’s relationship to authorities.
Types of Social Movements • Alternative Social Movements • Redemptive Social Movements • Reformative Social Movements • Transformative Social Movements • Millenarian Social Movements • Transnational Social Movements • Metaformative Social Movements
Stages of a Social Movement • Initial unrest and agitation—people are upset about some social condition in society and want to change it. Leaders emerge, verbalize and crystallize the issues. • Resource mobilization—members of the social movement begin to effectively mobilize resources, such as time, money, people’s skills, and the ability to get the mass media’s attention. • Organization— division of labor is set up, with the leadership making policy decisions and the rank and file carrying out the daily tasks to keep the movement going. • Institutionalization— the movement develops a bureaucracy. Control shifts to career officers, who may be more concerned about their position in the organization than the mission of the movement. As the movement becomes more and more institutionalized, the collective excitement that characterized the earlier stages of the movement diminishes. • Organizational decline and possible, resurgence— The leadership is preoccupied with managing the day-to-day affairs of the organization. Changes in public sentiment and/or social conditions may have made the original concerns or mission of the movement fall aside
Cognitive Liberation “McAdam explains that resource mobilization must also include cognitive liberation. When members of an aggrieved group begin to consider their situation as unjust. They recognize the situation they are in and then sense that the situation can be changed “
How have reform movements made a difference? • Successful reform movements generate change in three areas: Culture, institutional creation, and social policy and legislation. • Reform movements educate people and change beliefs and behaviors. • Movements lead to the creation of new organizations that continue to generate change. • Successful social policies have been nurtured by partnerships between government and social movements.
It is up to the students “to prod and to provoke, to research and to act!” • Voting drives led by student activist during the Vietnam war were the driving force behind the 26th amendment granting voting rights to those 18 yrs of age and older.
Oppression Action Continuum Where do you fall?
What is the Oppression Action Continuum? There are 8 stages of response described on this continuum. The action moves from being extremely oppressive on one end of the continuum, to extremely anti-oppressive on the other.
Action Continuum Supporting Oppression >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Confronting Oppression
Actively Participating • Telling oppressive jokes, putting down people from target groups, intentionally avoiding target group members, discrimination against target group members, verbally or physically harassing target group members. • Example: This really needs no example, this is specifically a person whom is extremely offensive and harmful and doesn’t care to change or may just need some education about how offensive they’re being.
Denying • Enabling oppression by denying target group members are oppressed. Does not actively oppress, but by denying that oppression exists, passively accepts oppression. • Example: Having an attitude of “It’s not a problem unless you make it one.” Or believing that racism and oppression doesn’t exist
Recognizing, No Action • Is aware of oppressive actions by self or others and their harmful effects, but takes no action to stop this behavior. This inaction is the result of fear, lack of information, confusion about what to do. Experiences discomfort at the contradiction between awareness and action. • Example: Listening to a gay joke, recognizing the homophobia, not laughing, but not saying anything to confront is an example.
Recognizing, Action • Is aware of oppression, recognizes oppressive actions of self and others and takes action to stop it. This stage is an important stage because the person is no longer passively accepting oppressive actions and actively choosing anti-oppressive actions. • Example: When you hear someone using a target group to intentionally stereotype of degrade that group you interrupt them and tell them “what you are saying can be extremely offensive to people of that particular group.”
Educating Self • Taking actions to learn more about oppression and the experiences and heritage of target group members. • Example: Reading, attending workshops, seminars, cultural events, participating in discussions, joining organizations or groups that oppose oppression, attending social action and change events
Educating Others • Moving beyond only educating self. Helps others increase awareness and knowledge about oppression. • Example: Engages in questions and dialogue with others. Rather than only stopping oppressive comments or behaviors, also engaging people in discussion to share why you object to a comment or action.
Supporting, Encouraging • Supporting others who speak out against oppression or who are working to be more inclusive of target group members. Overcoming the fear that keeps people from interrupting this form of oppression even when they are offended by it is difficult. Supporting others willing to take this risk is an important part. • Example: Backing up others who speak out, forming an allies group, joining a coalition group
Initiating, Preventing • Working to change individual and institutional actions and policies that discriminate against target group members, planning educational programs or other events, working for passage of legislation that protects target group members from discrimination, being explicit about making sure target group members are full participants in organizations or groups. • Example: May be teachers that include a gay “family life” perspective in their curriculum or RA’s inviting a Multicultural Advisor to discuss homophobia on campus
Surprised by where you fall? • Why are you surprised? • What are you going to do to change it? • Why don’t you care to change it?
I CHALLENGE YOU! • MOVE UP AT LEAST ONE CATERGORY ON THE CONTINUUM BY the END OF THE YEAR! • IF YOU’RE AS HIGH AS IT GOES, CONGRATULATIONS! CONTINUE DOING THE WORK THAT YOU DO!
Resources • http://www.wou.edu/student/sla/Assets/leadershipresources/Oppression%20Action%20Continuum.doc. • Adams, M., Bell, L., & Griffin, P. (1997). Teaching for diversity and social justice: A sourcebook. New York: Routledge.
http://socialistworker.org/2009/11/18/staff-and-students-strike-at-uchttp://socialistworker.org/2009/11/18/staff-and-students-strike-at-uc • A THREE-day strike and protest by students, staff and faculty will begin today at campuses in the University of California system against a proposed 32 percent fee hike for students and continuing attacks on campus unions.
“We need to ask what we want in this nation and why; how we should run our economy, meet human needs, protect the Earth, achieve greater justice? … The questions have to come from us, as we reach out to listen and learn, engage fellow students who aren’t currently involved, and spur debate in environments that are habitually silent.,”(Loeb 1994).
"History holds no more august claim than where there is no struggle, there is no progress! Men who profess to stand for freedom yet deprecate agitation, are men who would have rain without thunder and lightening, the ocean with out the awful roar of her many waters. The struggle may be moral or it may be physical, but there must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without demand; it never has and it never will. Men may not get all they pay for in this life, but they shall sure as hell pay for all that they get!" Frederick Douglass.
Social movements and the power of words, conversations, dialogues and the means for creating cultural alliances in the Collective
Activism- Guerila Art • http://papertigertv.blogspot.com/2008/09/subverting-media-low-tech-guide-to.html
What is Freedom? I believe it is a question of being in touch with all aspects of what we are and what we can experience physically, emotionally, aesthetically, spiritually. It is a question of different paths to a deep experience of the remarkable fact that we live, we exist, that we are part of this miraculous cosmos. It is at the same time a question of consideration for this, of taking responsibility for it, for the deepest aspects of ourselves, for our relationships with other people in the world around us. -Unknown
“At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality… We must strive every day so that this love of living humanity will be transformed into actual deeds, into acts that serve as examples, as a moving force.” -– Che Guevara.
