Collective Identity And New Social Movements

A classic example of a reactive social movement involves the National Rifle Association. The key term of a reactive social movement is the resisting of change and the NRA does just that. The NRA can also be classified as a social movement organization because they are the heads of a major reactive movement in America. The first stage of social movement, for the NRA, initial unrest and agitation, began when people were criticizing guns for the murders occurring across the United States and wanted to add safety measures to purchasing guns. The NRA members fought to keep these safety measures away because they are “unnecessary.”

Our individual characteristics and traits are what initiates change and drives society, yet in our society in which individuality doesn’t seem to exist these days. where is an individualist is something what we call an outcast or not normal. In two articles by Kenji Yoshino "Preface" and "The New Civil Rights Movement", Yoshino discusses how he believes that people “cover” or hide their real identity so they will fit into the so called “norms” of our society. Yoshino supports his argument by ethos, he also uses his own personal experiences, he also uses pathos, and he uses examples, facts and data to get his point across. It is this individuality that fuel society and is present in every aspect of it. Culture, a significant part of society,

In our 21st century society we are immersed in, the idea of these “ideal” identities seem foreign as they step off of what we experience in our own identities of individuality. These polar opposite views of a citizens purpose are ones that find themselves on completely different ends of the same spectrum of egocentric vs. magnanimus priorities in life. While from our point of view we see a completely community based population as alien and incorrect, there are many positives outlined in the community identities silhouetted in both 1984 and Brave New World.

At the individual-level, people engage in protesting for a combination of reasons. Socioeconomic status and psychological approaches have been identified as possible motives for an individual to contribute to protesting. For

In the modern political sphere parties and social movements have a dependent relationship where the leaders, followers, funding, and frames of movements are scouted by parties. Political parties, which must be encompassing and lean more towards the center than single-issue social movements, rely on the support of social movements during electoral seasons. Manifestations of this relationship occur anytime a political party absorbs the issue of a social movement, or a candidate publicly supports and works with movement leaders. Movements can build large followings that become a target of candidates for votes. To entice movements to support the party, movements receive broader access to media and connections to the state. This interaction between

The idea and purpose of social movements in politics can be essentially derived from two basic political theories, V.O. Key’s Three Part Political Party Model and Albert Hirschman’s theory on Exit, Voice, and Loyalty. In V.O. Key’s model the citizens of the country are the party in electorate, they make up the base of the party and who office holders should answer to in a responsible party. In a political arena these people who form the party in electorate have three options at all times, remain loyal to the party/system, exit the party/system, or use their voice to convey their opinions and grievances. That last party is where social movements come into play. People join social movements and band together when they feel they are not being

Social movements shed light to social issues present in communities and harvest social change in political, religious, educational, health, government, and other institutional matters. Social movements give individuals a clear outlet to concerns about the rights and well-being of themselves and others, mostly through public protest and conversation, in order to promote social justice and democracy. Throughout history, humans naturally ended up starting movements to simply improve their way of life and movements have continually aided in a remarkable change in communities. In the essay “From Civil Rights to Megachurches,” Charles Duhigg explains the three critical steps that initiative successful social movements. Social movements must

ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, California psychotherapist Kathlyn Schaaf was overwhelmed by a powerful thought. Watching the violent images on television, she suddenly felt the time had come to "gather the women." She wasn't alone. Schaaf and 11 others who shared her response soon created Gather the Women, a Web site and communications hub that 5,000 women have used to chronicle their local events in support of world peace. As women assembled near the pyramids in Egypt and held potluck dinners in Alaska, staged candlelight vigils and other rituals in countries around the world, it confirmed Schaaf's gut instinct that an untapped reserve of energy "lies like oil beneath the common ground the

Society’s biggest accomplishment is not its ability to construct ideas about people that force them to mold their being into those ideas but rather it is society’s ability to turn the same groups it marginalizes and subjugates into the enforcer of social norms and rules which are enacted to their disadvantage. We wonder how society is able to do this. Well for one, it deters individuals from having the freedom to allow their individuality to flourish and contains them into a position where they are forced to conform to social norms. It does this by associating heavy costs to the transgression of social norms, these costs include losing the safe of one’s socially accepted identity—in terms

Protest movements are very important in order to accomplish humanity's progressions by creating revolution. Protests are common throughout history because they arise from the desire to improve. The word protest is often confused with the word riot, which gives it a negative connotation aside from protest's actual peaceful nature. In reality, protests brings major changes to the entire community and shapes the world. Many protests are not well known, but together add up to become a more popular movement. This is why freedom to protest is the first amendment.

We each have a unique personality that no one else can match perfectly but our social identity is a way to connect to other through our similar characteristics. King (2012) states “Social identity is the way individuals define themselves in terms of their group membership” (pg. 428). We all have titles we carry with us like being a mother or father, a daughter or son, and even a sister or brother the list can go on and on. Within these individualities we have a

In Johnston, Laraña, and Gusfield’s discussion of New Social Movement (NSM) theory, they identify the concept as a “double-edged sword,” in that is has both related itself to the changing shape of society but also overemphasized the newness of its model, almost divorcing itself from previous social movement theories instead of acknowledging and assessing the similarities between them and integrating what is useful from theories of the past. As its basic framework asserts that social movements now are not as linked to class as they were in the time of the emergence of Marxism and at the height of industrialist society (as Resource Mobilization Theory might stress), new

borders become porous, and information, money, and people flow relatively freely from one community to another. The complex social processes of globalization do not only operate on a surface level. Rather, globalization produces different results in the everyday lives of students living in Southern California as well as indigenous Guatemalan tribes. “Glocal”, the property of being both global and local, characterizes my own life quite clearly. Properties of globalization are particularly apparent in the way I perceive my own identity, as a Chinese-American women.

According to Rourke (2008) the most important way people have identified themselves politically for five centuries is through nationalism (p. 102). Nations are formed when people who “share demographic and cultural similarities [who identify themselves] as a group distinct from other groups and want to control themselves politically” (p. 103) band together in a national political identity which has “a soul, a spiritual quality” (Rourke, 2008, p. 103). Feelings of nationalism can be very intense and difficult to put aside because of this. For the concept of globalization to continue to spread and grow nationalistic feelings must be tempered with cosmopolitan ideals.

The United States prevails as an ever-evolving, unique amalgamation of people, cultures, and influences. Due to the growth of technology use in the world, globalization, the process of interaction and integration among people, is spreading rapidly ("What Is Globalization?”). Historically, people have often identified in a collective way in order to associate with a group, culture, or individual (Miladinovic). However, nowadays, this form of identification cannot be used as people are changing the way with they identify with others, due to the considerable influence of globalization. Though typically used as an economic term, globalization is characterized through a multitude of other factors as well. The onset of globalization has especially influenced culture and identity, most pivotally through industrialization. When smaller cultures are forced to urbanize as a result of globalization, people question modern culture and may even culturally re-evaluate their own culture. As a result, people often abandon their traditional cultures in favor of a conforming to homogeneous mainstream ‘American culture’. In turn with this, psychologically, people impacted by globalization become uncertain of their identity, not knowing which culture to claim: that of their ancestors or that of mainstream American culture. Consequently, people have started to distinguish themselves in a whole new way: through either self-made cultures or through the adoption of a blend of traditional and new