It could be discrimination in any of its disgusting forms. It could be sexual harassment. Or domestic violence. Or unsatisfactory child maintenance.
It could be bullying, noise pollution, the burning of refuse in residential areas.
Any social menace a government fails to set its face resolutely against demands another potent societal response for large-scale success to be achieved.
But getting significant social change in matters about which there is much resistance or what amounts to slackness on the part of the authorities is no walk in the park.
Influence is de t’ing!
A “message” is not influence. Reasoning is not influence. Comment and analysis are not influence. “Educational appeals” are not influence. At least not society-changing influence. Yet we tend to put all of our eggs into that intellectualistic basket. And little, if anything, changes.
We got a lot to learn.
Consider how the lesbian gay bisexual transgender (LGBT) community has become so powerful in the United States.
An essentially countercultural movement has virtually won the day. In present-day America, a country with significant, long-standing Christian traditions, you can bad-talk Christians and Christianity as much as you want (which, even as a Christian, I don’t have a problem with) but you have to be careful about bad-talking homosexuals. They even invented a linguistically unsound word for it: homophobia. But they never even went looking for a word for anti-Christian sentiment in a country whose national motto is In God We Trust.
I don’t mean we should allow hatemongering, discriminatory talk – that is always wrong. I mean disagreeing, even harsh, criticism, which should be okay for both groups, ’cause both have philosophies and lifestyles that many find questionable, if not objectionable. So why is one fair game (as it should be in a democratic, non-theocratic country) and not the other? You can run riot with anti-Christian jokes and smears, but anti-homosexual jibes are off-limits.
How did this community manage that coup? Not by “educational programmes”. Not by intellect-doused “conscious lyrics” and “social commentary” songs. In fact, that community has often been assailed by those types of songs – and yet, who winning?
And how?
They didn’t use inauthentic, moralizing, caricatured pretences at dramatic presentations which are so laced with message that the autonomy of the receiver is disrespected and no lasting engagement is achieved.
Like those pieces that turn up at NIFCA, putting over barely concealed sermons, often using little children to say adult things, and in which the dialogue and action are so message-fixated that the presentations have unrealness written all over them.
The LGBT folks, instead, used influence. To build up support. To get the “right” people (including strange bedfellows, literally) on board. To put ardent boots and bodies into the battle.
They won by lobbying politicians and political parties, by petitions (with dead-set intent and teeth), by court cases, by stories in songs and sitcoms and movies that went for the heart by experientializing and emoting the sensitive side of the lifestyle, making
it seem natural and its practitioners likeable.
They went at it affectively – not cognitively/rationalistically and “commentistically”. They also found and used sympathetic memes (self-replicating units – buzz words (like homophobia), images, rituals and the like – of cultural information that spread virally), and won the media, partly by playing on that sector’s notion of its own “neutrality” and its particular interpretation of news and “newsmakers”.
We, however, expect to win big battles with head shots – educational outreaches, argumentative calls to talk shows, and songs that create no emotional intimacy, no genuine heart engagement, personal stake, listener ownership or simulation, along with preachy plays and poems.
The evidence is not very encouraging that direct, rationalistic approaches have noticeably impacted the social problems they were addressing. Of course, they have value – it is just that they do not make the difference, and we should not be fooled that they do.
Message is not enough.
If we want to bring about social change – and not everybody has the bent, time, resources or energy to lead the charge – we have to study and employ the principles and means of successful activism. They are rooted in influence, not message.
• Sherwyn Walters is a writer who became a teacher, a song analyst, a broadcaster and an editor.