Innovations in the activist world session:
Deron Triff, Changents: "story telling platform for extradorinary change makers in their 20s and 30s... It's about these individuals who have put it on the line to do something about these issues, using a rock star- fan model." They want to connect diverse skills and resources to change angents. Deron something strange about the "edginess" of his "changents," that they don't use the language of "activism, movements, etc." I'm not sure how this is significant. Apparently, his audience is cynical about the traditional, organizational mode of social change making. If you are post-activist, does that make you cooler, more of a rock star? Doesn't it divorce from the history of struggle, and the lessons we've learned? I don't know. I'm deeply familiar with the frustrations with many flawed legacies we have inherited from that history of struggle. Maybe this warrants further investigation. Perhaps it's just caffeine-free, activism lite.
James Carlson, Bucketworks: Bucketworks is a "health club for the brain" in Milwaukee, accessible for $40/year. They have never had a grant, never done traditional fundraising. He says his system is "way better, but we probably will ask foundation for money." It looks like a fun, hyperactive community center.
Joan Peckolick, Selfchec.org. Selfchec promotes cancer prevention.
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"To be sure, [society] cannot exist except through the individuals who serve as its substratum; it is, however, something more than a collection of individuals. A whole is not identical to the sum of its parts, even though without them it would be nothing. In the same way, by coming together in a definite structure..., men [sic] form a new entity which has its own nature and its own laws." -Emile Durkheim, A Course in Sociology
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Why do wars and revolutions happen? We do not know. We know only that to produce the one or the other men [sic] form themselves into a certain combination in which all take part; and we say that this is the nature of men [sic], that this is the law" -Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
"A phase transition is a sudden, global change in behaviour arising from the interactions of many constituent particles" -Philip Ball, Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another
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About Me
- Nathaniel James
- Washington, DC, United States
- In my professional life, I'm the Campaign Coordinator at the Media and Democracy Coalition. Beyond my commitment to advancing the values of justice and democracy in the media sphere through policy change and advancing community media, I have an intense interest in the social structure and process of intra and inter-organizational collaboration; social networks and social network analysis; network theory; complex systems; and emergent phenomenon. The views expressed here are my own and don't reflect the positions of any organizational entity.