Volunteers and activists invert whether a problem must be political to merit care.
Evidence
Although volunteers had to convince themselves that a problem was “not political” in order to care about it, activists had to convince themselves that a problem was political in order to care. — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”, 108
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Volunteers accept information-delivery while activists demand debate and analysis — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics: how Americans…, 1405; Volunteers spontaneously raised environmental and racial concerns rather than avoiding them — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”: The work of avoiding…, 64; Volunteers frame political talk as morally exclusionary of ordinary less-eloquent people. — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”: The work of avoiding…, 102 (+2 more)
Related
- Volunteers deliberately shrink concerns into unpolitical tasks to sustain a message of hope (similarity 0.85)
- Volunteers acknowledge social problems only after they are already solved. (similarity 0.85)
- Volunteers accept information-delivery while activists demand debate and analysis (similarity 0.83)
- Volunteers spontaneously raised environmental and racial concerns rather than avoiding them (similarity 0.82)
- Volunteers frame political talk as morally exclusionary of ordinary less-eloquent people. (similarity 0.81)
- Volunteers silence political problems to keep the empowering feeling alive (similarity 0.81)
- Volunteers suppress political talk because it would sink their feeling of empowerment (similarity 0.81)
- Volunteers uniformly translate every civic problem into a request for donated personal time (similarity 0.81)
- Volunteer-style charity work forfeits the power to define public issues (similarity 0.81)
- Activists connected every local issue to personal and political significance (similarity 0.79)
- Volunteers suppress principled political talk because it seems unseemly (similarity 0.78)
- Even politically engaged volunteer groups avoid discussing the substance of public issues (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- Volunteers accept information-delivery while activists demand debate and analysis
#expands(0.85) — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics, 1405 - Volunteer vanguard action masks rather than replaces mass political passivity
#expands(0.85) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2234 - Volunteers spontaneously raised environmental and racial concerns rather than avoiding them
#expands(0.80) — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”, 64 - Volunteers frame political talk as morally exclusionary of ordinary less-eloquent people.
#corroborates(0.80) — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”, 102 - An activist sees homelessness as addressable through government pressure coupled with direct personal care
#contradicts(0.80) — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”, 109