Active management does not have to be the same as stock picking. Active management can also mean having a position (often in an index or allocation of indexes) and buying/selling stock and options around that position to reduce the portfolio's risk and volatility.
For example, if I hold 100 shares of SPY (the S&P500 index), my risk if SPY goes up/down $1 is +-$100. One might want to hedge their risk by selling a call, collecting $130. Now the risk has been reduced to the equivalent of only having 70 shares. SPY would have to go down $1.30 before I start losing money.
A more advanced situation with a larger account might use individual holdings as hedges. AAPL is about 4% of SPY. If I think AAPL is overvalued, I could short AAPL. My total portfolio risk would theoretically decrease by 4% because if AAPL goes down, SPY is probably going down too. My much bigger SPY position loses money, but short AAPL makes money, thus hedging the position.
By nature, trading options is active because they have an expiration date. But it does not mean you have to bet that RAD is going to be acquired, or AMZN is going to reach $1500. I look at it as using all of the tools in the toolbox.
That said, if I wanted to be passive, I still wouldn't invest with a hedge fund. Edward Thorp's book "A Man for All Markets" (who used to be a hedge fund manager), had a good argument against hedge funds, saying that the odds are against you picking the "right" fund that will make money. And, after expenses, you won't really do better than the overall market. The money managers can close down the fund if they lose (your) money. The problem for consumers is that the odds are stacked against them in actively managed funds, the managers are the only ones who have a high probability to get paid.