Direct-action spectacle aims to cure political powerlessness by showing human-made systems can change

Evidence

However, one highway dismantler told me that physically ripping up the highway was a way to convince people to get involved. He said that most people feel too powerless to get involved, but if demonstrators can show them that the highway was built by humans and can be unbuilt by humans, then they will feel less powerless. The spectacle will break through their everyday assumptions about the inevitability of the political and material world. — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics, 1322

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Complements the sacrifice essay’s logic of extreme, bodily acts communicating what words cannot — spectrum here breaks through inevitability rather than binding a community.
• XREF: connects to: Imagination precedes and enables the achievement of political transformation — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3429; Reality is produced through collective work and action — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 386

Broader Connections

• Imagination precedes and enables the achievement of political transformation #expands (0.75) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3429
• Reality is produced through collective work and action #expands (0.72) — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 386