Protests are different now.
July 21, 2022 2:14 PM Subscribe
Surely, this big protest wave [in 2003 against the Iraq War] — possibly the largest in history — would help stop the relentless march toward this ill-advised war. We all know how that went. I Was Wrong About Why Protests Work (NYT)
Part of the NYT's "I Was Wrong" series
Part of the NYT's "I Was Wrong" series
A NYTimes series about wrongs of the past? Must have been spearheaded by Judith Miller.
But srsly thanks for this timely and relevant article / FPP.
This is so well said:
The quickly sprung large movements often floundered for direction once the inevitable pushback came. They didn’t have the tools to navigate the treacherous next phase of politics, because they hadn’t needed to build them to get there.
In the past, a truly big march was the culmination of long-term organizing, an exclamation mark at the end of a sentence, indicating prior planning and strength. Large numbers of people had gotten together and worked for a long time, coordinating, preparing — and getting to know one another and making decisions. So they didn’t just manage to hold a protest; lacking easier ways to organize, they ended up having to build organizational capacity, which then helped navigate what came after.
I can’t help but feel that — NOT ALL, perhaps not Most — a significant portion of protestors in the US go out there seeing the action almost entirely as a vehicle to express feelings, vent frustrations. There is hope that doing so will do something, cause some change to occur, with not much thought given to why it would, how it would. Expressing the frustration, anger, disdain for the established order are important, and are necessary, but are no where near sufficient for building and shepherding lasting change or developing effective tactics for vanquishing the enemy.
posted by armoir from antproof case at 2:45 PM on July 21, 2022 [52 favorites]
But srsly thanks for this timely and relevant article / FPP.
This is so well said:
The quickly sprung large movements often floundered for direction once the inevitable pushback came. They didn’t have the tools to navigate the treacherous next phase of politics, because they hadn’t needed to build them to get there.
In the past, a truly big march was the culmination of long-term organizing, an exclamation mark at the end of a sentence, indicating prior planning and strength. Large numbers of people had gotten together and worked for a long time, coordinating, preparing — and getting to know one another and making decisions. So they didn’t just manage to hold a protest; lacking easier ways to organize, they ended up having to build organizational capacity, which then helped navigate what came after.
I can’t help but feel that — NOT ALL, perhaps not Most — a significant portion of protestors in the US go out there seeing the action almost entirely as a vehicle to express feelings, vent frustrations. There is hope that doing so will do something, cause some change to occur, with not much thought given to why it would, how it would. Expressing the frustration, anger, disdain for the established order are important, and are necessary, but are no where near sufficient for building and shepherding lasting change or developing effective tactics for vanquishing the enemy.
posted by armoir from antproof case at 2:45 PM on July 21, 2022 [52 favorites]
A good discussion of how protests do or do not work should touch on the work of Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward. Basically, they argue, masses of (generally poor) people can influence political decision-making to the extent that they can disrupt business as usual and convince elites that they better offer concessions or else the disruption will get worse.
100% - you need to give the strong impression that, not much farther down the road, the rich may be fleeing for their lives.
posted by ryanshepard at 2:48 PM on July 21, 2022 [19 favorites]
100% - you need to give the strong impression that, not much farther down the road, the rich may be fleeing for their lives.
posted by ryanshepard at 2:48 PM on July 21, 2022 [19 favorites]
May be a little too early to be sure about George Floyd. I doubt the recent wave of progressive prosecutors gets elected without that summer. We know what happened to Chesa Boudin but, e.g., Alvin Bragg is still out there.
posted by praemunire at 2:55 PM on July 21, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by praemunire at 2:55 PM on July 21, 2022 [10 favorites]
There’s been massive, massive media pushback since then under the guise of “crime” that didn’t actually exist and refunding police forces that never go defunded. Whatever support from mainstream democrats existed pre election completely evaporated as well in favor of copaganda and pandering.
posted by Artw at 3:13 PM on July 21, 2022 [46 favorites]
posted by Artw at 3:13 PM on July 21, 2022 [46 favorites]
My impression, as somebody that's been to marches since the Battle of Seattle in 1999: they're socials for left wingers. It's not going to change policy, it's not going to affect the thinking of city hall; it's a block party for people with a particular cause. The utility of protests lays solely in the networking and cross-cause solidarity, and nothing else.
Secondly: the modern neoliberal establishment has adopted an entirely effective network of police tactics, political tactics, and media coverage to make protest completely useless for effecting policy change. Indeed, the myth of the effectiveness of civil disobedience is perpetuated and amplified for the exact purpose of channeling minority/labor/social change groups into precisely the most non-productive and useless tactics possible.
At the same time, remember the old black bloc rule: the narc is always the guy that suggests doing crime.
posted by LeRoienJaune at 3:18 PM on July 21, 2022 [75 favorites]
Secondly: the modern neoliberal establishment has adopted an entirely effective network of police tactics, political tactics, and media coverage to make protest completely useless for effecting policy change. Indeed, the myth of the effectiveness of civil disobedience is perpetuated and amplified for the exact purpose of channeling minority/labor/social change groups into precisely the most non-productive and useless tactics possible.
At the same time, remember the old black bloc rule: the narc is always the guy that suggests doing crime.
posted by LeRoienJaune at 3:18 PM on July 21, 2022 [75 favorites]
Any time I've gone to a protest, it's basically just to vent and commiserate with others feeling the same way. I don't really think it does anything.
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:34 PM on July 21, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:34 PM on July 21, 2022 [6 favorites]
I was interested when I saw this series in the NYTimes newsletter this morning, but then most of them were either "I was wrong about this one specific minor thing but my overall point still stands" or "I was wrong but I has good reasons to be wrong and everyone else was wrong too and also I wasn't wrong."
This one was less that, but I didn't read too far since I'd already read (and recommended on MeFi before I'm pretty sure) Twitter and Tear Gas (by the same author), which covered the exact same topic five years ago.
posted by solotoro at 3:57 PM on July 21, 2022 [6 favorites]
This one was less that, but I didn't read too far since I'd already read (and recommended on MeFi before I'm pretty sure) Twitter and Tear Gas (by the same author), which covered the exact same topic five years ago.
posted by solotoro at 3:57 PM on July 21, 2022 [6 favorites]
Yeah, Twitter and Tear Gas is alluded to (but not mentioned by name) in the article.
posted by meowzilla at 4:04 PM on July 21, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by meowzilla at 4:04 PM on July 21, 2022 [1 favorite]
From comment above:
the myth of the effectiveness of civil disobedience is perpetuated and amplified for the exact purpose of channeling minority/labor/social change groups into precisely the most non-productive and useless tactics possible.
