We will begin the story about the state of civic activism by considering the state of our civic capacity and the available time for activity in principle. And to warn you in advance, activism itself will be discussed only somewhere near the end. Patience, please.
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And the story begins with a bicycle. There is a delivery courier on a bicycle, who will soon ring our doorbell and bring a bag of food prepared where we have not gone to eat. The contents of the bag will end up on our plate, where the meals we cooked for ourselves used to end up. Our activity was reduced to using the delivery application on the phone. Paid by card, so we don't have to worry.
Maybe we could go to the cinema? No matter who wants to bother going out, there is a movie or series on the Internet, both of which can be watched on the big screen of the home TV and paid for, again, with the help of an application.
If you don't feel like watching a movie, you can read a new book, but you don't have to go to the library or bookstore, because there is an app for buying and reading books. If all of the above is boring and tiring, you can always "chat" with friends, a video call may also come into consideration, who is going to get dressed and go out now, there is an app. And what should we wear, when the delivery from online shopping, which we ordered via the app, has not yet arrived.
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Although I really hate sentences that contain the expression "...we live in times that...", we will have to notice how we live in times that do not require us to do anything active. The mixture of consumerism, hyperproduction, and the IT and industrial revolution - and all of this further aided by the pandemic - requires us to work quickly in order to earn, and then to spend what we earn even faster. If you can't spend enough, you will have to work a lot more, you can do it from home. And if there is still no money to buy, some genius invented "helicopter money", a guaranteed income that serves to buy even when there is no work or salary. And all this is necessary so that those who create everything we spend money on have a job, earn and then spend everything they have. And so in a circle.
The little free time that remains for the individual participant of this economic neurosis will be spent on messages, calls, browsing social networks and all other charms made possible by modern telecommunications. Civic activism - to the greatest extent possible and with the greatest possible number of people - will be reduced to some angry fasting, and liking and sharing some socially useful activity, which was carried out by some other, rare and unusual people. Because there is no time for anything else. Okay, maybe a selfie.
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For the very beginning of the very end of the story about activism, let us state that some kind of "activista.com" platform was not invented. With its help, civic activism would become a kind of civic deliveryism: let's order how many hours some commissioned socially conscious courier will participate in some social good instead of us; or protest, with all the orders of what to chant and what placard to carry. However, this solution, for now, is not yet available.
Instead of the non-existent activist supply, by some incredible miracle there are still understandably few people, who resist the temptations of modern society with a miraculous effort, and find the time, energy and will to fight for the common good. For our sake, let's specify. And there are still very few days, months and years left for the rest of us to gather strength for the penultimate possible action of civic activism: civic action in support of civic activists. Because if it doesn't, everything that runs the colorful lie we live in will send an order for some delivery to eventually come and get us all.
And to deactivate us civilly, forever.
Bonus video:
