“Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh, we will fight and we will win!” they shouted in the demonstrations outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square. Then, having expressed their view of the Vietnam War and knocked the helmet off a policeman, they went back to the London School of Economics and continued with a sit-in.
Nothing wrong with all of that. But I wonder whether they were the precursors of slacktivism.
Yes, slacktivism.
Since a young colleague introduced me to Netizenship, there is no stopping me. I am on a diet of a new word a day!
And slacktivism is in the dictionary! It says:
actions performed via the Internet in support of a political or social cause but regarded as requiring little time or involvement, e.g. signing an online petition or joining a campaign group on a social media website:such email alerts make slacktivism easy
Then you had to buy a tuppenny bus ticket to Grosvenor Square to make your protest. Now you can do it at the same time as listening to old Arctic Monkey tracks on your ipod in the gym.
Call me an irredeemable old square, but I wonder just how much credence should be given to the expression of opinion that is so cost-free and so casual.