How protest is practiced can matter as much as what it demands. Discipline, proportionality, and persuasion determine whether dissent leads to change or backlash.
You might also suggest spending more time thinking and examining your position. Is it really an injustice you are protesting? What is unjust in capturing people who have committed crimes? What is unjust about holding people accountable?
What is justice? If what is occurring is legal, how, specifically is it unjust?
Secondly, for whom are you actually protesting? Be honest. Is what you are doing helping someone else or really making you feel better?
I posit that most of Left-wing protesting is more about people shouting and belittling others to makes themselves feel better than addressing an actual injustice.
You wrote, "Societies weaken when protest becomes primarily an outlet for rage, and when spectacle replaces persuasion."
What you're missing is that the weakening of society is the real goal of the protests.
The particular causes which you ostensibly "support" are not what these protests are actually about. As Saul Alinsky wrote in Rules for Radicals (1971), "The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.”
Current protest movements are indeed very performative, drawing as much from open-air theatrical performances as they do from left-wing values. And it is indeed a far cry from the civil rights movement. Martin Luther King, Jr. was adamant in the belief that the way forward was to show your opponent that you were above creating the sort of violent and intimidating public scenes they expected from you, and instead, with a measured manner, meet them on more dignified terms. This is hardly what is now occurring.
'... There is something about them that feels misguided and unserious ...'
Because they are. Seriously. Marching around with stupid 'pussy' hats or outfits? That's a double facepalm. Wearing frog costumes? You look *seriously* stupid.
It is extremely difficult to take someone seriously when A) they look like caricatures and B) when you ask them a serious question - in good faith - and they cannot answer you in real words. "Well, just because it's my right to protest" is NOT a real answer. Sorry, not sorry, it is NOT.
Well said. We seem to have forgetten that we can disagree with others' positions but stop short of wanting them erased. Is ICE doing things BECAUSE OF these performance protests? Are "mostly peaceful" protests making things worse? Can anyone tell me what improved for blacks after the BLM riots (except line the pockets of their leadership)?
I think of civil disobedience in three categories.
First, defiance of unjust laws. Examples include sitting in the front of the bus, drinking from the wrong water fountain, etc. There’s a clear link between the protest and the unjust laws.
Second, protests when free speech is restricted. Think of the marches during the 60’s. The lack of free speech and disenfranchisement provide a clear rationale for the protest.
Third, the craziness were mostly see where people show up to protests as a social event, and then pretend to be upset when there are consequences. Saw an interesting interview during the Mostly Peaceful Protests about the strategy of blocking traffic. The person said that if the authorities don’t respond the protestors establish that they have more power. If the authorities do respond then the protestors get great video for the evening news.
If you want to march down the street for a couple of hours during the day, fine. If you want to keep doing that all night, ignore orders to disperse, and threaten authorities, then that is unacceptable in a democracy where you have the right to vote.
Great job putting my feelings and thoughts into words. This is how I always felt about gay pride parades. While I support the cause, I felt the extreme fringe did more to repel others than to persuade.
I think before 2020, I would have agreed with this piece almost in its entirety. Right now, I agree maybe 20%. I attended Beloit College in Wisconsin from 2009-2013, submerged in an intensely-postmodernist, totalizing, “woke” environment before it was popularized. I came from an ordinary liberal suburban Jewish household near Chicago, so that was a culture-shock. I considered myself ultra-liberal, but in that college environment, I was an arch-conservative by comparison. I know very well the excesses of the “new left,” while recognizing that it is not actually monolithic. I think the worst sin of the “new left” is that it cried wolf. It acted as though things like those happening now were happening back in the early 2000s. To them, W was Hitler, and Obama was barely better. On specific issues, I have indeed come myself to see even the supposed liberal “good guys” from that period as immensely farther right than what our society needs at this moment, but ideologically, I find postmodernist “wokeness” and things like standpoint epistemology profoundly-unhelpful. I probably see eye to eye with some of the more robustly left-of-center signatories to the (in)famous Harper’s letter. I think thinks like Great Book education and resisting AI are a remedy for many of our epistemological ills, and that progressive ends would be better served by those (neo-)modernist means than by the fashionable postmodernist ones.
But now, the reality on the ground actually resembled what during the Bush era was alarmist hyperbole. Mainstream scholars of fascism and even the Holocaust who are not prone to hyperbole or sensationalism or alarmism are warning that the current government is trending in an almost-unthinkable direction. People shouldn’t have made comparisons to the Holocaust the moment the first Trump administration began its dirty work, but it’s not entirely clear they shouldn’t make such comparisons now.
