Here’s a common scenario for lone wolf activism. Imagine you’re attending a city council meeting. You probably don’t make it a habit to go to these things. Because, well, who really wants to do that? The meetings take too long. They’re uninteresting. And they cram the agenda full of inside baseball for local politicos.
As John Gaventa would put it (e.g., Power and Powerlessness), governments set up the agenda and the rules of the game to favor insiders. And to exclude people like you and I.
But there’s something you care about on the agenda this time. So, you show up and argue forcefully for your opinion on that issue. Maybe you get a little passionate. Maybe even indignant, landing a zinger at the expense of your opponents.
Or, like some people, maybe you attend every city council meeting and do this. Whichever.
The point is that, in the moment, it feels good. It feels satisfying. But then you watch the council vote the other way. They shoot down your side of the argument by a comfortable majority. You lose.
What happened here?