I want to hear more about this. This resonates with me, makes sense, and i totally buy it, but i can’t point to specific examples (articles, research, books) where it is verifiably demonstrated. Would love some references to check out.
Among other purposes, it could help to uncover opportunities for effective new strategies.
posted by armoir from antproof case at 4:31 PM on July 21, 2022 [9 favorites]
the myth of the effectiveness of civil disobedience is perpetuated and amplified for the exact purpose of channeling minority/labor/social change groups into precisely the most non-productive and useless tactics possible.
I want to hear more about this. This resonates with me, makes sense, and i totally buy it, but i can’t point to specific examples (articles, research, books) where it is verifiably demonstrated. Would love some references to check out.
Among other purposes, it could help to uncover opportunities for effective new strategies.
posted by armoir from antproof case at 4:31 PM on July 21, 2022 [9 favorites]
I was wrong. I thought to myself, how could he ever win? He can't. He is a TV personality not even that well liked in his home city. He isn't even liked by his party's establishment. And even if he is elected, what harm can he do?
Then I thought, surely he will go away now.
Boy, was I WRONG.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 4:51 PM on July 21, 2022 [18 favorites]
Then I thought, surely he will go away now.
Boy, was I WRONG.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 4:51 PM on July 21, 2022 [18 favorites]
I can’t help but feel that — NOT ALL, perhaps not Most — a significant portion of protestors in the US go out there seeing the action almost entirely as a vehicle to express feelings, vent frustrations
AKA cheap date
posted by BWA at 4:54 PM on July 21, 2022 [1 favorite]
AKA cheap date
posted by BWA at 4:54 PM on July 21, 2022 [1 favorite]
I want to hear more about this. This resonates with me, makes sense, and i totally buy it, but i can’t point to specific examples (articles, research, books) where it is verifiably demonstrated. Would love some references to check out.
IIRC, this is similar to an argument made by Andreas Malm in "How To Blow Up A Pipeline", which might be of interest.
posted by busted_crayons at 4:55 PM on July 21, 2022 [3 favorites]
IIRC, this is similar to an argument made by Andreas Malm in "How To Blow Up A Pipeline", which might be of interest.
posted by busted_crayons at 4:55 PM on July 21, 2022 [3 favorites]
I was interested when I saw this series in the NYTimes newsletter this morning, but then most of them were either "I was wrong about this one specific minor thing but my overall point still stands" or "I was wrong but I has good reasons to be wrong and everyone else was wrong too and also I wasn't wrong."
This series is what got me to read a David Brooks column for the first time in ages, and I confess I enjoyed it; his column wasn't just "I was wrong about this one thing", but "I've been wrong repeatedly throughout my career and here's why I mess up all the time". Refreshing, even if the obvious rejoinder is "So why don't you just stop talking?"
Friedman's column, on the other hand, just made me despise him even more.
posted by aws17576 at 5:00 PM on July 21, 2022 [5 favorites]
This series is what got me to read a David Brooks column for the first time in ages, and I confess I enjoyed it; his column wasn't just "I was wrong about this one thing", but "I've been wrong repeatedly throughout my career and here's why I mess up all the time". Refreshing, even if the obvious rejoinder is "So why don't you just stop talking?"
Friedman's column, on the other hand, just made me despise him even more.
posted by aws17576 at 5:00 PM on July 21, 2022 [5 favorites]
I think this wikipedia article is relevant:Tactics and methods surrounding the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests.
posted by Chrysopoeia at 5:03 PM on July 21, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by Chrysopoeia at 5:03 PM on July 21, 2022 [5 favorites]
Worth it for: "I know that people like to say correlation doesn’t imply causation, but in fact, it does imply it; it just doesn’t prove it by itself."
Boy, was I WRONG.
Ditto. Not about the harm but about the electability. It was a scary wake-up call that a fairly large chunk of our population really wants to kill everyone not like them.
Seconding Andreas Malm. That's how I felt in the late 1990s, when it seemed we were sleepwalking into a environmental/capitalist nightmare (that we're now in).
I wanted to blow up everything. I was talked out of it (it wasn't hard -- I didn't want to hurt anyone) by many intelligent, compassionate, and peaceful people. ... But I was right!
posted by mrgrimm at 5:04 PM on July 21, 2022 [7 favorites]
Boy, was I WRONG.
Ditto. Not about the harm but about the electability. It was a scary wake-up call that a fairly large chunk of our population really wants to kill everyone not like them.
Seconding Andreas Malm. That's how I felt in the late 1990s, when it seemed we were sleepwalking into a environmental/capitalist nightmare (that we're now in).
I wanted to blow up everything. I was talked out of it (it wasn't hard -- I didn't want to hurt anyone) by many intelligent, compassionate, and peaceful people. ... But I was right!
posted by mrgrimm at 5:04 PM on July 21, 2022 [7 favorites]
I wanted to blow up everything. I was talked out of it (it wasn't hard -- I didn't want to hurt anyone) by many intelligent, compassionate, and peaceful people. ... But I was right!
If it's any consolation, the practical record of the kind of direct action Malm suggests isn't super encouraging either, for reasons well-articulated by Trotsky here.
Really the only practical alternative is to organize in your workplace and neighborhood so that numbers can successfully translate into collective power. But I'm not always good about staying optimistic about this strategy either.
posted by derrinyet at 5:12 PM on July 21, 2022 [10 favorites]
If it's any consolation, the practical record of the kind of direct action Malm suggests isn't super encouraging either, for reasons well-articulated by Trotsky here.
Really the only practical alternative is to organize in your workplace and neighborhood so that numbers can successfully translate into collective power. But I'm not always good about staying optimistic about this strategy either.
posted by derrinyet at 5:12 PM on July 21, 2022 [10 favorites]
The 2019/2020 Hong Kong protests were demoralizing to this passive observer because the tactics, organizational skill, stamina, number of people involved, creativity, strength, etc. all pointed towards a popular uprising that might ultimately achieve its aims, only to see the movement get crushed by an authoritarian fist.
