I think the issue is that ‘raising awareness’ is used to mean three separate things. (I agree that the extra simulacra levels aren’t a helpful explanation.) Using awareness of breast cancer as a reasonably non-controversial example.
Give people some useful knowledge or skill to help reduce the problem. Eg teach women how to examine themselves for lumps and when to seek medical advice.
Raise the profile of the issue (or in some cases inform people that the issue exists) such that more resources will be devoted to solving it. Eg publishing opinion pieces informing the public how many people are affected by cancer and calling for more facilities for treatment, or encouraging people to donate money to charities researching cures.
Signal that you are a virtuous person who is concerned about socially-approved causes. Eg wear a pink ribbon, or like Facebook pages from breast cancer charities.
I agree that there are a lot of people practicing virtue-signalling, while kidding themselves that they are doing level 2 profile-raising, and I also agree that a lot of the profile-raising is transparently ineffective. But I think that there are useful level-1 activities which also come under the banner of ‘raising awareness’ and I wouldn’t want to stigmatise those.
There are also some situations in which the level-2 activities are useful. I suspect you would disagree, but I think sexual assault is a fairly good example: a lot of people have gone to great efforts to explain to the general public that there is a widespread problem that needs action. The result has been an in-progress and partial change in social norms which may well succeed in reducing the levels of sexual assault.
I think the breakdown is good. I find it more natural to call your level 1 “education” than “raising awareness”, but I guess both terms are used.
I think the changes on sexual assault have been a mixed bag and that in at least some circles the pendulum has already swung too far. Reconceptualizing sex between spouses without consent as rape was a good move, reconceptualizing stupid drunk sex where both parties consented at the time as rape was a bad move, and both have definitely happened as a result of this raising awareness.
Give people some useful knowledge or skill to help reduce the problem. Eg teach women how to examine themselves for lumps and when to seek medical advice.
It’s worth noting it that while this intuitive sounds very good it’s not that clear it actually was good. Doing more testing for breast cancer increased breast cancer diagnoses and breast amputations but it’s not clear that it actually reduced breast cancer deaths.
I think the issue is that ‘raising awareness’ is used to mean three separate things. (I agree that the extra simulacra levels aren’t a helpful explanation.) Using awareness of breast cancer as a reasonably non-controversial example.
Give people some useful knowledge or skill to help reduce the problem. Eg teach women how to examine themselves for lumps and when to seek medical advice.
Raise the profile of the issue (or in some cases inform people that the issue exists) such that more resources will be devoted to solving it. Eg publishing opinion pieces informing the public how many people are affected by cancer and calling for more facilities for treatment, or encouraging people to donate money to charities researching cures.
Signal that you are a virtuous person who is concerned about socially-approved causes. Eg wear a pink ribbon, or like Facebook pages from breast cancer charities.
I agree that there are a lot of people practicing virtue-signalling, while kidding themselves that they are doing level 2 profile-raising, and I also agree that a lot of the profile-raising is transparently ineffective. But I think that there are useful level-1 activities which also come under the banner of ‘raising awareness’ and I wouldn’t want to stigmatise those.
There are also some situations in which the level-2 activities are useful. I suspect you would disagree, but I think sexual assault is a fairly good example: a lot of people have gone to great efforts to explain to the general public that there is a widespread problem that needs action. The result has been an in-progress and partial change in social norms which may well succeed in reducing the levels of sexual assault.
I think the breakdown is good. I find it more natural to call your level 1 “education” than “raising awareness”, but I guess both terms are used.
I think the changes on sexual assault have been a mixed bag and that in at least some circles the pendulum has already swung too far. Reconceptualizing sex between spouses without consent as rape was a good move, reconceptualizing stupid drunk sex where both parties consented at the time as rape was a bad move, and both have definitely happened as a result of this raising awareness.
It’s worth noting it that while this intuitive sounds very good it’s not that clear it actually was good. Doing more testing for breast cancer increased breast cancer diagnoses and breast amputations but it’s not clear that it actually reduced breast cancer deaths.