Wael Ghonim: Activism, a Balance Between Reason and Emotions

Aletse López  | 06 de diciembre de 2018  | Vistas: 65

Wael Ghonim shares in this interview his perspective on activism and evidences the consequences of emotional exploitation in politics and social media.

He talks about his beginnings as an activist, his mistakes and learnings. It is key to have wisdom in accepting reality, to figure out what’s wrong with it and what’s unrealistic with the expectations of change. He explains it is common to let emotions distort the expectations of reality.

The biggest thing I learned is that life is much better and you are more effective in trying to inspire change within your circles, when you’re much into reality.”

Later, he discusses what is the role of an activist, which is to spend energy to be helpful rather than to spend it into anger, to empower people and align the interests of the masses with the few people with power in the world.

He also talks about social media; its algorithmic nature that trains people to be more emotional outrage and stop being reasonable.

The way I think of activism is both an intention and action plan to try to change reality for better.”

Finally, Ghonim mentions that he hopes for a more reasonable world, where we penalize emotional exploitation and distortion of reality for the masses. Emotions are important, he says, but is essential to use the reason to guide emotions.

Don’t miss his speech in CFF 2018:Notes to My Activist Self