I still want to believe (and do, to a certain extent believe) that protest is an effective tool for change in civil society, but it certainly seems worth analyzing the efficacy and limits of said tool to realize change.
posted by nikoniko at 6:04 PM on July 21, 2022 [16 favorites]
I still want to believe (and do, to a certain extent believe) that protest is an effective tool for change in civil society, but it certainly seems worth analyzing the efficacy and limits of said tool to realize change.
posted by nikoniko at 6:04 PM on July 21, 2022 [16 favorites]
So, I've had a half-baked theory about this rattling around for a while and I figure I might as well dump it out here.
In the US (and I think Canada as well), there's a general consensus that the "right" kind of protests were the ones that MLK Jr. did. I'll note that this consensus is relatively recent considering, for example, how John McCain voted against establishing the MLK Jr. day holiday in 1983 and how Arizona didn't recognize it until 1992. In any case, my theory is that the reason this consensus has emerged is because: 1) they were effective (in the sense that it ended de jure segregation and passed the VRA), and 2) they were non-violent (though they were often not considered that way contemporaneously).
However, in canonizing MLK Jr. and those civil rights protests, I feel like many people -- particularly those who get to establish the "general consensus" -- have forgotten (or deliberately elide) the details of what those protests were about, how they worked, and why they were effective. Specifically, the protests were about unjust laws (e.g.: segregation), they worked by deliberately violating those laws (e.g.: sit-ins) and getting arrested/prosecuted, and they were effective because it brought the reality of the injustice of these laws into sharp focus for the nation at large which previously may not have sufficiently understood the brutality of the segregated South. In this light, my half-baked theory is that the success of those civil rights protests were highly contingent on these specific circumstances and are unlikely to work at all in other contexts. For example, it seems to me that MLK Jr.'s protests against the Vietnam War were far less successful than the civil rights actions.
Thus, even if it were unintentional, reducing the space of "acceptable" protest down to specifically the mythologized accounts of the civil rights protests ends up drastically limiting the kinds of outcomes acceptable protests can achieve.
posted by mhum at 6:17 PM on July 21, 2022 [38 favorites]
In the US (and I think Canada as well), there's a general consensus that the "right" kind of protests were the ones that MLK Jr. did. I'll note that this consensus is relatively recent considering, for example, how John McCain voted against establishing the MLK Jr. day holiday in 1983 and how Arizona didn't recognize it until 1992. In any case, my theory is that the reason this consensus has emerged is because: 1) they were effective (in the sense that it ended de jure segregation and passed the VRA), and 2) they were non-violent (though they were often not considered that way contemporaneously).
However, in canonizing MLK Jr. and those civil rights protests, I feel like many people -- particularly those who get to establish the "general consensus" -- have forgotten (or deliberately elide) the details of what those protests were about, how they worked, and why they were effective. Specifically, the protests were about unjust laws (e.g.: segregation), they worked by deliberately violating those laws (e.g.: sit-ins) and getting arrested/prosecuted, and they were effective because it brought the reality of the injustice of these laws into sharp focus for the nation at large which previously may not have sufficiently understood the brutality of the segregated South. In this light, my half-baked theory is that the success of those civil rights protests were highly contingent on these specific circumstances and are unlikely to work at all in other contexts. For example, it seems to me that MLK Jr.'s protests against the Vietnam War were far less successful than the civil rights actions.
Thus, even if it were unintentional, reducing the space of "acceptable" protest down to specifically the mythologized accounts of the civil rights protests ends up drastically limiting the kinds of outcomes acceptable protests can achieve.
posted by mhum at 6:17 PM on July 21, 2022 [38 favorites]
Really the only protest that seems to stand a chance of working is a large scale strike. If there’s been one lesson over these past couple of years, it’s that businesses are powerless without workers. A lot of the Covid policies were geared around getting people back to work, not so they could make a paycheck but because rich people were losing money and we just can’t have that. Millions of people not going to work would definitely throw a wrench in things. If there were ever a general strike (something I always thought was never possible but now I could see where it could happen) then I’d suggest people stay home. No marches, stay out of the streets. THAT would scare the fuck out of the powers that be. You get masses out in the streets, they’ll use every brutal tactic at their disposal and make a show of it. You get people staying home, what are they going to do? Go door to door in a nation that’s armed to the teeth?
posted by azpenguin at 6:27 PM on July 21, 2022 [27 favorites]
posted by azpenguin at 6:27 PM on July 21, 2022 [27 favorites]
I'm in my 60s. Viet Nam war protests mattered; they created dialog, they made people question the government. Protests made the news, and while my parents disapproved of the unkempt hippies, the protests on the news made them at least question why 1 son was risking his life in SE Asia (pilot; he was wounded and lucky to survive) and 1 son was getting arrested for resisting the draft (he got off on a technicality because the tide had turned).
I very much want to protest Climate Emergency and don't get why there is not a national action for people who are not young. yep, my generation kept fucking it up, but a lot of us care.
Occupy Wall Street was huge, then vanished.
So, anyway, I still have questions.
posted by theora55 at 6:57 PM on July 21, 2022 [9 favorites]
I very much want to protest Climate Emergency and don't get why there is not a national action for people who are not young. yep, my generation kept fucking it up, but a lot of us care.
Occupy Wall Street was huge, then vanished.
So, anyway, I still have questions.
posted by theora55 at 6:57 PM on July 21, 2022 [9 favorites]
This isn't tracking with me. Both Occupy Wallstreet and BLM had/have rather sophisticated organizations (albeit different types). No mention is given to existence nor the systemic weakening of labor unions. It almost seems as if their solution is to corporatize organizations.
posted by Perko at 7:48 PM on July 21, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by Perko at 7:48 PM on July 21, 2022 [6 favorites]
100% - you need to give the strong impression that, not much farther down the road, the rich may be fleeing for their lives.
