NB For anyone interested a more detailed study of ego and the psychology of campaigning can be found on the web site www.thequestfortruth.co.uk
We need to allow for people’s egos, and work on them in order to make people receptive to our campaign messages. A fly trying to escape from a room may bang its head repeatedly against a closed window until it eventually runs out of energy and dies. If it had moved a little, it would have found the open window and escaped. Campaigning needs to go around the side.
We can have the edge as campaigners if we ourselves are receptive to new ideas.
There are tools we can use to draw people in rather than turn them away. People can be attracted into a site for certain reasons, and unwittingly they will then receive information to make them think about ethical issues.
The Big Issue has the correct balance which should be used as a model for a web site. It is interesting reading, covers a wide range of issues, and manages to put across ethical messages in a non-threatening manner.
The site must preach to the un-converted. We waste our energy if we aim it at campaigners. They are already changed, we need to get inside people who don’t like environmentalism.
Campaign Rationale
A site would do well to use the approach which Gandhi exploited - satyagraha, or “truth-obstinacy”. Gandhi used truth and non-violent direct action to great effect. It is an approach which is flexible and draws arguing-power from many sources from science to spirituality. Environmentalism or peace campaigning does indeed blurr into other aspects of life, like psychology or religion, and keeping the site to some extent un-defined can permit content to be wide ranging, but still relevant to looking after our world.
Getting the Label Right
The Big Issue benefits from having an ambiguous title. It also allows the magazine to cover any topic it desires. A web site called “green action” or “earth action”, or “eco-future” for example, will tell people immediately “this is a site about environmentalism”. Most people will then avoid the site as they think they are about to be preached to. They will also avoid the site because they think they