But can techno-activism accomplish an emancipatory, egalitarian social revolution?
This is a tricky question because technology is accomplishing a social revolution everyday by changing the ways we communicate, live, work, etc. Digital technologies are, by their nature, socially revolutionary. So we must invert the question and ask whether the kind of social revolution that technology is bringing forth is the one that we desire. This question forces us to address the underlying ideology of clicktivist technologies, which Gladwell does not do.
As I argued, that underlying ideology is consumerism, marketing and advertising. And any technology built on the foundation of those three ills will only bring us updated forms of consumerism, marketing and advertising. If we fail to see the connection between clicktivism and advertising, as Gladwell fails to do, then we will be without a coherent critique. Worse still, we will, like Gladwell, endorse the wrong solution.
Gladwell offers activists the wrong advice. He proposes a return to an anachronistic, authoritarian, and hierarchical model of activism. This may work from a political revolution perspective, but it will never bring about the necessary social revolution. Instead, what is needed today is a new breed of activists who “jettison the consumerist ideology of marketing that has for too long constrained the possibility of social revolution.”