What To Do About Political Demonstrations By Crazy People
The Klan marched down Franklin Street when I was in grad school, so we all spent a fair amount of time thinking about what the best response would be. Obviously the two most salient options are:
(a) Go and jeer
and
(b) Stay away and deny them an audience.
Ultimately, despite my curiosity, I decided that we ought to stay away.
However, not everybody agreed, and lots of people went and jeered.
Which made me realize that the stay away strategy wasn't going to work, because it really only works if everybody--or close to everybody--will do it. But they won't. Which seems to leave: go and jeer. Which I think is basically what they want...but I also think that a lot of people yelling at them is probably better than a few people yelling at them.
(This is not to be confused with: Go and physically attack people to deny them an opportunity for free expression of their ideas.)
I had fantasies of talking everyone into going about their business on Franklin, assiduously refusing to give any indication that they were even aware of the Klansmen... Not realistic, obviously...but I think that'd be pretty effective, and I really wish it could be pulled off.
It doesn't matter to me all that much that there's no good, workable, direct response, because I don't think we should put our eggs in that basket anyway. The remedy, as we know--or as we ought to know--is more speech. If the rest of us want to say our peace, too, then we should hold our own event. If racists want to publicly and collectively express their belief in the moral equivalent of a flat Earth, that's their right. Raging against them seems to betray some kind of confusion--as if their minds could be changed by it or something. Our ideas will win out, but not like that, not by just being expressed loudly and angrily at people who have already set their hearts against them. That's just not the way such things work.
(a) Go and jeer
and
(b) Stay away and deny them an audience.
Ultimately, despite my curiosity, I decided that we ought to stay away.
However, not everybody agreed, and lots of people went and jeered.
Which made me realize that the stay away strategy wasn't going to work, because it really only works if everybody--or close to everybody--will do it. But they won't. Which seems to leave: go and jeer. Which I think is basically what they want...but I also think that a lot of people yelling at them is probably better than a few people yelling at them.
(This is not to be confused with: Go and physically attack people to deny them an opportunity for free expression of their ideas.)
I had fantasies of talking everyone into going about their business on Franklin, assiduously refusing to give any indication that they were even aware of the Klansmen... Not realistic, obviously...but I think that'd be pretty effective, and I really wish it could be pulled off.
It doesn't matter to me all that much that there's no good, workable, direct response, because I don't think we should put our eggs in that basket anyway. The remedy, as we know--or as we ought to know--is more speech. If the rest of us want to say our peace, too, then we should hold our own event. If racists want to publicly and collectively express their belief in the moral equivalent of a flat Earth, that's their right. Raging against them seems to betray some kind of confusion--as if their minds could be changed by it or something. Our ideas will win out, but not like that, not by just being expressed loudly and angrily at people who have already set their hearts against them. That's just not the way such things work.
posted by Winston Smith at
8:27 AM
5 Comments:
The most effective counter-demonstration I observed was carried out in silence (at least initially). A band had used the F-word in a song which was forbidden in the then so-called "free speech" zone on campus. many student groups, realizing the idiocy of this, made up signs with the F-word on it. They stood and held up the signs, thereby not breaking the rule of "speaking" the word. I was so proud of them...even many administrators shaking their heads while smiling in admiration. Then they lost discipline and started shouting it and the message was diluted. Sometimes, IMHO, silence can be a stronger message than speaking.
I would like to clarify that I think enforced silence is wrong, very very wrong. The above example was using verbal silence, with signs, was a very powerful message.
Call me old-fashioned, but I think we need a concerted rational discussion in which their ideas are plainly laid out and carefully, excellently dismantled.
We need to show that they have come up with no new path to anything true here. To whatever extent we whip up anger and emotion to confront their irrationality, we play into their field. There has to be no chance of any of their members easily coming to the conclusion that their beliefs are true and simply oppressed. Right now, as I sense it, the alt-right or what-the-hell-ever-they-are are taking refuge in being (1) a loose amalgam of internally conflicting views, generally grouped around racism, and (2) the outright refusal of their opponents to even engage them rationally.
As a result, they easily believe themselves to be harbingers of a frightening truth who are oppressed by frightened masses. They can dodge initial critiques by shifting between the loose amalgam of views they hold, and with no one itemizing and pursuing these views, they easily continue to support their self-image among themselves.
We need exhaustive argument maps which actually accept whatever facts they employ and demonstrate consistently and irrefutably that these facts, whatever they may be, fail to lead to their carefully itemized conclusions.
I keep wanting to spend time on this, but I have junk I gotta do and junk.
I think it would be a good exercise, even just personally, which, if published, could be crowdsourced and managed to great effect.
Argunet offers a good platform... We all have access to blogs...
Hey, The Mystic. I read about your argument map proposal once before on this blog, and I think that it's a pretty damn good idea.
I want to help make something like this happen. Do you have any idea of how one could get a project like this started? It's definitely be something that I'd consider sinking myself into so as to see that it takes a respectable form.
I checked out Argunet, and it seems pretty promising. I'm going to test out a few things, and see how it operates. Is there any particular deficiency of the service, that you notice? That is, where, if anywhere, do you think that the service requires improvement?
Yeah, even though I didn't say it his time, as I've said before, I think it's a great idea.
A good feature, I think, would be to be able to complicate or simplify maps--so that you could see more or less detail, depending.
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