“What Brecht asserts is that in idealist works the emotion acts by and for itself, producing what he calls “emotional orgies”, while a materialist poetics – whose objective is not only that of interpreting the world but also of transforming it and making this world finally habitable – has the obligation of showing how the world can be transformed.” – Augusto Boal, Theatre of the Oppressed.
Depending on how you look at it, it’s both unfortunate and fortunate that the debate about activism with Richard Stallman and Louis Ng is happening at this time; equally, that my doubts and thoughts about what activism means have coincided with a not-so-covert global campaign against Joseph Kony. Indeed, I was just as jostled by Millbank in 2010, the student protests and riots in 2011 and the Occupy movement. My doubts have also coincided with International Women’s Day, and an event run by Etiquette in celebration. A Malay aunty spoke about the magnetism of facebook – a massive vehicle for the campaign – which she has noticed in her grandchildren. Puzzled, she asked “what is this never-ending conversation? If someone would teach me maybe I would want to join Facebook too!”
So here’s my beef. I believe that the people who have come out with “critiques” about activists, and sudden popular activist movements, are not applying their critical thinking to some of their own positions. I think there’s a tendency, which is just as lazy, to say that the people who are getting involved are being coerced by a slick, well-produced video. Here’s a mandarin proverb which seems so obvious as to be axiomatic: “the participant’s view is distorted; the bystander’s view is correct”. But surely active, thoughtful participation is what we’re aiming for?
But what really got me was Demi Moore’s costume. Lead heroine in a button up shirt? 
