Beyond Activistism

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The current moment demands some thinking. In recent years, the movement has been undergoing a fascinating rhetorical shift as activists reject terms like antiglobalization, which emphasizes -- not very lucidly -- what they're against in favor of slogans like "Another World Is Possible," which dare to evoke the possibility of radically different economic arrangements. What would that other world look like?

Activists must engage that question -- and to do so, they have to do a better job of understanding how this world really works. In other countries, activists still read radical thinkers like Mikhail Bakunin, Karl Marx, and Frantz Fanon. We need that kind of engagement here. And judging at least from the European experience, it would pay off even in activistism's own pragmatic terms: Protests in major European cities routinely dwarf our own, and activists there have far more social and political influence. In the long run, movements that can't think can't really do too much either.

Adapted from the premiere issue of LiP Magazine (Summer 2004). Subscriptions: $16/yr. (4 issues) from Box 3478, Oakland, CA 94609; www.lipmagazine.org. The complete essay first appeared in Radical Society (April 2002). Subscriptions: $43/yr. (4 issues) from Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis Inc. Customer Services Department, 325 Chestnut St., 8th Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19106; www.tandf.co.uk

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