Valuing one’s own speech as citizenship requires inventing a new cultural niche

Evidence

One of the group’s accomplishments over the course of its development was to carve out that niche for itself. That meant, above all, redefining the purpose of talk itself; over time, participants decided that becoming active citizens in a democracy was inseparable from valuing their own speech, in meetings and other public spaces. … They had to convince themselves that holding reflective, broad-minded political discussions was, itself, an important part of citizenship. — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics, 1203

Categorization

• QUESTION: Eliasoph implies no ready-made cultural niche exists for thoughtful activism whereas volunteer groups have one — worth probing what historical conditions created the volunteer niche.
• SEED: Angle: the neglected mid-ground of civic life — how groups must fabricate a self-legitimating identity between ‘volunteer’ and ‘radical’ when no template exists.
• XREF: connects to: Valuing their own talk lets citizen groups grow political knowledge and broaden concern — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics: how Americans…, 1498; Fragmenting dominant slogans linguistically lets colonized subjects remap their own identity — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2505; Aspirations toward cultural membership can be undermined by the aspirant’s own values and style — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 415 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Representing cultural specificity requires formal invention rather than universal empathy #qualifies (0.82) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 32
• Fragmenting dominant slogans linguistically lets colonized subjects remap their own identity #expands (0.80) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2505
• Valuing their own talk lets citizen groups grow political knowledge and broaden concern #expands (0.78) — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics, 1498
• Aspirations toward cultural membership can be undermined by the aspirant’s own values and style #qualifies (0.75) — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 415
• Diversity rhetoric can camouflage which citizens remain deemed illegitimate #complicates (0.72)