I am flummoxed that people broadly in the FAIR camp are still treating the left wing angst as hysterical. They cried wolf, but now they’re really not wrong. I think messaging should be tweaked towards persuasion of those who don’t already robustly agree, and once we are through the nightmare, we will again have to try to persuade them not to act as though no progress has been made. We will again justly accuse them of totalizing ideology and empty virtue-signaling. But right now, tut-tutting about tone in protests is probably not helpful. We should join them, and try to show by example more prudent messaging for protests. Otherwise, we may fully lose the plot.
I guess you are not a mainstream scholar of fascism and even the Holocaust, so what is your sincere reaction to anti-Israel movement in the West? Let us take all fours layers: the Governments (local and national), the Streets, the Schools, the Media. In other words, why Apartheid Israel must be destroyed but not Aryanist Norway or settler-colonialist Denmark owining the people of Greenland?
After you contemplate the answer, you might consider another question: why do laws in a supposedly "legitimate" nation like US must be ignored and the law enforcers physically attacked? Should we, for exmple, refuse to pay all the unjust and illegal taxes like the local settler-colonists did in the 18 century? Finally, shouldn't the US be also destroyed?
Solid framework for thinking about this. The distinction between moral performance and actual persuasion is something I've come back to alot when watching modern activism. I remember attending a town hall where organizers spent more time on chants than dialogue, and it felt weirdly hollow even when I agreed with them. The Hong Kong comparison is useful too since it highlights how risk and discipline are connected. Movements work better when they invite empathy insted of demanding it.
Really insightful piece. The comparison to civil rights era protests is particuarly sharp because it highlights how dignified restraint under pressure actually amplified moral authority rather than diminishing it. I remeber watching footage from Birmingham and being struck by how the protestors' composure made the violence against them even more damning. The point about proportionality feels crucial too since hyperbole tends to erode credibility faster than strengthen arguments.
I am wondering: How representative is the alienating behaviour for the protest movements at large and how much of it only stands out because this is what the media amplify?
Under this pretext all tragedies can be written off as a failure of the opposition to persuade effectively. While objectively true, it's also an easy way to release the average bystander from their own personal responsibility.
You might also suggest spending more time thinking and examining your position. Is it really an injustice you are protesting? What is unjust in capturing people who have committed crimes? What is unjust about holding people accountable?
What is justice? If what is occurring is legal, how, specifically is it unjust?
Secondly, for whom are you actually protesting? Be honest. Is what you are doing helping someone else or really making you feel better?
I posit that most of Left-wing protesting is more about people shouting and belittling others to makes themselves feel better than addressing an actual injustice.
Truth
You wrote, "Societies weaken when protest becomes primarily an outlet for rage, and when spectacle replaces persuasion."
What you're missing is that the weakening of society is the real goal of the protests.
The particular causes which you ostensibly "support" are not what these protests are actually about. As Saul Alinsky wrote in Rules for Radicals (1971), "The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.”
Current protest movements are indeed very performative, drawing as much from open-air theatrical performances as they do from left-wing values. And it is indeed a far cry from the civil rights movement. Martin Luther King, Jr. was adamant in the belief that the way forward was to show your opponent that you were above creating the sort of violent and intimidating public scenes they expected from you, and instead, with a measured manner, meet them on more dignified terms. This is hardly what is now occurring.
'... There is something about them that feels misguided and unserious ...'
Because they are. Seriously. Marching around with stupid 'pussy' hats or outfits? That's a double facepalm. Wearing frog costumes? You look *seriously* stupid.
It is extremely difficult to take someone seriously when A) they look like caricatures and B) when you ask them a serious question - in good faith - and they cannot answer you in real words. "Well, just because it's my right to protest" is NOT a real answer. Sorry, not sorry, it is NOT.
Well said. We seem to have forgetten that we can disagree with others' positions but stop short of wanting them erased. Is ICE doing things BECAUSE OF these performance protests? Are "mostly peaceful" protests making things worse? Can anyone tell me what improved for blacks after the BLM riots (except line the pockets of their leadership)?
This article really caught what I feel.
As a nurse I support the strike in New York. However, when I read they were going to the CEO's homes I felt that crossed the line of acceptability.
The author's thesis is well stated and persuasive
I think of civil disobedience in three categories.
First, defiance of unjust laws. Examples include sitting in the front of the bus, drinking from the wrong water fountain, etc. There’s a clear link between the protest and the unjust laws.
Second, protests when free speech is restricted. Think of the marches during the 60’s. The lack of free speech and disenfranchisement provide a clear rationale for the protest.