How does the left give that impression, when we all know full well there's no intention of following through an any such threat? Everytime I hear someone rattle off about pitchforks and guillotines, you can be assured they're toothlessly venting silliness. Toothlessly venting silliness is exactly why I gave up on the left and protests decades ago. The theatrics were fun, but when it was all over, virtually nobody was interested in working successful campaigns, and getting elected. You know, doing the things that actually make changes happen.
posted by 2N2222 at 9:19 PM on July 21, 2022 [15 favorites]
How does the left give that impression, when we all know full well there's no intention of following through an any such threat? Everytime I hear someone rattle off about pitchforks and guillotines, you can be assured they're toothlessly venting silliness. Toothlessly venting silliness is exactly why I gave up on the left and protests decades ago. The theatrics were fun, but when it was all over, virtually nobody was interested in working successful campaigns, and getting elected. You know, doing the things that actually make changes happen.
posted by 2N2222 at 9:19 PM on July 21, 2022 [15 favorites]
the myth of the effectiveness of civil disobedience
It may worth noting here that a fully permitted protest march/rally, even a really large one, is not an act of civil disobedience.
posted by eviemath at 9:20 PM on July 21, 2022 [34 favorites]
It may worth noting here that a fully permitted protest march/rally, even a really large one, is not an act of civil disobedience.
posted by eviemath at 9:20 PM on July 21, 2022 [34 favorites]
Metafilter: I've had a half-baked theory about this rattling around for a while and I figure I might as well dump it out here.
posted by zardoz at 9:24 PM on July 21, 2022 [13 favorites]
posted by zardoz at 9:24 PM on July 21, 2022 [13 favorites]
theora55 - for one thing, the news was a very different beast in the 60s. media has changed radically -and i think, in most ways, for the worse.
posted by lapolla at 9:40 PM on July 21, 2022 [12 favorites]
posted by lapolla at 9:40 PM on July 21, 2022 [12 favorites]
There's two basic emotions that protests and other mass movements utilize: fear and shame. Strikes and direct action both work mostly via fear, but are only effective if the threat is actually perceived as real AND it doesn't cause a defensive backlash that kills the movement. Failed attempts at fear-based protests can be really destructive because the people in power will aggressively strike at the protestors and there's a high chance of alienating neutral third parties by looking too "radical". For cases like the HK protests it may even be counterproductive to be too organized because it will make the authorities fight back harder than if the protests looks doomed to fail.
The shame path is more interesting and I think this is how successful nonviolent demonstrations usually work. There's two related goals in a morality-based protest: make the decision makers feel bad enough to change their decisions, and convince neutral third parties to exert strong social pressure on the decision makers. Keeping the moral high ground via nonviolence here is important, because when the authorities overreact with force it ends up making them look worse and the protestors look better. Almost all important political changes (other than hard coups) happen via social pressure, which Trump has exploited by being completely immune to shame.
The key to making shame and social pressure work is to target the groups that have real social influence over the decision makers you want to pressure. The American leaders obviously do not care what left wing protestors or poor people think so those groups have no direct moral influence over the leaders. And it's very hard to change the mind of "the average American" enough to matter because they mostly don't care about politics in the first place. So in America I think there are two paths to make powerful people change their mind: family and money.
Most politicians and corporate leaders do have family members that they trust, and those family members are often more open to change than the leaders themselves. If you convince the children of powerful people that something is important, they might convince their parents of the same thing (the non sociopathic ones at least). Congressional aides also have a massive amount of indirect political power that they tend to be afraid to use. On the money front, politicians definitely care what corporations and lobbyists think and many of the positive social changes around LGBT rights have come via corporate pressure on politicians. In my state of North Carolina the corporate boycotts related to the bathroom bill definitely had a real political effect. You can tell this has been working because politicians like DeSantis are defensively lashing out at corporations like Disney that are more "progressive".
posted by JZig at 10:38 PM on July 21, 2022 [17 favorites]
The shame path is more interesting and I think this is how successful nonviolent demonstrations usually work. There's two related goals in a morality-based protest: make the decision makers feel bad enough to change their decisions, and convince neutral third parties to exert strong social pressure on the decision makers. Keeping the moral high ground via nonviolence here is important, because when the authorities overreact with force it ends up making them look worse and the protestors look better. Almost all important political changes (other than hard coups) happen via social pressure, which Trump has exploited by being completely immune to shame.
The key to making shame and social pressure work is to target the groups that have real social influence over the decision makers you want to pressure. The American leaders obviously do not care what left wing protestors or poor people think so those groups have no direct moral influence over the leaders. And it's very hard to change the mind of "the average American" enough to matter because they mostly don't care about politics in the first place. So in America I think there are two paths to make powerful people change their mind: family and money.
Most politicians and corporate leaders do have family members that they trust, and those family members are often more open to change than the leaders themselves. If you convince the children of powerful people that something is important, they might convince their parents of the same thing (the non sociopathic ones at least). Congressional aides also have a massive amount of indirect political power that they tend to be afraid to use. On the money front, politicians definitely care what corporations and lobbyists think and many of the positive social changes around LGBT rights have come via corporate pressure on politicians. In my state of North Carolina the corporate boycotts related to the bathroom bill definitely had a real political effect. You can tell this has been working because politicians like DeSantis are defensively lashing out at corporations like Disney that are more "progressive".
posted by JZig at 10:38 PM on July 21, 2022 [17 favorites]
I'm in my 60s. Viet Nam war protests mattered
Did they, though? In terms of actually accomplishing their stated objectives? The US only departed Vietnam when it was thoroughly clear to everyone, even in the depths of the military establishment, that the war wasn't winnable and Chinese containment—the war's original strategic purpose—was better effected by other means. The withdrawal timetable was proudly announced by no less than Henry Fucking Kissinger, and we left right on his schedule.
That would be like desegregation happening when George Wallace finally thought it was a good idea.
posted by Kadin2048 at 11:12 PM on July 21, 2022 [6 favorites]
Did they, though? In terms of actually accomplishing their stated objectives? The US only departed Vietnam when it was thoroughly clear to everyone, even in the depths of the military establishment, that the war wasn't winnable and Chinese containment—the war's original strategic purpose—was better effected by other means. The withdrawal timetable was proudly announced by no less than Henry Fucking Kissinger, and we left right on his schedule.
