6 ms·

No you’re right, protested shouldn’t be disruptive. That is not their very point or anything….

pc86 3y ago
I think there's certainly a middle ground. Disrupting and provoking the very people you are trying to convince of something is objectively counterproductive. On the other end of the spectrum if there's not some level of disruption you just get ignored. The trick is to find the line where you cause people enough disruption to think about why you're without causing so much that they just immediately side against you, and it seems like most protests completely miss the mark.
- 542354234235 3y ago
  >Disrupting and provoking the very people you are trying to convince of something is objectively counterproductive. What were all those "whites only" lunch counter sit-ins MLK did then? They sound like a textbook definition of "provoking the very people you are trying to convince", and yet.
  - Quillbert182 3y ago
    The sit-ins were specifically targeted to break the laws they wanted changed. I don’t think many people are protesting laws saying that you can’t stand in the middle of the road.
    - autoexec 3y ago
      Activists protesting the Vietnam war weren't participating in sit-ins to change the laws about loitering around campus buildings or in government offices. The people who chain themselves to trees scheduled to be cut down aren't protesting to change laws concerning tree bondage. Some sit-ins are planned as narrowly targeted acts of civil disobedience, but others are simply acts of passive resistance and they are no less valid as a means of protest. While at a high enough level of disruption, the acts of protesters might harm public support of the cause, I think that level is probably pretty high and supporters will largely understand if they are temporarily inconvenienced, while some people who already oppose the protestor's cause will tend to use any inconvenience as a more socially acceptable excuse to justify their opposition instead of more honest reasons like plain old bigotry.
  - throw0101b 3y ago
    Define "disrupting". All movements generally start off small, and if you wish to effect change you need to bring over more and more people over to the cause. Pissing people off (too much) seems to be counter-productive and can prevent people with sympathizing/empathizing/joining you: > For more than a century, from 1900 to 2006, campaigns of nonviolent resistance were more than twice as effective as their violent counterparts in achieving their stated goals. By attracting impressive support from citizens, whose activism takes the form of protests, boycotts, civil disobedience, and other forms of nonviolent noncooperation, these efforts help separate regimes from their main sources of power and produce remarkable results, even in Iran, Burma, the Philippines, and the Palestinian Territories. * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10056014-why-civil-resistance-works https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10056014-why-civil-resis...
    - chefandy 3y ago
      And pissing people off too little literally does nothing.
  - smsm42 3y ago
    So your point is the laws prohibiting people from blocking major traffic highways are racist and should be abandoned, and people should be granted free pedestrian access to the highways, while driving should not be performed on them at all? Or what's the point of comparing this to the "whites only" sit-ins? Are people wanting to drive on the highway doing it because they are racist?
    - einpoklum 3y ago
      > So your point is the laws prohibiting people from blocking major traffic highways are racist and should be abandoned, Laws buttress/codify the current social order, and forbid shaking it up, in particular through disruptive protest. If the social order is racist, then these laws will be used to preserve racism. They're inherently repressive, not inherently racist. If you're the government - you don't want to abandon them. If you're a social movement - you're against their existence (if you're more principled), or against their enforcement in your case (if you're more opportunistic).
      - smsm42 3y ago
        > If the social order is racist, then these laws will be used to preserve racism That's a very convenient "if". I just declare social order is racist, so the laws no longer apply to me and any lawless action I take instead of being a crime becomes struggle against racism. Nice deal. Except the society that allows such deals can not survive. Of course, if you want to destroy the society - either because you genuinely think it's "racist" or because you just don't care - then you don't have a valid base for complaint when the society tries to defend itself and arrests you. You are literally destroying it, what else should it do?
smsm42 3y ago
If you are disruptive to the point of violating the law, then you should get arrested. That's the point of having laws. It's not "it's normally the law but if you feel your thing is important enough to violate the law, then nah, never mind, you do you".

pc86 3y ago

I think there's certainly a middle ground. Disrupting and provoking the very people you are trying to convince of something is objectively counterproductive. On the other end of the spectrum if there's not some level of disruption you just get ignored. The trick is to find the line where you cause people enough disruption to think about why you're without causing so much that they just immediately side against you, and it seems like most protests completely miss the mark.

542354234235 3y ago
>Disrupting and provoking the very people you are trying to convince of something is objectively counterproductive. What were all those "whites only" lunch counter sit-ins MLK did then? They sound like a textbook definition of "provoking the very people you are trying to convince", and yet.
- Quillbert182 3y ago
  The sit-ins were specifically targeted to break the laws they wanted changed. I don’t think many people are protesting laws saying that you can’t stand in the middle of the road.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    Activists protesting the Vietnam war weren't participating in sit-ins to change the laws about loitering around campus buildings or in government offices. The people who chain themselves to trees scheduled to be cut down aren't protesting to change laws concerning tree bondage. Some sit-ins are planned as narrowly targeted acts of civil disobedience, but others are simply acts of passive resistance and they are no less valid as a means of protest. While at a high enough level of disruption, the acts of protesters might harm public support of the cause, I think that level is probably pretty high and supporters will largely understand if they are temporarily inconvenienced, while some people who already oppose the protestor's cause will tend to use any inconvenience as a more socially acceptable excuse to justify their opposition instead of more honest reasons like plain old bigotry.
- throw0101b 3y ago
  Define "disrupting". All movements generally start off small, and if you wish to effect change you need to bring over more and more people over to the cause. Pissing people off (too much) seems to be counter-productive and can prevent people with sympathizing/empathizing/joining you: > For more than a century, from 1900 to 2006, campaigns of nonviolent resistance were more than twice as effective as their violent counterparts in achieving their stated goals. By attracting impressive support from citizens, whose activism takes the form of protests, boycotts, civil disobedience, and other forms of nonviolent noncooperation, these efforts help separate regimes from their main sources of power and produce remarkable results, even in Iran, Burma, the Philippines, and the Palestinian Territories. * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10056014-why-civil-resistance-works https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10056014-why-civil-resis...
  - chefandy 3y ago
    And pissing people off too little literally does nothing.
- smsm42 3y ago
  So your point is the laws prohibiting people from blocking major traffic highways are racist and should be abandoned, and people should be granted free pedestrian access to the highways, while driving should not be performed on them at all? Or what's the point of comparing this to the "whites only" sit-ins? Are people wanting to drive on the highway doing it because they are racist?
  - einpoklum 3y ago
    > So your point is the laws prohibiting people from blocking major traffic highways are racist and should be abandoned, Laws buttress/codify the current social order, and forbid shaking it up, in particular through disruptive protest. If the social order is racist, then these laws will be used to preserve racism. They're inherently repressive, not inherently racist. If you're the government - you don't want to abandon them. If you're a social movement - you're against their existence (if you're more principled), or against their enforcement in your case (if you're more opportunistic).
    - smsm42 3y ago
      > If the social order is racist, then these laws will be used to preserve racism That's a very convenient "if". I just declare social order is racist, so the laws no longer apply to me and any lawless action I take instead of being a crime becomes struggle against racism. Nice deal. Except the society that allows such deals can not survive. Of course, if you want to destroy the society - either because you genuinely think it's "racist" or because you just don't care - then you don't have a valid base for complaint when the society tries to defend itself and arrests you. You are literally destroying it, what else should it do?

smsm42 3y ago

If you are disruptive to the point of violating the law, then you should get arrested. That's the point of having laws. It's not "it's normally the law but if you feel your thing is important enough to violate the law, then nah, never mind, you do you".