Writing as Activism

When we think of activism, writing — perhaps a blog post or a tweet — is not the first thing that comes to mind. Activism seems to invoke something more bodily: picketing, marching, signs thrust in the air for hours, yelling into a bullhorn until your voice is hoarse, your point hopefully communicated. A collection of words strung together on a page doesn’t carry quite the same tune as a protest chant.

Yet there is something to be said about the momentum of the written word. It can be a powerful thing in the activist’s toolbox for promoting a limitless set of causes, even if the tools of writing itself are quite different from what one might expect to see at a rally: a couple of keystrokes, backspacing, or a play with a punctuation mark or two. But not always appreciated is the ability to have a universal audience at one’s fingertips, to have the ability to share one’s voice precisely and thoughtfully, or advocate for a particular reform. This is powerful.

Writing, in its many forms — journalism, novels, reports, reviews, social media blurbs — is necessarily contingent on this strong belief in change. And activism, a series of demonstrations of one’s desire for social reform, reflects this change. The act of writing, as author Margaret Atwood put it, imagines a future reader, thus imagining a future — one that could be influenced by said writing. And as author Nadine Gordimer put it, writing is “one’s unique contribution to social change.” As a vessel for communicating one’s idea, it’s difficult to imagine a form of writing that doesn’t have roots in change.

That isn’t to say all forms of writing are equal. It’s impossible to draw a strict comparison between the groundbreaking and immensely impactful works of writers like Toni Morrison or Joan Didion to yesterday’s Medium post, or the latest on Harvard Confessions. There are different spheres of writing that have different ends in themselves, and not all of them are intended to effect change. But what all writing does share is a transfer of knowledge at its core, regardless of audience or intent — laying ideas and words alongside each other, flat on a page or screen. The stories we tell, fictitious or true, can help us understand the ideas of others, and influence social behavior.

The implications of thinking about writing in this way are enormous. Yes, writing can delight, it can instruct, it can entertain, it can reveal — and often do all of those at the same time. But it can also call to action.

Writing diverges from protest in an important way; while it can be a call to action, it can only go so far. Simply writing about prison divestment, for example, will not immediately change the state of incarcerated people currently suffering in an egregious prison system. Neither will writing about racism, sexism, bigotry, or any of society’s sins suddenly promise a wave of change, cresting and crashing into a movement. Other forms of activism — policy making, demonstrating, sit-ins, strikes — are absolutely critical for reaching an ultimate goal of reform in their respective domains.

But just as important as considering different forms of activism, or what to write about, is who to write for. Writing does not always form the same immediate sensory jolt that viewing a protest or a demonstration can create. But what writing lacks in this sense of immediacy, it makes up for in the universality of its audience. Undoubtedly, there’s an element of passion in both that captures its beholders; yet writing extends beyond a mere passerby. Words have the ability to transcend environmental or situational restraints and grab hold of a reader’s intention, implore them to stay a while, and consider the thoughts held between their letters. In this, writing’s ability to inspire other actors holds the potential for other forms of activism to follow in its footsteps.

Not all writing is activism, just as not all activism is writing. But we do ourselves a disservice if we don’t consider the implications of the written word to effect just as much change — if not more — as a more sudden, physical activist movement. Ideas of change are powerful. And the words and the stories we use to tell these ideas have the potential to spark great movements.

Jessenia N. Class ’20, a Crimson Editorial Chair, is a Cognitive Neuroscience and Evolutionary Psychology concentrator in Quincy House. Robert Miranda ’20, a Crimson Editorial Chair, is an English concentrator in Pforzheimer House. Their column appears on alternate Thursdays.