That would be like desegregation happening when George Wallace finally thought it was a good idea.
posted by Kadin2048 at 11:12 PM on July 21, 2022 [6 favorites]
So are we at the point where organizing voting for anyone without a D or an R next to their name can finally be considered an effective way to protest or do I still have to let people decide for me that my vote has to go to Biden until we figure out how to get enough people to stop showing up to work during the next pandemic because that’s the way a real democracy works?
posted by grizzly at 12:47 AM on July 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by grizzly at 12:47 AM on July 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
Real democracy doesn't work with first past the post. It's a system built to entrench power and it forces all kinds of compromises from voters, because the system doesn't work.
I don't think I've ever seen protest achieve anything? Strikes, yes, riots, rarely, but never protest.
posted by Dysk at 1:12 AM on July 22, 2022 [5 favorites]
I don't think I've ever seen protest achieve anything? Strikes, yes, riots, rarely, but never protest.
posted by Dysk at 1:12 AM on July 22, 2022 [5 favorites]
I've seen a ton in the last decade about how the decline of permanent organized structures has really disadvantaged the left (broadly defined as basically anyone non-corporate.) Labor unions are the big ones, but also mainstream protestant churches and even fraternal orders. If you're not actively religious, there's a good chance that the only organization you interact with is a professional group. I certainly read this piece with that in mind.
This series is what got me to read a David Brooks column for the first time in ages, and I confess I enjoyed it; his column wasn't just "I was wrong about this one thing", but "I've been wrong repeatedly throughout my career and here's why I mess up all the time". Refreshing, even if the obvious rejoinder is "So why don't you just stop talking?"
This is completely Brooks' brand though. He's a humble inquisitive guy! Always open to learning and apologizing!
But what he's actively apologized for his entire adult life is the right wing, and he's kept doing it even as it gets more extreme year after year.
posted by mark k at 1:14 AM on July 22, 2022 [12 favorites]
This series is what got me to read a David Brooks column for the first time in ages, and I confess I enjoyed it; his column wasn't just "I was wrong about this one thing", but "I've been wrong repeatedly throughout my career and here's why I mess up all the time". Refreshing, even if the obvious rejoinder is "So why don't you just stop talking?"
This is completely Brooks' brand though. He's a humble inquisitive guy! Always open to learning and apologizing!
But what he's actively apologized for his entire adult life is the right wing, and he's kept doing it even as it gets more extreme year after year.
posted by mark k at 1:14 AM on July 22, 2022 [12 favorites]
It may worth noting here that a fully permitted protest march/rally, even a really large one, is not an act of civil disobedience.
That's an important distinction. I do think there's some merit to the argument that a strategy based on inviting repression and hoping the bad optics shame the ruling class into behaving a certain way tends to be emphasised to the exclusion of other strategies. That's not to say that there aren't specific circumstances where what have been characterised in this thread as "shame"-based tactics might be an effective way to raise the cost of the status quo, but I agree with some version of Malm's argument in the sense that shame-based civil disobedience-type tactics are often fetishised way beyond their actual effectiveness. (For instance, I think this is a valid criticism of Extinction Rebellion, although I gather --- I'm not involved with XR so don't know for sure --- that they've changed course a bit recently.)
There's two basic emotions that protests and other mass movements utilize: fear and shame.
I don't think it's true that the mechanism of action for civil disobedience (or any other form of protest) is to operate on some moral sense supposedly present in the ruling class. I also think it's a bit naive to base an analysis on projecting normal human emotions ("fear" or "shame") on to systems or on to very powerful people. I thought the deal with civil disobedience (or other forms of protest that aren't straightforward applications of collective coercive power, as in a strike) was to draw on the moral sense of "onlookers" in such a way that the ruling class starts to fear that whatever detente they've reached with the "onlookers" is going to be threatened if they don't alter course. So civil disobedience relies on really specific circumstances where the ruling class doesn't totally control the narrative. Otherwise, they can just beat the shit out of sit-down protestors, incite a (police) riot, and then lie about it in the media, ensuring that public opinion doesn't start to align with the aims of the protestors.
(The latter happened during protests in my city against expanded police powers and, ironically, criminalisation of protest, last year.)
If you convince the children of powerful people that something is important, they might convince their parents of the same thing (the non sociopathic ones at least).
The problem with this as a strategy is that it's deep in "one weird trick" territory. The more serious tactics you mention, namely pressuring corporations and lobbyists, are what you called "fear-based" tactics, no? Politicians respond to pressure from corporations and lobbyists out of "fear" (I'd say it's more like: corporations and lobbyists have enormous power to incentivise politicians to do what they want). The idea that there are "progressive" or "non-progressive" corporations is weird, though: if a corporation thinks it will be more profitable or reputationally beneficial to perform support for LGBT rights, it will, and if it won't, it won't. A corporation performing support for LGBT rights can be a useful way to pressure politicians. So indeed that creates a lever for activists, but it's "fear-based", too (not that there's anything wrong with that).
posted by busted_crayons at 3:26 AM on July 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
That's an important distinction. I do think there's some merit to the argument that a strategy based on inviting repression and hoping the bad optics shame the ruling class into behaving a certain way tends to be emphasised to the exclusion of other strategies. That's not to say that there aren't specific circumstances where what have been characterised in this thread as "shame"-based tactics might be an effective way to raise the cost of the status quo, but I agree with some version of Malm's argument in the sense that shame-based civil disobedience-type tactics are often fetishised way beyond their actual effectiveness. (For instance, I think this is a valid criticism of Extinction Rebellion, although I gather --- I'm not involved with XR so don't know for sure --- that they've changed course a bit recently.)
There's two basic emotions that protests and other mass movements utilize: fear and shame.
I don't think it's true that the mechanism of action for civil disobedience (or any other form of protest) is to operate on some moral sense supposedly present in the ruling class. I also think it's a bit naive to base an analysis on projecting normal human emotions ("fear" or "shame") on to systems or on to very powerful people. I thought the deal with civil disobedience (or other forms of protest that aren't straightforward applications of collective coercive power, as in a strike) was to draw on the moral sense of "onlookers" in such a way that the ruling class starts to fear that whatever detente they've reached with the "onlookers" is going to be threatened if they don't alter course. So civil disobedience relies on really specific circumstances where the ruling class doesn't totally control the narrative. Otherwise, they can just beat the shit out of sit-down protestors, incite a (police) riot, and then lie about it in the media, ensuring that public opinion doesn't start to align with the aims of the protestors.
