This article is a part of the room: Fight club
This is why you may want to make your own Fight Club and this is how to do it:
Why?
We need to bring crucial debates back into the public space. Why should we trust the shaping of our public agenda to the media and professional politicians? They are the stakeholders. Let’s do it ourselves!
How?
We suggest using democratic and low-cost means to create our debates: online meetings, face-to-face conversations, using pre-prepared phrases, engaging viewers in the debate.
And, please, more theatricality!
We’re followers of Nikolai Yevreinov, who argued that the dominant instinct in humans is theatricality. Art is the best (only?) way to change public opinion.
What is needed for a fight?
- A THEME that we all care about.
- A SCRIPT consisting of short phrases prepared in advance and a storyline that could change depending on how the fight develops, the interaction with the audience, a ring announcer and fighters advisers to the fighters.
- FIGHTS: we suggest using specially trained players who will focus on communicating their protagonists’ opinions to the audience. They can consult with the audience and the characters they portray.
- PUBLIC SPACE: zoom, plaza, theater, lobbies of hospitals, schools and prisons, and whatever is available to you.
- PUBLIC PARTICIPATION: engaging the public, depending on where and how you are staging the fight, can be done in many ways, from discussing the results, if your audience is a small group of people, to counting votes or even betting on the winner, as it is done in commercial boxing.
