So how exactly is this consciousness raising going to work? Suppose that a person accompanying her disabled dependent goes to an emergency room, because no other medical practice will take her due to insufficient insurance, and on her way she sees a bunch of protesters on the street waving a foreign flag and demanding in a language other than English that they be given access to more services and that their language be included in official documents, then she is accosted by a bunch of rowdy youth, who do not speak English, making sexist gestures and trying to pick her up, and finally after getting to the emergency room she waits there for 10 hours with a bunch of people who again do not even speak English because her condition is not serious enough, and after 10 hours finally gives up and says "screw all those damn immigrants." We may not like that conclusion, but how exactly is consciousness raising going to help her? Will it make the problems she encountered, the angry protesters with their in-your-face alien identity, the rowdy sexist youth, the overcrowded facility, go away? Or perhaps make her look the other way and sweep them under the rug or blame them on someone else? Is that a solution?
Contrary to what you stated in your posting, I did take Marta's comment seriously from the start even though I fundamentally disagreed with them. However, unlike others, I did not try to" talk them over" or redirect them at a different target for a very simple reason - I do not believe that prayers and kindred verbiage solves anything - it merely encourages people to be in denial of one sort or another. I also believe that this problem (and for that matter the related problems of social stratification, poverty, conflicting interests, etc.) cannot be easily solved, at least in the foreseeable future. However, I have no problems accepting my inability to do anything about it. I have a high respect for those who try, but at the same time I am highly skeptical when this trying turns into a ritualistic behavior of "activistism" in which the means displace the ends. The latter, imho, is a form of denial - not that much different from that of an abused spouse - that this is her action that brought the evil thing upon her, and she can also change that by her own action alone - by doing "the right thing."
I am more and more inclined to accept the fundamental irrationality of the world and the futility of human action to re-engineer it to this or that ideal. Perhaps it is a sign of wisdom and experience, or perhaps that of senility. In any case, stoicism looks increasingly appealing to me as an antidote to "activistism" and naïve faith in the ability to re-engineer society to this or that ideal. I think that many things are going quite badly right now, but there is nothing we can do about it and there is no point in deluding ourselves otherwise. Trying to solve unsolvable problems of conflicting interests will give us only more headache and more disappointments. Below is one of my favorite expressions of that attitude: http://users.hol.gr/~barbanis/cavafy/antony.html
Wojtek
The god forsakes Antony
When suddenly, at the midnight hour, an invisible troupe is heard passing with exquisite music, with shouts -- your fortune that fails you now, your works that have failed, the plans of your life that have all turned out to be illusions, do not mourn in vain. As if long prepared, as if courageous, bid her farewell, the Alexandria that is leaving. Above all do not be fooled, do not tell yourself it was a dream, that your ears deceived you; do not stoop to such vain hopes. As if long prepared, as if courageous, as it becomes you who have been worthy of such a city, approach the window with firm step, and with emotion, but not with the entreaties and complaints of the coward, as a last enjoyment listen to the sounds, the exquisite instruments of the mystical troupe, and bid her farewell, the Alexandria you are losing.
Constantine P. Cavafy (1911)
[ Greek original ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----
Notes: The poem refers to Plutarch's story that, when Antony was besieged in Alexandria by Octavian, he heard the sounds of instruments and voices, which made its way through the city, and then passed out; the god Bacchus (Dionysus), Antony's protector, was deserting him.