The musician wasn’t opposed to activism. Some of the greatest songs ever written were acts of protest. They opposed wars, exposed hypocrisy, confronted racism, and gave courage to people who had almost run out of it. What puzzled him was something newer. He began noticing people who seemed less interested in changing the world than in displaying the fact that they wished to change it. Every demonstration became a stage. Every slogan a costume. Every social media post another audition for moral approval.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One afternoon he found himself in conversation with young activists. They wanted to know why he hadn’t endorsed their campaign. He asked what practical work they were doing beyond posting, chanting, and condemning. The question landed badly. They replied that raising awareness was itself a form of action. Perhaps so, he thought. But awareness of what? The issue itself, or awareness that they<\/em> were aware? He wondered whether some forms of activism had become performances and the primary audience was the performer. There is a certain intoxication in believing you stand on the right side of history. He recognized the temptation. Musicians suffer from an almost identical disease. It is possible to mistake applause for artistic growth, followers for friendship. He had done it often enough. We sometimes confuse being seen with doing something worth seeing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before leaving, one of them asked, “So you think we shouldn’t care?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “No,” he said. “Care enough to read people you disagree with. Care enough to help someone who will never know your name.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n While packing up it occurred to him the hardest performances are when nobody applauds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The musician wasn’t opposed to activism. Some of the greatest songs ever written were acts of protest. They opposed wars, exposed hypocrisy, confronted racism, and gave courage to people who […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"Layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[240],"tags":[],"class_list":["entry","author-rockbob","post-9623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-performing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9623\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}