Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 The mysterious shrinking circle of concern
- 2 Volunteers trying to make sense of the world
- 3 “Close to home” and “for the children”: trying really hard not to care
- 4 Humor, nostalgia, and commercial culture in the postmodern public sphere
- 5 Creating ignorance and memorizing facts: how Buffaloes understood politics
- 6 Strenuous disengagement and cynical chic solidarity
- 7 Activists carving out a place in the public sphere for discussion
- 8 Newspapers in the cycle of political evaporation
- 9 The evaporation of politics in the US public sphere
- Appendix 1 Class in the public sphere
- Appendix 2 Method
- Notes
- References
- Index
- Titles in the serious
7 - Activists carving out a place in the public sphere for discussion
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 November 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 The mysterious shrinking circle of concern
- 2 Volunteers trying to make sense of the world
- 3 “Close to home” and “for the children”: trying really hard not to care
- 4 Humor, nostalgia, and commercial culture in the postmodern public sphere
- 5 Creating ignorance and memorizing facts: how Buffaloes understood politics
- 6 Strenuous disengagement and cynical chic solidarity
- 7 Activists carving out a place in the public sphere for discussion
- 8 Newspapers in the cycle of political evaporation
- 9 The evaporation of politics in the US public sphere
- Appendix 1 Class in the public sphere
- Appendix 2 Method
- Notes
- References
- Index
- Titles in the serious
Summary
Part 1: “Is this a tangent?”: activists in meetings
We're good at having discussions but bad at deciding anything. We'll have a meeting and someone'll ask us what we decided and we'll say, “We don't know but we had a great discussion!” That's why we're having a strategy meeting with a regional organizer.
Neil, an activist in CESE (Communities for Environmental Safety Everywhere), sounding guilty but a little pleasedI have a little sermon I wanted to give – it's short, but I just want to say a little something about what I was thinking after I met with Wilma Balinsky's campaign for governor. She asked to talk to us, and see the incinerator site, and she wanted to know that we're not just alone, that we're not just babes in the woods or flaky liberals. I think we really convinced her, but we'll see. But it really made me think: we're getting somewhere! What we're doing here matters!
We're not in this for a big splash – we're in this to protect our future. If you care about the future, or even if you've ever had a child, or even if you haven't, you know that you're not in this just to make a scene or get attention. We're not doing this for ourselves, or because we want to make a fuss just for the purpose of making a fuss – we're in this to protect everyone's future. […]
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Avoiding PoliticsHow Americans Produce Apathy in Everyday Life, pp. 165 - 209Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1998