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There's no way inside the system because it's the system OWS wanted to change (And Extinction Rebellion wants nowadays). There's no nonviolent way outside the
by JulianMorrison 7y ago
There's no way inside the system because it's the system OWS wanted to change (And Extinction Rebellion wants nowadays).
There's no nonviolent way outside the system because the police are violent if you actually inconvenience the system (which marches don't do but occupations do).
The problem basically is the fetishization of nonviolence.
Revolution can change the system.
- perfunctory 7y agoExtinction Rebellion is strictly non-violent and they seem to be very successful afaict. Or do we different definitions of "nonviolence"? Also, what do you think about "The success of nonviolent civil resistance" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJSehRlU34w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJSehRlU34w ?
- srean 7y agoNonviolence needs an influential audience / gallery to play to. If none such exists then it is not effective.
- perfunctory 7y agoWhat influential audience did freedom riders play to? Or would you say they were ineffective?
- srean 7y agoWouldnt that be non-racist white folks ?
- citboin 7y agoIn what way has extinction rebellion changed anything?
- perfunctory 7y agoFor one, UK parliament has declared a climate emergency [0]. So did NYC [1]. And many others. It doesn't mean much but still. They've met with UK Sec. of State for Environment [2]. Exactly what the OP advocates. Majority of Britons now believe that climate change is more pressing than Brexit [3] And so on. [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-48126677 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-48126677 [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPtAKjhT02s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPtAKjhT02s [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMGqP5rP8v8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMGqP5rP8v8 [3] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/26/climate-more-pressing-than-brexit-say-71-of-britons-poll https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/26/climate-...
- pjc50 7y ago> Majority of Britons now believe that climate change is more pressing than Brexit That just means we're not going to do very much about either of those! Although grid decarbonisation has been a great quiet success so far. It's just that nobody seems to want to take credit for it and push on further.
- SuddsMcDuff 7y agoWe certainly seem to have different definitions of violence, yes. If 'violence' has been re-defined to the extent that mis-gendering someone is an 'act of violence' (https://everydayfeminism.com/2017/01/misgendering-trans-people-is-violence/ https://everydayfeminism.com/2017/01/misgendering-trans-peop...), then you could certainly argue that ER have acted violently. EDIT I see I'm being downvoted. Are we not allowed to have a conversation about re-defining words and being intellectually consistent with the re-defined meaning?
- pjc50 7y agoIf you want to make that argument, you have to spell it out and engage seriously with what people mean. At the moment it's not even clear whether you're in favour of or against mis-gendering trans people, let alone what argument you're making about violence.
- SuddsMcDuff 7y agoOK, I'll try to be more coherent. It seems these days that the word 'violence' has been re-defined such that it no longer requires there to be any abusive physical contact between the perpetrator and the victim. As such, merely using words that may cause an individual some emotional discomfort is considered an act of violence. I don't agree with that definition, and for me abusive physical contact is the defining characteristic of violence. But if that's the general consensus now then that's what I'll use. We can't have a debate if we're all speaking a different language. Given that 'violence' no longer requires any physical contact, one could make the argument that some of the activities that ER have engaged in could be considered violent. The many ER road-blocks have very real consequences for all the people who are unable to go about their daily lives without being disrupted. When ER blocks a bus full of people in traffic, it's distinctly possible that those people were on their way to job interviews, doctors appointments, meetings with long-lost relatives, charity fundrasiers or any number of other things. This kind of disruption might easily cause significant emotional distress, I would argue at least on par with the emotional distresss suffered by an individual being mis-gendered. So why should one be considered violence and the other not? That's not even getting to the topic of Ambulances being caught up in ER road-blocks, which has been documented numerous times. ER even address that issue explicitly in their FAQ (https://rebellion.earth/the-truth/faqs/ https://rebellion.earth/the-truth/faqs/). They attempt to hand-wave this problem away by saying that ambulances can be re-directed away from the road-blocks. It hardly needs to be said that time is often a critical factor when an ambulance is transporting a patient to hospital. The additional time spent avoiding ER activists could easily be the difference between life and death. Is this not a form of violence?
- dorfsmay 7y agoWhich laws have changed as a result of Extinction Rebellion actions?
- mc32 7y agoIf fetishization of non-violence is the problem, it’s a good problem. Revolutions seldom solve issues for the aggrieved. They are opportunistically leveraged by ideologues in the revolution and ends up with even more misery than prior. Revolutions are a last ditch effort. It’s the worst path, but in rare circumstances the only path.
- andrepd 7y agoSource for that? The impression one gets from history is that without revolutions we would still be feudal farmers.
- sokoloff 7y agoIf you count up all the revolutions and divide by total grievances raised over history, you get an extremely small ratio. Just because the treasonous colonists took up arms against the King (after many years of trying other means), doesn’t mean that a zoning issue, a gerrymandering concern, a dissatisfaction with the Electoral College, or a debate over UBI should move quickly to armed revolution if the first response isn’t to your liking.
- andrepd 7y agoExactly. See my other response for how I think abiut violence and nonviolence
- pjc50 7y agoVery few direct, popular revolutions against feudalism were successful. Most successful ones ultimately involved the layer of people who were as successful and wealthy as it was possible to be without being in the "inner circle" deciding to break in.
- b_tterc_p 7y agoThis really isn’t true. Much of government sponsored education teaches this, especially by teaching about the peaceful side of successful movements without mentioning the violent side. MLK and Gandhi were effective leaders, but there were very large, very violent riots going on from their camps too. The reason why governments negotiate with non violent actors is to avoid the alternative which is the violent actors.
