First you need to read and learn and study everything you can about the issue. Make sure your challenge your own beliefs, and make sure you do everything you can to confirm that you are correct, keeping in mind that the worst possible outcome would be for you to accidentally become an activist for the wrong side of an issue (and that even being an activist that’s right 70% of the time but wrong 30% of the time is a great deal of harm.)
Once you really understand it, then you need to become an activist on the issue. Learning is always helpful, but at some point you have to take that knowledge and use it to influence the world, or else it’s not going to do much good. Take that knowledge you’ve learned and use it to educate other people, to communicate to politicians, to raise the stature of the issue, ect.
Fundamentally, a lot of political issues come down to helping people understand why X is better then Y for most of them and for the country or the town or the species as a whole. You need to have a significant amount of understanding yourself first, or else there’s no point and you’re not adding anything but randomness to the system; once you do have a significant amount of understanding, you have to take that knowledge and act, or else it’s not doing anyone any good. That doesn’t mean you stop learning; you always have to do both.
I think the only real answer is “both”.
First you need to read and learn and study everything you can about the issue. Make sure your challenge your own beliefs, and make sure you do everything you can to confirm that you are correct, keeping in mind that the worst possible outcome would be for you to accidentally become an activist for the wrong side of an issue (and that even being an activist that’s right 70% of the time but wrong 30% of the time is a great deal of harm.)
Once you really understand it, then you need to become an activist on the issue. Learning is always helpful, but at some point you have to take that knowledge and use it to influence the world, or else it’s not going to do much good. Take that knowledge you’ve learned and use it to educate other people, to communicate to politicians, to raise the stature of the issue, ect.
Fundamentally, a lot of political issues come down to helping people understand why X is better then Y for most of them and for the country or the town or the species as a whole. You need to have a significant amount of understanding yourself first, or else there’s no point and you’re not adding anything but randomness to the system; once you do have a significant amount of understanding, you have to take that knowledge and act, or else it’s not doing anyone any good. That doesn’t mean you stop learning; you always have to do both.