Third, the craziness were mostly see where people show up to protests as a social event, and then pretend to be upset when there are consequences. Saw an interesting interview during the Mostly Peaceful Protests about the strategy of blocking traffic. The person said that if the authorities don’t respond the protestors establish that they have more power. If the authorities do respond then the protestors get great video for the evening news.
If you want to march down the street for a couple of hours during the day, fine. If you want to keep doing that all night, ignore orders to disperse, and threaten authorities, then that is unacceptable in a democracy where you have the right to vote.
Great job putting my feelings and thoughts into words. This is how I always felt about gay pride parades. While I support the cause, I felt the extreme fringe did more to repel others than to persuade.
I think before 2020, I would have agreed with this piece almost in its entirety. Right now, I agree maybe 20%. I attended Beloit College in Wisconsin from 2009-2013, submerged in an intensely-postmodernist, totalizing, “woke” environment before it was popularized. I came from an ordinary liberal suburban Jewish household near Chicago, so that was a culture-shock. I considered myself ultra-liberal, but in that college environment, I was an arch-conservative by comparison. I know very well the excesses of the “new left,” while recognizing that it is not actually monolithic. I think the worst sin of the “new left” is that it cried wolf. It acted as though things like those happening now were happening back in the early 2000s. To them, W was Hitler, and Obama was barely better. On specific issues, I have indeed come myself to see even the supposed liberal “good guys” from that period as immensely farther right than what our society needs at this moment, but ideologically, I find postmodernist “wokeness” and things like standpoint epistemology profoundly-unhelpful. I probably see eye to eye with some of the more robustly left-of-center signatories to the (in)famous Harper’s letter. I think thinks like Great Book education and resisting AI are a remedy for many of our epistemological ills, and that progressive ends would be better served by those (neo-)modernist means than by the fashionable postmodernist ones.
But now, the reality on the ground actually resembled what during the Bush era was alarmist hyperbole. Mainstream scholars of fascism and even the Holocaust who are not prone to hyperbole or sensationalism or alarmism are warning that the current government is trending in an almost-unthinkable direction. People shouldn’t have made comparisons to the Holocaust the moment the first Trump administration began its dirty work, but it’s not entirely clear they shouldn’t make such comparisons now.
I am flummoxed that people broadly in the FAIR camp are still treating the left wing angst as hysterical. They cried wolf, but now they’re really not wrong. I think messaging should be tweaked towards persuasion of those who don’t already robustly agree, and once we are through the nightmare, we will again have to try to persuade them not to act as though no progress has been made. We will again justly accuse them of totalizing ideology and empty virtue-signaling. But right now, tut-tutting about tone in protests is probably not helpful. We should join them, and try to show by example more prudent messaging for protests. Otherwise, we may fully lose the plot.
I guess you are not a mainstream scholar of fascism and even the Holocaust, so what is your sincere reaction to anti-Israel movement in the West? Let us take all fours layers: the Governments (local and national), the Streets, the Schools, the Media. In other words, why Apartheid Israel must be destroyed but not Aryanist Norway or settler-colonialist Denmark owining the people of Greenland?
After you contemplate the answer, you might consider another question: why do laws in a supposedly "legitimate" nation like US must be ignored and the law enforcers physically attacked? Should we, for exmple, refuse to pay all the unjust and illegal taxes like the local settler-colonists did in the 18 century? Finally, shouldn't the US be also destroyed?
Solid framework for thinking about this. The distinction between moral performance and actual persuasion is something I've come back to alot when watching modern activism. I remember attending a town hall where organizers spent more time on chants than dialogue, and it felt weirdly hollow even when I agreed with them. The Hong Kong comparison is useful too since it highlights how risk and discipline are connected. Movements work better when they invite empathy insted of demanding it.
Really insightful piece. The comparison to civil rights era protests is particuarly sharp because it highlights how dignified restraint under pressure actually amplified moral authority rather than diminishing it. I remeber watching footage from Birmingham and being struck by how the protestors' composure made the violence against them even more damning. The point about proportionality feels crucial too since hyperbole tends to erode credibility faster than strengthen arguments.
I am wondering: How representative is the alienating behaviour for the protest movements at large and how much of it only stands out because this is what the media amplify?
Under this pretext all tragedies can be written off as a failure of the opposition to persuade effectively. While objectively true, it's also an easy way to release the average bystander from their own personal responsibility.
That’s not the same Cities church - Park Ave is in Minneapolis
Only “since 2020”? Where have you been for the last fifty-five years?