AGE OF AIDS

Writing in the Age of Aids

Writing in the Age of Aids

Introduction

Josh Gamson's article Silence, Death and the Invisible Enemy: AIDS Activism and Social Movement "Newness", attempts to describe a transformation the new or contemporary social movements are experiencing as they depart from the older ones. The article was the result of his six-month study conducted on the AIDS activist organization, AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power or simply ACT UP. In the article, Gamson observes that, instead of defining any concrete object as the enemy, the organization sees its enemy as invisible, abstract, disembodied and ubiquitous.

This paper aims at discussing the advantages of defining the enemy as an “abstract” figure as opposed to something or someone concrete. The paper will also attempt to identify the limitations of the strategies Gamson has outlined in the article, exploring the potential benefits of the work.

Discussion

Josh Gamson's article attempts to analyze the movement ACT UP in the context of post-industrial era where new issues have begun to attract the attention of social movements like ACT UP and there is an emphasis on demands for equal rights including the equal distribution of wealth, national income as well as political and economic decision making process. During the study, Gamson observes that focus of attention of these social movements has, in contrast to the older movements of nineteenth and early twentieth century, shifted from state to the civil society (Lyman, 1995).

Moreover, there is no clear definition of the enemy against whom the actions of such modern social movements are aimed. Rather, there is an abstraction and ambiguity as far as the definition of an enemy is concerned. As there are some potential advantages of the defining the enemy as an abstract figure, for these social movements. First of foremost of these advantages being the flexibility this abstract-enemy approach offers. It helps in deciding the course of an action and modifying that action any time when it suits the organization's objectives and goals. If an enemy is clearly defined, it becomes quite difficult for the organizations such as ACT UP to modify the course of action defined earlier (Bielby, 1995).

Another main advantage of the abstract-enemy approach is the psychological benefit in terms of highlighting who is dominated and affected rather than highlighting dominating and affecting figure. When the enemy is not clearly defined, the general audience of such social movements would not give much ...