Civic activism – the largest possible number of people to the largest possible extent reduce it to angry posts and liking and sharing some type of socially useful activity, performed by some other, rare and unusual people.

Voja Zanetic

We shall begin the story about the state of civic activism by considering the state of our civic ability and the time available for activities in principle. And be warned, we will talk about activism just towards the end. Patience, please.

* * * * * * *

And the story begins with a bicycle. On this bicycle is a delivery service courier, who will soon ring our doorbell and bring a bag of food cooked someplace we didn’t go to eat. The contents of the bag will end up on our own plate, where the meals we used to cook for ourselves would end up. Our activity was reduced to using the delivery app on our phone. Paid by card, as to not bother.

Maybe we could go to the cinema? Meh, going out is tiring, there is a movie or a TV show on the internet, you can watch either one on a large TV screen at home, and, again, pay through an app.

If you don’t feel like watching a movie you can read a new book, but you don’t have to go to a library or a bookstore because there is an app for buying and reading books. If all of the above is boring, you can always text with friends, a video call may come into consideration – why bother dressing up and going out, there is an app instead. And what would we even wear, when the online shopping delivery hasn’t arrived yet – one we’d made through, you guessed it, an app.

* * * * * * *

Although I truly hate sentences containing “we live in times that…”, we have to notice we live in times that do not require any sort of action from us. The cocktail of consumerism, hyperproduction, alongside the information and industrial revolution – all supported by the pandemic – requires us to work quickly to make money, and then spend what we earn even faster. Those who can’t spend enough will have to work a lot more, and they can do it from home. And if you still don’t have money to buy, some genius has devised “helicopter money”, a guaranteed income that is used to buy even when there is no work or a salary. And all this is necessary so that those who create everything we spend money on have jobs, earn, and then spend everything they have. And so on.

The little free time an individual participant in this economic neurosis has left will go to messages, calls, wandering on social media, alongside all the other wonders of modern telecommunication. Civic activism – the largest possible number of people to the largest possible extent reduce it to angry posts and liking and sharing some type of socially useful activity, performed by some other, rare and unusual people. Because there is no time for anything else. Okay, maybe a bit of time for some selfies.

* * * * * * *

And at the very beginning of the very end of the story about activism, let us state that an “activist.com” platform was not yet invented. With its help, civic activism would become a kind of civic delivery: we could request the number of hours an ordered socially conscious courier would participate in some social good on our behalf; or protest, with detailed orders of what they should chant and what poster they should carry. But, for now, there is no solution in sight.

Instead of a non-existent activist delivery, by some incredible miracle, there are still understandably few people who resist the temptations of modern society, and find the time, energy and will to fight for the common good. For our goods, to be precise. And there are very few days, months and years left for the rest of us to gather strength for the penultimate possible action of civic activism: a civic action in support of civic activists. Because if that doesn’t happen, whoever and whatever manages the colorful lie we live in will send delivery request to come for all of us in the end.

And to deactivate us civilly, forever.