Activism is a reaction to the institution’s inability to afford change through what it makes available to the people, who are associated with that institution by social contract.
The form of that reaction is often to challenge the status quo that which the institution intends to keep or that which it cannot change by itself.
If you can make change through established system of negotiation or the rule of law, then you wouldn’t pursue activism at all.
Worker union is the institutionalized form of worker wage and wellbeing activism.
The dominant governance systems of the West are the institutionalized form of governance activism (esp. against religious or authoritarian rule of the past).
In a sense, the end goal of activism is for an institution to internalize new mechanisms of change that are currently external to the scope of (mostly social?) consent.
Activism’s key themes are pressure, force, manipulation and renegotiation of the established (mostly social) contract.
Activism pushes changes that the establishment wouldn’t otherwise make.
Take this story:
A kid had already had way too much candy today, but he still wanted more. So he asked his mom for candies, mom said no. Then he went to ask dad, dad said yes but just a little. Then he went back to mom and said, “but dad said I can have some more.” Mom confronted dad about it and the parents renegotiated a deal: no more candies. The kid then went to grandpa, who couldn’t resist those tiny little cute begging eyes. So grandpa gave him a little candies and said, hush don’t tell anybody. Grandma found out and told mom, who confronted grandpa about it. However grandpa happened to be a philosopher, and he pointed out the arbitrary and unscientific nature of mom’s Candy Rule, which proved that a grandpa’s Candy Rule would be just as legitimate as a mom’s. Eventually they renegotiated a new deal where the kid can have more than his current daily candy allowance.
In that story, the kid couldn’t renegotiate through established means, so he facilitated a Candy contract renegotiation through alternative influence and manipulation.
If you ask me, I say that’s a form of activism in action, albeit on a mini scale and on an obscure topic.
What is activism to you?
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Noah Fang 
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