- andrepd 7y agoTo add to that, nonviolence only works if the power that is taken on respects that nonviolence and will itself also not resort to violence. Such is the case in e.g. democratic countries, where you can peacefully remove leaders via legal means and nonviolent demonstrations. Which is also why nonviolent struggle worked in British India: the Britons had lines they did not cross, they did not send tanks or imprison and murder leaders. But if, on the other hand, the state you are fighting will not flinch before brutally suppressing any dissent and murdering hundreds, thousands, or even millions (such as is the case from the imperialists in South America to the Chinese government in Tiannamen), then no peaceful marching will save you, you need to be ready for physical struggle if you want change)
- pjc50 7y agoLooking back on this it seems almost remarkable that Ghandi's movement worked, and also that the British version of history has encouraged the myth of generosity. > the Britons had lines they did not cross, they did not send tanks or imprison and murder leaders. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jallianwala_Bagh_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jallianwala_Bagh_massacre ; Ghandi was arrested repeatedly and spent several years in prison. https://www.mkgandhi.org/arrestofmahatma.htm https://www.mkgandhi.org/arrestofmahatma.htm Possibly the main reason the Empire was abandoned was its physical untenability and expense after the war, along with pressure from the United States.
- srean 7y agoAgree with the comment wholeheartedly. BTW please lets use Gandhi not Ghandi ... Its a very common mistake though.
- JulianMorrison 7y agoThe British in India had relatively few lines they wouldn't cross, for example famously after a "mutiny" (attempt to regain independence) they tied the "mutineers" over the mouths of cannons and fired through them. What they did have was a busted economy after WW2, no access to international credit and a treaty with the Americans that was forcing them to decolonialize. The ongoing independence campaign (mostly paused during the war) put them in the position of "double down or fold" and they chose to fold. I think people overestimate the element of ethical embarrassment.
- throwaway94857 7y agoBut violent revolutionaries almost never have credible or effective alternatives to the current system. That's why they have to resort to violence, their arguments for why things have to change usually aren't good and they're more motivated by anger than anything else.
- whearyou 7y agoI’d argue the inverse - you’re fetishizing violence and the emotional satisfaction of a total victory. As posters above argued, revolutions present copious opportunities for being hijacked by bad actors/ideologues, and very rarely produce anything other than more suffering than in the original conditions. There is strong quantitative evidence to back this, check out the report from the NECSI.org website. Best I can tell, the significant upside of revolutions is they change the distribution of suffering, brining it to those who had before benefited, even if overall everyone suffers. I suspect this is the emotional allure of revolution, sticking it to those who have been sticking it to you. This is really a primate thing, studies with monkeys have shown that they’ll allow harm to themselves to get back at those they view causing or benefiting from an inequitable situation (as I recall the study had something to do with grapes). Real change that produces progress requires consistent engagement over many years (know your representative, etc), individual responsibility and personal sacrifice (start a community group and build relationships, etc.), and compromise. Underlying it all is building and cultivating trust - trust is the foundation of healthy societies. I think all those things are undermined by our current circumstances in society. These include the physical structure of communication media (social media), economic pressures most people experience (who has the time to start a community group when they’re trying to win at the grind), and current ideological climate. The first two are unconscionable and clearly encouraged directly or indirectly by and for the sake of the economic power holders’ interests. This last one however is insidious and in the interest of ideological power holders’ interest. Folks like you suggest that there’s a way to have your cake and eat it too - just get angry and violent enough and poof there’s your solution, no hard work needed. This kind of, forgive me for using these words but, self serving immaturity occupies the intellectual space and crowds out people coming to terms with what’s required for real change, progress, and suffering-reduction. Edited: for language/spelling and to add the last two paragraphs.
- claudiawerner 7y ago>I suspect this is the emotional allure of revolution, sticking it to those who have been sticking it to you. I think this view is too simplistic; many ideas of a better society are simply incompatible with change "within the system", since the system itself, they argue, inherently fosters the tendencies they're against. >Real change that produces progress requires consistent engagement over many years (know your representative, etc), individual responsibility and personal sacrifice (start a community group and build relationships, etc.), and compromise. Does it? Why? What's the evidence to back this up? Consider that, for example, not a single petition made to the English government through their own petition schema has actually accomplished anything. This "know your representative" stuff doesn't even apply to non-violent changes of power. Do you think Gandhi succeeded because he got to know his representative, or he was open to compromise on Indian independence? >This kind of, forgive me for using these words but, self serving immaturity occupies the intellectual space and crowds out people coming to terms with what’s required for real change The intellectual space is currently occupied by near-pervasive liberal egalitarianism, and liberal egalitarians suggest that the way things are right now (systematically) is just fine. The truth is that your anti-revolutionary model assumes that the goals sought by would-be revolutionaries can be accommodated within whatever system they protest, but this is manifestly untrue, and the history of both violent and non-violent revolutions shows as much. It is also shockingly ignorant of revolutions from inside the system itself against the people - the industrial revolution being one (think of the violent enclosure movement in Western Europe on behalf of the State).
- didibus 7y agoWhat if you're in a system that has mechanisms in place to allow changing itself?
- sifar 7y agoRevolutions don't change the system. All they do is replace one set of people running the system, with another. May be, put on a new set of clothes on the way. Pick any revolution in history and you'll observe this. Indeed, for an individual, Mass movements, rarely change things. At an individual level, voluntary dropping out is a solution. Reduce the revenue you contribute to the system. Starve it.