(The latter happened during protests in my city against expanded police powers and, ironically, criminalisation of protest, last year.)
If you convince the children of powerful people that something is important, they might convince their parents of the same thing (the non sociopathic ones at least).
The problem with this as a strategy is that it's deep in "one weird trick" territory. The more serious tactics you mention, namely pressuring corporations and lobbyists, are what you called "fear-based" tactics, no? Politicians respond to pressure from corporations and lobbyists out of "fear" (I'd say it's more like: corporations and lobbyists have enormous power to incentivise politicians to do what they want). The idea that there are "progressive" or "non-progressive" corporations is weird, though: if a corporation thinks it will be more profitable or reputationally beneficial to perform support for LGBT rights, it will, and if it won't, it won't. A corporation performing support for LGBT rights can be a useful way to pressure politicians. So indeed that creates a lever for activists, but it's "fear-based", too (not that there's anything wrong with that).
posted by busted_crayons at 3:26 AM on July 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
I think it's easy to lose the distinction between "how protests work" and "if protests work." Large protests often do work it's just that they succeed at something other than their acutely stated goals. (OWS did not end capitalism but absolutely set the tone for a critique of wealth and inequality that continues to influence significantly!) ... Tufekci's got an interesting point about technology making the organizing easier so that today's large protests are less a demonstration of a significant organizational mass and political power.
Secondly I think that the recent few generations of USA street protest should be viewed in light of a pretty notable decrease in democracy. Increasing gerrymandering, the more significant role of money in politics, and the inability of the American political system to affect change on things supported by a vast majority of the population... it's a grim scene and it makes the power structure less concerned with the public's voices. I think that needs to affect the strategic goals of protest organizers, for sure, but I also think it's a referendum on American democracy more than on protests.
posted by entropone at 4:59 AM on July 22, 2022 [7 favorites]
Secondly I think that the recent few generations of USA street protest should be viewed in light of a pretty notable decrease in democracy. Increasing gerrymandering, the more significant role of money in politics, and the inability of the American political system to affect change on things supported by a vast majority of the population... it's a grim scene and it makes the power structure less concerned with the public's voices. I think that needs to affect the strategic goals of protest organizers, for sure, but I also think it's a referendum on American democracy more than on protests.
posted by entropone at 4:59 AM on July 22, 2022 [7 favorites]
I think it's easy to forget small protests - I've definitely observed small, sustained protest campaigns to achieve small changes, for instance about tenants' rights or local immigration policy.
Protest does not "work" or "not work" any more than strikes "work" or "don't work". Have you ever been part of a losing strike? My union went on strike and we de facto lost - we got enough of a "raise" to almost make up for the month of lost wages and that was about it, no other concessions. So if anything there was a savings for the institution and the union was a lot weaker for a while.
In fact, I strongly urge people not to think that strikes are magic. People want to say that strikes "work" because they want to say that something works, but a lot of strikes are broken or the businesses take other means (closures, firings, new forms of exploitation) to claw back the gains of the strike. People like the idea of strikes right now because we in the US haven't had a lot of them until recently and we've had a lot of useless protests.
Elites' responses to strikes are affected by two things - how much the protest or strike can disrupt/embarrass/trigger further events and how much it costs to give in. The reason that we didn't win in 2003 was because why the fuck would they not have a war that they'd been building up to and that meant millions and millions of dollars in conquest? I suppose that if there had literally been a long-lasting national general strike we could have at least temporarily halted the war, but I'd like you to consider whether a national general strike in a large, thinly settled and divided country like the US would be possible and under what conditions. People like to say "a general strike would work" and I'd like them to describe how they would organize a national general strike in under a generation, frankly. Aliens landing and imposing socialism would also work, but I'm not holding my breath.
Protests and strikes are important in part because just being downtrodden and tending your own garden leads nowhere. You protest and strike now even when it's not likely to work because there is going to come a historical opening eventually and you need people to have some sense of themselves as being able to act.
Also, I suspect that protests and strikes are a bit like having a so-so union. Everyone is always like "oh, this union is so-so, it doesn't matter if we have a union" and then the union goes away and whoops, actually things can always get worse.
posted by Frowner at 6:19 AM on July 22, 2022 [31 favorites]
Protest does not "work" or "not work" any more than strikes "work" or "don't work". Have you ever been part of a losing strike? My union went on strike and we de facto lost - we got enough of a "raise" to almost make up for the month of lost wages and that was about it, no other concessions. So if anything there was a savings for the institution and the union was a lot weaker for a while.
In fact, I strongly urge people not to think that strikes are magic. People want to say that strikes "work" because they want to say that something works, but a lot of strikes are broken or the businesses take other means (closures, firings, new forms of exploitation) to claw back the gains of the strike. People like the idea of strikes right now because we in the US haven't had a lot of them until recently and we've had a lot of useless protests.
Elites' responses to strikes are affected by two things - how much the protest or strike can disrupt/embarrass/trigger further events and how much it costs to give in. The reason that we didn't win in 2003 was because why the fuck would they not have a war that they'd been building up to and that meant millions and millions of dollars in conquest? I suppose that if there had literally been a long-lasting national general strike we could have at least temporarily halted the war, but I'd like you to consider whether a national general strike in a large, thinly settled and divided country like the US would be possible and under what conditions. People like to say "a general strike would work" and I'd like them to describe how they would organize a national general strike in under a generation, frankly. Aliens landing and imposing socialism would also work, but I'm not holding my breath.
Protests and strikes are important in part because just being downtrodden and tending your own garden leads nowhere. You protest and strike now even when it's not likely to work because there is going to come a historical opening eventually and you need people to have some sense of themselves as being able to act.
