The Neutering Of Protest

Protest now has less power than it ever has. It's been reduced to theatre, a mere display of outrage. Even riots are less powerful. Burning a cop car is mere symbolism. The anger, disillusionment, fear, and pain of the masses has been redirected away from anything that could actually seed a better world in favor of what is effectively one of those rooms where you pay to smash things with a baseball bat.

Your power has been redirected into a controlled environment to prevent you from actually making any real changes while satiating the need to feel like you did something.

But it's better than nothing, right?

Well, no.

In fact, protest and riots serve to lower many people's opinions of whatever you're championing simply because it caused a protest or a riot (henceforth an "action"). The number of people who will see an action and think:

These people seem really riled up, I want to learn more about what I can do to support their cause.

- is relatively small. Large actions also make everyone on the streets extremely legible to state power & people with opposing ideologies. It's dangerous.

The mere act of trying to enact political change via. an action is doomed from the start. The best you'll get is a hashtag and a tax-deductible donation from a few businesses. Even when policies do change, the material conditions that perpetuate exploitation continue to exist.

Protests and riots completely miss that root. The misdirection is insidious. The media theatre surrounding actions creates a narrative where things are happening:

It's in the news!!! The talking heads are talking about it!!! The Big Bad Other is upset!! We must have really hit them where it hurts!! Progress!!

Again, not really. You're merely burning up valuable emotional energy to feel like you're doing something instead of actually doing something. Protest is about as effective as reading self-help books and not actually changing anything about your life.

The real problem to address is that the current physical makeup of the world creates an exploitative feedback loop. Solving this problem is HARD. It's easier and more satisfying to attend a protest, get your anger out, feel like a good person, and wait for the next hashtag.

The problems we need to solve are large, interconnected, and difficult to solve with existing methods. Protest is a beaten path, and it's difficult to discover alternatives because the solutions to these problems require large amounts of sustained effort across multiple domains in novel forms.

The solutions that will work won't feel good immediately. The end results will likely not be seen in our lifetimes. That said, there are shorter term goals that can be worked towards now with shorter term rewards that can greatly improve our quality of life and chances at implementing a better system.

Much of this has to do with creating communities that actively help each other. Get to know your neighbours. Start a community garden. Volunteer childcare. Lend tools.

As the social fabric is currently woven, we're too alienated from each other by walls of consumables to effectively organize any sort of alternative without using the existing exploitative patterns. These walls are broken down and replaced with lush earth when we actively help each other. Various cultures and religions have made an attempt at codifying this and several have done quite well, but the push now is to transcend even the barriers between cultures and religions.

Organizing locally and increasing your community's capacity for mutual aid, self reliance, and direct community outreach will create a feedback loop that strengthens the community and continues to expand its capacity to do good. Build strong relationships with your neighbours based on doing mutually beneficial things together.

Get over yourself. The important part is not feeling like you got out and did something. The important part is actually doing something. The more you craft relationships based around doing mutually beneficial things together, the stronger the relationship gets. Trust increases, and that lets everyone take larger risks knowing that they have a support system to fall back on that isn't contingent on employment or state assistance.

Protests and riots are empty. There's nothing contained in those actions that can lay the seeds that a better future will grow from. The sentiment and the will to do something about a problem are much more effective when directed at local, immediately actionable community building.

Enjoy? Subscribe or follow me on Twitter!