Great Philosophical Point
People change when they have to — not when we tell them to.
One of the best lines from Thomas Friedman's latest article for the New York Times, "The Power of Green" - a really well written, and well thought out essay. I recommend it to all.
If the article above sparks any interest in what YOU can do - read my post from February 19, 2005: http://www.kalifowitz.com/2005/02/green-power.html
Leave comments if you have any other ideas.
Labels: action, Activism, environmentalism, green, Philosophy
This entry was posted
on Apr 15, 2007 at 4/15/2007 01:26:00 PM.
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Cause-based Concerts - how effective are they?
Today, all over the news we heard about the announcement of Al Gore's Live Earth Concert Series. I heard Gore on the BBC this morning talking about how he sees this as a way to kick off wide-spread awareness of global warming, with the goal of seeing results within 3 years. He spent about 10% of the interview discussing that. He spent the rest of his time talking about Live Earth being the biggest concert in history, taking place on every continent, with an unprecedented number of bands from al genres, bla, bla, bla. I can't wait to hear what Danny Goldberg has to say about this (if you don't know him, I suggest reading his book, How the Left Lost Teen Spirit).
The timing of this is interesting for me. Mainly because the other day I was thinking of the Live-8 concert, and cause-based concerts of the past decade or so. I was thinking about how they failed to produce any results.
A little background: In high school and college my brother and I were heavily involved in Students for a Free Tibet (SFT) -- Justin was lucky enough to get an audience with His Holiness the Dalai Lama when he came to Central Park a year later. In 1998 we helped put on the massive Tibetan Freedom Concert in Washington DC. Since then I worked at Woodstock '99 (for the television company that put it on) and have been involved in countless conversations with people hoping to produce a concert in order to raise awareness for a cause. Justin attended Woodstock '99 as a representative of SFT, and has also been involved in many of the same conversations about concerts.
I'm completely convinced that putting on a concert for a cause in today's world has but one attainable goal - raising money by selling tickets, dvd's, and the rights to air it live & to re-broadcast it. If the goal is to raise awareness, it's hopeless. Why does everyone conveniently forget that we live in a society that has an attention span of 5 minutes? What's worse is that we live in a "it's all about you" society. Yesterday Justin and I were in Dunking Donuts/Baskin Robbins and Justin pointed out that every sign in the store was encouraging consumers to treat themselves "because you deserve it".
As for the music aspect, I don't think there has ever been a time in history where experiencing music is what it is today: a remarkably personal experience. Something to be enjoyed by yourself - with your little ear buds in your ears, whether at your desk, in the park, on the train or in your room. While people still go to concerts, and lots of them, I find that the experience today is different than it was ten years ago. I'm not suggesting this is a bad thing, or a good thing. My point is that the intensely individual nature in which music is experienced today, in my view, is making it harder to get people to connect to a common cause through a song or a concert the way they did in the past.
There is one more element I think everyone has completely ignored: the Woodstock (1969) cause/effect dynamic. Woodstock '69's success was based on the spontaneous nature of it. This is impossible to repeat with today's overwhelming corporate-commercial nature and hyper-sensitive news media which rushes to categorize, analyze and criticize every cultural movement before it's even happened - with irrelevant pundits who enjoy hearing their own voice. Furthermore, Woodstock '69 didn't have a very specific message other than three days of "peace and music" - which could be interpreted in many different ways - but primarily spoke to it's "hippie" audience. We don't have that today. We don't have a subset of society who's identity is inherently tied to music the way hippies were.
Every time a cause-based concert is forced upon us, with tons of media hype and corporate sponsorship - where sponsors expect more attention on them than the cause - the cause is trying to speak to an audience that doesn't exist. Last summer's Live 8 concert is a shining example. Everyone who went to a concert, or saw it on AOL or MTV did so for one reason: they wanted to see a live performance by artists they liked. End of story.
That said, I haven't given up on the potential music has to influence our society. I'm confident there's a way to rally people around a cause, which speaks to us the way music does. When I figure out what that method is, I trust you'll hear about it in a big way!
In the mean time, if you have ideas, please post a comment.
Labels: Activism, Concerts, Music
This entry was posted
on Apr 11, 2007 at 4/11/2007 02:06:00 AM.
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The Red Campaign
Recently a friend gave me the audio book of the 2005 Massey Lecture Series where Stephen Lewis presents at five Canadian universities, giving a first-hand account of the unfathomable challenges Africans are facing as a result of AIDS. After hearing Mr. Lewis' speaches, I immediately felt the need to do something. But where do I start? The future of Africa is really bleak - even if we were able to erradicate AIDS today! So what if I try to help, can I even make a tiny dent? Mr. Lewis mentions that because AIDS has been destroying communities in Africa for the past two decades, in many towns and villages throughout the continent there are no adults! Everyone between the ages of 20 and 50 are dead! The elderly are too old to work the land, and the young haven't had anyone to teach them life/survival skills. So people are starving to death while living on fertile soil. In many cases a child as young as 8 - the oldest in the family - was left to care for their younger siblings, as both parents and grandparents had died. Where do we start!!?!?!
I did develop some ideas that I will post in a future blog...
But for the purposes of this entry, I want to applaud someone who has decided to do something: Bono. His RED campaign is truly remarkable. The problems facing Africa are so daunting that anyone who actually stands up and does something deserves a true salute. If their efforts fail to meet their goals, then we need to reasess - rather than decry. I started writing this post after reading an article in AdAge that really troubled me. AdAge effectively called Bono’s campaign a failure (excerpt below). Their facts seem skewed... but even if their facts are correct, as I wrote above, coming down hard on Bono is just plain dumb. Convincing as many companies as he did to incorporate a “real” cause into their products, raise money, and more importantly raise awareness about Aids in Africa is an amazing accomplishment.
Please let me know what your thoughts are on Bono's efforts. And if you think his efforts are flawed, please offer some suggestions to fix them...
Excerpt:
Costly Red Campaign Reaps Meager $18 Million
Bono & Co. Spend up to $100 Million on Marketing, Incur Watchdogs’ Wrath
The Red charity advertising campaign endorsed so lavishly by Hollywood celebrities including Bono, Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Christy Turlington and Chris Rock has taken in only $18 million worldwide since it was launched a year ago. And the disproportionate ratio between the marketing outlay and the money raised is drawing concern among nonprofit watchdogs, cause-marketing experts and even executives in the ad business...
Labels: Activism, AIDS, Human_Rights
This entry was posted
on Mar 6, 2007 at 3/06/2007 12:04:00 AM.
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