2010-2020 saw more mass protests around the world than at any other point in human history, but the societal changes that resulted were often the opposite of what protesters demanded. Author Vincent Bevins explains why.
I guess that depends on who ‘we’ means? The September climate protests were pretty big globally, with 50 countries participating.
As someone who has been to protests in the past for various topics, my experience is that the media isn’t interested in reporting on them unless they get dramatic eye-catching footage. Which unfortunately usually means just the ones that have a physical fight break out make the front page anywhere.
Then I have to disagree. They’ve been most effective on smaller jurisdiction governments, but there have been a good amount of significant protests the past few years. The Carnegie endowment tracker has a pretty good list.
Physical protests have limitations though like transport to a central point. I suspect the support is greater than attendees.
So your claim is that mass protests have brought social change, and we don’t need new strategies, in direct opposition to the headline?
Or are you being argumentative for the win? Because last time I checked our society is Thoroughly fucked right now and there’s been no real change of any measurable meaning on a global scale.
Standing in the way of the rest of society and screaming stupid ryhming chants isn’t changing the government’s mind about anything anywhere at scale, at least not for the better. I’m sure it’s influenced surveillance technology however.
and we don’t need new strategies, in direct opposition to the headline?
No. In direct support of the article body, I agree we need to modify mass protest tactics to create more chaos. Chaos and violence are not necessarily the same thing. It is possible to escalate to something before violence, and escalation from 0 to 100 may not be necessary at all.
The more innocent people who are killed, the more the survivors understandably want their pound of flesh. It fuels the cycle of abuse and atrocities, and we have thousands of years of evidence that murder has had limited effectiveness at creating a better world too.
I guess that depends on who ‘we’ means? The September climate protests were pretty big globally, with 50 countries participating.
As someone who has been to protests in the past for various topics, my experience is that the media isn’t interested in reporting on them unless they get dramatic eye-catching footage. Which unfortunately usually means just the ones that have a physical fight break out make the front page anywhere.
We = humans
Then I have to disagree. They’ve been most effective on smaller jurisdiction governments, but there have been a good amount of significant protests the past few years. The Carnegie endowment tracker has a pretty good list.
Physical protests have limitations though like transport to a central point. I suspect the support is greater than attendees.
So your claim is that mass protests have brought social change, and we don’t need new strategies, in direct opposition to the headline?
Or are you being argumentative for the win? Because last time I checked our society is Thoroughly fucked right now and there’s been no real change of any measurable meaning on a global scale.
Standing in the way of the rest of society and screaming stupid ryhming chants isn’t changing the government’s mind about anything anywhere at scale, at least not for the better. I’m sure it’s influenced surveillance technology however.
No. In direct support of the article body, I agree we need to modify mass protest tactics to create more chaos. Chaos and violence are not necessarily the same thing. It is possible to escalate to something before violence, and escalation from 0 to 100 may not be necessary at all.
The more innocent people who are killed, the more the survivors understandably want their pound of flesh. It fuels the cycle of abuse and atrocities, and we have thousands of years of evidence that murder has had limited effectiveness at creating a better world too.