Rise of the activist

In the 20th century people involved in left politics might describe themselves in a number of ways. They might declare their ideological commitment: 'socialist', 'anarchist' 'communist'. They could be slightly more specific: 'member of the Communist Party' or 'registered Democrat'. If less involved then just 'supporter' or perhaps something like 'a Labour voter all my life'. If they were really interested they could use the minor position they had within an organisation: T&G shop steward or secretary of the local party branch.

Whatever the label it implied a long-term commitment to a group, a regular involvement in a useful activity for the cause (even if it was just voting at every election). It also implied, I think, that you would actually know people with similar politics to yourself in real life, on a regular basis.

Since the 1970s saying that you are an 'activist' has became increasingly common, as my totally lightweight linguistic research from Google Ngrams shows below:

Activist vs socialist

Activist vs agitator

Activist vs campaigner

In the Will Self novel How the Dead Live one of the characters remarks that since the end of the Cold War his metropolitan friends now described themselves as 'liberals' - a label, he says, that allowed them to adopt any position between fascism and anarchism with impunity.

I think 'activist' works in a similar way. Lots of blogger and twitter profiles say something like 'Blogger, activist, Hackney resident'. It is left unclear exactly what these people are being activist about or for: what campaign are they helping out on, who are they trying to get elected? After trawling through their posts or tweets you find they are on the left somewhere, altogether often of a vague and naive kind.

It was the environmental movement in the 80s and 90s that helped spread 'activist' as a description. Swampy was the model here, and a very effective one:

Interestingly, the BBC drama about the rise of New Labour - The Project - gave some of the characters the rather implausible backstory of having been environmental activists:

I think it was supposed to heighten the narrative decline from youthful idealism to middle aged sell out, but just makes you dislike them right from the start instead.

'Activist' is narcissistic: "look I'm being active!" it declares even if its only handing out the placards at a demo. Members/supporters etc were happy to pay their subs and turn up for canvassing or picket lines. The concern of those slighter higher up, like local councillors was (and is) trying solve the problems of those they represent, not self-promotion via pseudo punditry. 'Activist' is close to 'liberal' here in that both assume that politics is a version of a university seminar translated to the public sphere. Noel Gallagher once got ticked off in the NME letters pages for saying that he had always voted Labour because like supporting a football team, you backed them through thick and thin and hoped to see them win in the end. No, no the liberals/activist tutted - it's about making your mind up rationally about the issues of the day. God forbid that left politics might be 'tribal' and an activity that wasn't just for the politicos.

Activists aren't quite like liberals as they see symbolic action as part of 'politics as debate'. Of course it is necessary (and enjoyable) to disrupt the spectacle every so often. But too much of this becomes a cycle of symbolic actions that closely mirrors the degeneracy of newspaper commentary: politics reduced to commenting on other commentators columns or attacking politicians for 'giving the impression' of being incompetent.

Just as the students of May '68 were once accused of being 'a party in search of a proletariat' so you could ask the activists: who they are for? Squatting, a movement which once tried to organise homeless people to take over large numbers of houses, is now about temporarily occupying buildings with connections to well known bad guys or institutions in order to have a social centre or an alternative space. That's not a bad thing at all, but it does seem like a reduction in ambition. It also raises the suspicion that some of this activity is primarily cathartic or reproductive (in the sense of maintaining current levels of activists). I wasn't offended that the Boat Race was disrupted this year, but then I'm not offended by the Boat Race to begin with. Trenton Oldfield could at least have made the effort to say he wanted the return of EMA rather than just being against 'elitism'.

I mean throwing yourself at Oxbridge rowers isn't that far way from wiggling your arse at Michael Jackson is it?