Seedling Magazine Issue #4 - April/May 2019

what
Activists
are doing wrong
If you are an activist, you probably spend a lot of time
encouraging people to stop doing things. I know I do! ‘Stop
supporting animal exploitation’, ‘don't use disposable plastic’
and so on. And sometimes this approach does a lot to raise
awareness and get people thinking. But is it really effective
activism? All too often, it seems somewhat lacking when it
comes to getting people to actually change their behaviour.
And the key problem with this approach is that it focuses on
the negatives ­ ‘don't do that’ or ‘[insert thing] is really bad for
the environment’.
This can sometimes make people feel helpless. They can see
why something is bad, but they have no idea what to do about
it.
At one Earthlings Experience demo I did, a passerby became
very upset and frustrated. She could see that the footage was
awful, but there were no members of the outreach team
available to talk to her. This left her feeling at a loss as to how
to avoid the cruelty she had witnessed.
I've realised that simply pointing out what's bad isn't effective
activism ­ we also need to provide viable alternatives.
Consider the following ways of phrasing a statement, for
example.
‘Eating meat is cruel, bad for the
environment and unhealthy.
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