Also, I suspect that protests and strikes are a bit like having a so-so union. Everyone is always like "oh, this union is so-so, it doesn't matter if we have a union" and then the union goes away and whoops, actually things can always get worse.
posted by Frowner at 6:19 AM on July 22, 2022 [31 favorites]
This is an op ed so like, not super deep, but I agree with the general idea: Your protest can be the biggest in history but if not accompanied by deep organizing, it won't do anything. The US Civil Rights Movement for example involved a dozen different large membership organizations, working as part of a fairly unified people's movement that experimented with dozens of strategies over as many years including Gandhian sit-ins, mass meetings, door-to-door one-on-ones, storefronts, community-based organizations, letter writing campaigns, armed resistance, political pressure tactics, etc etc... Much, much more sustained, deep and broad than any contemporary movement, and mass protests were only a small component of that work. Likewise the labor movement in it's heyday involved numerous creative, large-scale, and often dangerous tactics and necessitated the involvement of a majority in each workplace (or city) for success. I don't think the difference between an effective and ineffective protest is specific to the internet age; I was involved in the movement against the 1991 gulf war. Our massive protests were made up of a self-selecting group of war opponents, did not involve 'organizing' as understood in the Civil Rights movement or the labor movement, and also did nothing to change the activities of the US war machine. I agree with Frowner that something is better than nothing. And protests do serve a role of creating a sense of sanity and community amid horrible circumstances. That's not nothing. But it's definitely not enough.
This is a topic we all feel like we know the answer to intuitively but there's not a lot of good research to explain why some movements succeed and some flounder. For now I side with the folks who believe in having a theory of power. When I went to the protest in SF against the overturn of Roe, it was held in front of City Hall for some reason. Did the organizers believe that the SF Board of Supervisors has the ability to change federal abortion policy? Do we think standing in front of a building can magically generate enough power to topple the Supreme Court? (We could have taken a cue from Mexican feminists who threw Molotovs at the court.. and won decriminalization of abortion.)
In union organizing you identify what is the problem, who has the power to fix it/change it, and how you can build enough power to topple those people or at least make them pull that lever of change. It's my belief that all collective action problems require this same analysis and planning. If a protest is a piece of a larger project that does that work, it can be part of winning. If not, it's just not sufficient.
posted by latkes at 7:39 AM on July 22, 2022 [17 favorites]
This is a topic we all feel like we know the answer to intuitively but there's not a lot of good research to explain why some movements succeed and some flounder. For now I side with the folks who believe in having a theory of power. When I went to the protest in SF against the overturn of Roe, it was held in front of City Hall for some reason. Did the organizers believe that the SF Board of Supervisors has the ability to change federal abortion policy? Do we think standing in front of a building can magically generate enough power to topple the Supreme Court? (We could have taken a cue from Mexican feminists who threw Molotovs at the court.. and won decriminalization of abortion.)
In union organizing you identify what is the problem, who has the power to fix it/change it, and how you can build enough power to topple those people or at least make them pull that lever of change. It's my belief that all collective action problems require this same analysis and planning. If a protest is a piece of a larger project that does that work, it can be part of winning. If not, it's just not sufficient.
posted by latkes at 7:39 AM on July 22, 2022 [17 favorites]
The 2003 protests were ineffective for a number of reasons fairly specific to themselves.
* 9/11 was still a very fresh trauma. A lot people didn't have eyes to see or ears to listen.
* a lot of the protests were, for want of a better way to put it, light on specificity, and high on what looked like knee-jerk general pacifism, anti-capitalism and anti-Americanism, which undermined their credibility -- that literal Maoists, Stalinists or Trotskyites were behind many of the major protests didn't help much
* the 1990-1991 doomsayers had been refuted by the success and parsimony of Operation Desert Shield, so the people who were saying that a full invasion of Iraq would have dire consequences could (it seemed) be more safely ignored.
* left-wing protests are often most politically effective when they can change the direction of center-left parties of government ... but the (US) Democratic Party and (UK) Labour Party were at what we can now recognize to have been at an all-time peak of their respective interventionist neoliberal tendency.
posted by MattD at 8:38 AM on July 22, 2022 [5 favorites]
* 9/11 was still a very fresh trauma. A lot people didn't have eyes to see or ears to listen.
* a lot of the protests were, for want of a better way to put it, light on specificity, and high on what looked like knee-jerk general pacifism, anti-capitalism and anti-Americanism, which undermined their credibility -- that literal Maoists, Stalinists or Trotskyites were behind many of the major protests didn't help much
* the 1990-1991 doomsayers had been refuted by the success and parsimony of Operation Desert Shield, so the people who were saying that a full invasion of Iraq would have dire consequences could (it seemed) be more safely ignored.
* left-wing protests are often most politically effective when they can change the direction of center-left parties of government ... but the (US) Democratic Party and (UK) Labour Party were at what we can now recognize to have been at an all-time peak of their respective interventionist neoliberal tendency.
posted by MattD at 8:38 AM on July 22, 2022 [5 favorites]
General strikes just don't have strike funds right? Where would the safety net be, then?
posted by Selena777 at 8:50 AM on July 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Selena777 at 8:50 AM on July 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
One of the problems I see is that if protests really did work, the right would immediately copy those tactics, partly to their own ends, and partly so that neutralizing them would also neutralize them when used by the left.
I have hope that change is coming, but I think it'll be from a hundred sources, each about 5-10% effective, but in the aggregate adding up to more than the sum of its parts. Public consciousness is shifting, albeit it very slowly, like the swell of the ocean. And that's a good thing, because if there's anything I learned is that the public at large will accept literally any excuse to slip back into complacency, and as change actually happens people will end up saying, "well it's all right now!" and go back to focusing exclusively on their own lives.
posted by JHarris at 10:53 AM on July 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
I have hope that change is coming, but I think it'll be from a hundred sources, each about 5-10% effective, but in the aggregate adding up to more than the sum of its parts. Public consciousness is shifting, albeit it very slowly, like the swell of the ocean. And that's a good thing, because if there's anything I learned is that the public at large will accept literally any excuse to slip back into complacency, and as change actually happens people will end up saying, "well it's all right now!" and go back to focusing exclusively on their own lives.
posted by JHarris at 10:53 AM on July 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
if protests really did work, the right would immediately copy those tactics
But they certainly do. They just don't have the same numbers.
posted by mrgrimm at 11:21 AM on July 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
But they certainly do. They just don't have the same numbers.
posted by mrgrimm at 11:21 AM on July 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
Sarah Nelson just had to raise her eyebrow and it ended the government shut down. Strikes that affect the powerful's lifestyles might be what moves the dial more than anything.
posted by Space Coyote at 11:53 AM on July 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Space Coyote at 11:53 AM on July 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
Elites' responses to strikes are affected by two things - how much the protest or strike can disrupt/embarrass/trigger further events and how much it costs to give in.
