Believing public talk is powerless makes volunteers feel powerless.

Evidence

And so, we are back to the question of power, that started this round robin of explanations: part of why volunteers assumed they were powerless was that they assumed that citizens’ talk was “just rhetoric,” not a source of power. With a new reckoning of the value of talk itself would have come a new source of power. — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”, 105

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Self-interest talk tracks the speaker’s perceived lack of power — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”: The work of avoiding…, 35; Volunteers suppress political talk because it would sink their feeling of empowerment; People hedge civic language where it feels dangerous or powerless — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”: The work of avoiding…, 147 (+5 more)

Related

• Self-interest talk tracks the speaker’s perceived lack of power (similarity 0.85)
• Volunteers suppress political talk because it would sink their feeling of empowerment (similarity 0.85)
• Volunteers themselves restrict political talk to preserve their civic faith (similarity 0.84)
• People voice political opinions privately but suppress them in group settings. (similarity 0.84)
• Volunteers frame political talk as morally exclusionary of ordinary less-eloquent people. (similarity 0.84)
• Volunteers silence political problems to keep the empowering feeling alive (similarity 0.84)
• People hedge civic language where it feels dangerous or powerless (similarity 0.83)
• Volunteers welcomed structured political discussion despite avoiding it informally. (similarity 0.83)
• Volunteer groups suppress political talk even though members privately care (similarity 0.83)
• Public talk itself, not just outcome interest, creates selves and communities. (similarity 0.83)
• Political disengagement is socially produced in conversation, not just held in beliefs (similarity 0.83)
• Activists suppress their systemic political analyses when speaking publicly. (similarity 0.82)
• Volunteer groups lack respect for open-ended discussion of unresolved issues (similarity 0.82)
• Volunteers silence political discussion to preserve their can-do optimism (similarity 0.82)
• A folk theory that talk changes nothing underwrites civic apathy in volunteer groups (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• Volunteers suppress political talk because it would sink their feeling of empowerment #corroborates (0.85)
• Volunteer groups suppress political talk even though members privately care #exemplifies (0.82) — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics, 192
• People hedge civic language where it feels dangerous or powerless #expands (0.80) — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”, 147
• Low power groups feel more threat; high power groups react harder to it #expands (0.75) — Walter G. Stephan, Oscar Ybarra, Kimberly Rios Morrison, Intergroup Threat Theory, 6
• People will blame themselves for powerlessness to protect a belief the world is sound #complicates (0.72) — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics, 569
• Framing talk as fact-exchange makes political conversation feel intimidating and pointless. #complicates (0.72) — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics, 1013