Comments on: “Get your fucking game face on”

By: Why not quit? «

Why not quit? « — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 13:08:48 +0000

[...] So, anyone got any other reasons why we should Keep Going when there’s nothing else in you except the will that says, “hold on”? And is it helpful to keep on going when you are obviously burnt out? That’s a luxury question for spoilt westerners, isn’t it? Shouldn’t they just get their gameface on? [...]

By: Poetic Bingo Spam «

Poetic Bingo Spam « — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 22:17:37 +0000

[...] makes me think. See I’ve posted something similar at CheapViagra.com.” But the “get your fucking game face on” post I did about six weeks ago obviously got some spambot’s dander up with the use of [...]

By: dwighttowers

dwighttowers — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 12:33:03 +0000

Thanks, and I think you are right. What is missing from the post is more of an understanding of what motivates and keeps some people. Certainly a ‘business’ ethos will alienate some from being involved. The lack of a business ethos may (overtly or covertly) alienate others. I suppose it’s about having places and means within a ‘movement’ where these things can be catered for. Unfortunately, many ‘newbies’ will not get what they want and instead of “shopping around” (the term is revealing – as if forms of activism are like a new t-shirt from GAP or wherever) they are lost altogether. More thinking is certainly called for.
Cheers
“Dwight Towers”

By: Sarah Irving

Sarah Irving — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 11:11:54 +0000

Hmmm. I sort of agree with most of this, and I sort of don’t.
One of the problems with asking activists to use tools like time management, accountability and goal setting is that it’s effectively telling people they have to apply work ethos, practices and standards to the stuff they’re doing in their leisure time. They’re already giving up their leisure time to ‘do activism’ and so a lot of them expect – rightly or wrongly – to be cut some slack, or for activism to be somehow fun and fulfilling.
Why do most people do activism? I’m not sure that it actually is because they believe they can effect the changes they claim to be aiming at; I can’t help suspecting that if activists were driven primarily by that then actually we would have even fewer of them than we do now, because the chances at this time of achieving the kind of goals they/we claim to have are so tiny – if your main aim in being ‘an activist’ was actually to achieve those things then you’d give up after ten minutes and go and sob in a corner. I suspect that a lot of the time it’s more about personal self-fulfillment, group membership etc, or even just being able to live with yourself. ‘Activism is my rent for living on this planet,’ etc etc.
I’m not saying any of this to excuse lunch-outery or slackness, but I also think this debate could be usefully informed by thinking about the psychological reasons why people might get into activism and want to stay in it, because a lot of the time saving the planet or changing society maybe aren’t actually the prime drivers, and therefore maybe it’s hard to make them the benchmarks against which the value of activism is measured…?

By: Chris Johnston

Chris Johnston — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 06:39:41 +0000

This is the tame version?!

I think I agree with virtually everything you say. There’s no point blaming others for what we control, but choose not to accept responsibility for. Instead of being helpless (smug) onlookers, we could be masters of our own destiny. But that would take vision, imagination, innovation and leadership few are willing to give.

And to think our lives as activists are hard as we tuck into our hummous in heated homes in a welfare state… A monumental lack of perspective.