Yup. The SOPA/PIPA protest is the one effective protest I can think of. That shut the whole idea down within 48 hours, apparently.
They were having a grade strike protest at a bunch of the UC's when the pandemic hit--the idea was that the grad students were going to refuse to submit grades (which SUPER would ruin lives of undergraduates and cause horrendous havoc) in order to protest how poor their cost of living was. I had to admit it was a really good strategy to cause pain to higher-ups who generally don't seem to care about the grad students. Unfortunately for them, covid hit, and a bunch of people got fired, and that all went to hell, so.
I'd like you to consider whether a national general strike in a large, thinly settled and divided country like the US would be possible and under what conditions. People like to say "a general strike would work" and I'd like them to describe how they would organize a national general strike in under a generation, frankly.
I keep pointing out that it would ruin a lot of lives for people to go on strike and lose their jobs over striking.
Also, I suspect that protests and strikes are a bit like having a so-so union. Everyone is always like "oh, this union is so-so, it doesn't matter if we have a union" and then the union goes away and whoops, actually things can always get worse.
Well, as someone who is in a fairly shitty union--they're great on getting pay raises every few years but have treated me, personally, like complete shit when I reached out for help--I guess it's better than nothing. But I have a hard time being all GO UNION in my heart. It really depends on who's running things as to how good your union is.
posted by jenfullmoon at 12:11 PM on July 22, 2022
Yup. The SOPA/PIPA protest is the one effective protest I can think of. That shut the whole idea down within 48 hours, apparently.
They were having a grade strike protest at a bunch of the UC's when the pandemic hit--the idea was that the grad students were going to refuse to submit grades (which SUPER would ruin lives of undergraduates and cause horrendous havoc) in order to protest how poor their cost of living was. I had to admit it was a really good strategy to cause pain to higher-ups who generally don't seem to care about the grad students. Unfortunately for them, covid hit, and a bunch of people got fired, and that all went to hell, so.
I'd like you to consider whether a national general strike in a large, thinly settled and divided country like the US would be possible and under what conditions. People like to say "a general strike would work" and I'd like them to describe how they would organize a national general strike in under a generation, frankly.
I keep pointing out that it would ruin a lot of lives for people to go on strike and lose their jobs over striking.
Also, I suspect that protests and strikes are a bit like having a so-so union. Everyone is always like "oh, this union is so-so, it doesn't matter if we have a union" and then the union goes away and whoops, actually things can always get worse.
Well, as someone who is in a fairly shitty union--they're great on getting pay raises every few years but have treated me, personally, like complete shit when I reached out for help--I guess it's better than nothing. But I have a hard time being all GO UNION in my heart. It really depends on who's running things as to how good your union is.
posted by jenfullmoon at 12:11 PM on July 22, 2022
General strikes just don't have strike funds right? Where would the safety net be, then?
So "general strike" is an unfortunate term in the sense that it has a lot of closely-related overlapping meanings and covers a broad range of situations. I think the main thing to bear in mind is that general strikes are maybe more historically common and less magical that they are sometimes made to sound in internet discussions among people in places where the labour movement has been relatively weak for a long time.
But, historically, general strikes involve a bunch of unions calling simultaneous strikes in a coordinated way (e.g. the general strike in India in 2020 --- maybe the largest strike in history --- was organised by like 10 unions), often alongside other participating organisations.
There's no reason why the "safety net" issue would be ignored by organisers of a general strike any more than it would be ignored by leadership and membership of a union organising a smaller strike, since the "safety net" issue is crucial to large-scale participation and hence to achieving something. There are certainly historical examples of participants in general strikes organising essential services themselves; the Seattle general strike in 1919 is an example about which a lot has been written (basically, the General Strike Committee authorised certain workers, like firefighters, to continue working; some sort of food distribution system was set up, etc.).
Also, the "safety net" issue is bigger or smaller according to the duration of the action, and general strikes are not necessarily protracted. IIRC, the three general strikes in Uruguay in 1984 that played a big role in ending the dictatorship were, by design, one-day affairs a few months apart.
posted by busted_crayons at 4:49 AM on July 23, 2022 [9 favorites]
So "general strike" is an unfortunate term in the sense that it has a lot of closely-related overlapping meanings and covers a broad range of situations. I think the main thing to bear in mind is that general strikes are maybe more historically common and less magical that they are sometimes made to sound in internet discussions among people in places where the labour movement has been relatively weak for a long time.
But, historically, general strikes involve a bunch of unions calling simultaneous strikes in a coordinated way (e.g. the general strike in India in 2020 --- maybe the largest strike in history --- was organised by like 10 unions), often alongside other participating organisations.
There's no reason why the "safety net" issue would be ignored by organisers of a general strike any more than it would be ignored by leadership and membership of a union organising a smaller strike, since the "safety net" issue is crucial to large-scale participation and hence to achieving something. There are certainly historical examples of participants in general strikes organising essential services themselves; the Seattle general strike in 1919 is an example about which a lot has been written (basically, the General Strike Committee authorised certain workers, like firefighters, to continue working; some sort of food distribution system was set up, etc.).
Also, the "safety net" issue is bigger or smaller according to the duration of the action, and general strikes are not necessarily protracted. IIRC, the three general strikes in Uruguay in 1984 that played a big role in ending the dictatorship were, by design, one-day affairs a few months apart.
posted by busted_crayons at 4:49 AM on July 23, 2022 [9 favorites]
Okay, thanks. The hypotheticals I keep hearing about are more along the lines of "everybody with beef, stop working on such and such day" with nary a mention of union membership or support.
posted by Selena777 at 7:16 AM on July 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Selena777 at 7:16 AM on July 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
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The bigger puzzle for me is the complete historical disappearance of the George Floyd protests: there were some initial concessions on a local level but these evaporated almost immediately and almost no national political elites made any gestures in the direction of police abolition. My sense is that political elites were able to calculate that much of the mass support could be bought off by symbolic gestures and the rest could be tear-gassed and jailed into eventual compliance. Clearly there was some disruption there, but maybe it didn't clear some kind of threshold.
posted by derrinyet at 2:44 PM on July 21, 2022 [64 favorites]