Compassion, "networking" and activism

It is funny how you might start thinking of something, and then realise that there are so many conversations going on pertaining to your thoughts, that you can't believe it is coincidence...

The other day I was wondering at what point people feel compelled to take action against a problem. Since then, I have listened to a wonderful conversation between Krista Tippett, the host of Being, and Nicholas Kristof (a journalist for the New York Times), about compassion and journalism. Also, in this week's New Yorker, I read Malcolm Gladwell railing against the ability of new social media and "networking" sites such as Facebook and Twitter to galvanise real support for essential activism and dissent. Both of these speak to the question I was thinking of...

Nicholas Kristof has traveled the world documenting various atrocities, in particular social ones. He had been writing for many years about "missing" girls in China, up to 40,000 per year, but stories such as the booting out of a red-tailed hawk from a building in New York City (which is still of course a legitimate story) seemed to be getting the page space he was vying for. He started looking into the neurology of compassion and empathy, and realised this: as long as people cannot make an emotional connection to a problem, they are not going to do anything about it. This may seem trivial and obvious, but it is something that all of us trying to get people to be vociferous and active, especially in the environment and social realms, have to grapple with, and probably are not doing a good enough job at. Once we make an emotional connection, we can use that as a portal to bolster our cause with more "rational" information, like numbers and facts. But another interesting part of the conversation dealt with "compassion fatigue." Kristof and Tippett spoke about this fatigue in relation to social problems, but it is easily extrapolated to any problem. Broadly, compassion fatigue is the point at which people feel the problem is too big for them to make a real impact. In one study, people were shown a picture of a starving young girl in Mali, and asked to donate money to help her. People gladly did. When shown a picture of a young boy, also starving, people gladly donated money to help him. However, when shown a picture of both of them together, donations dropped. It was at this point, the problem affecting just one more than one person, at which people felt the problem to be too big. Imagine donating for millions of starving people...

Many of you know that I am not a proponent of technology and "networking," and never have been one. Well, I guess there is more than one person other than Wendell Berry, that shares (partially) similar sentiments, Malcolm Gladwell. The subtitle of his recent piece is "Why the revolution will not be tweeted." He contends that social media cannot provide what social change has always required. Gladwell takes on the example of the Civil Rights Movement, in particular the Woolworth's sit-in that took place on 1 February, 1960. The sit-in movement in the South generated such a crescendo that it was impossible for the perpetrators of racism to continue their ways. The Civil Rights Movement, which was full of high-risk activism, was based around "strong ties" and true personal connections to the problem and activism. Social media "activism," on the other hand, is always based around "weak ties." Although it might be much easier to spread the word about something nowadays, the connections made with people are much more superficial. That is why 1,282,339 members of the Save Darfur Coalition may not accomplish much. Gladwell contends, "Facebook activism succeeds not by motivating people to make a real sacrifice but by motivating them to do the things that people do when they are not motivated enough to make a real sacrifice. We are a long way from the lunch counters of Greensboro." Further, social media activism is diffuse, with very little central authority, in stark contrast to the almost militant activism of the Civil Rights Movement. Where is the individual responsibility when you are a member of a Facebook group? And if you really feel something is a problem, how come I am not hearing about forceful action being taken? Gladwell feels that there is but very little "high-risk" activism taking place today. David Helfenbein of the Huffington Post disagrees.

I do tend to agree with Gladwell that today's "activism" is digital, diffuse, unemotional and unconnected. I know someone very high up at the University that feels the same way.