What Do We Want?? When Do We Want It??

There is a fabulous dialogue going on over at Kieran Healy's Weblog. The topic is the effectiveness of protesting; namely, as you might expect, anti-war protesting. The post itself is interesting, but the really good stuff emerges in the Comments section. Kieran's exchanges with another one of my blogging favorites, Timothy Burke, is not to be missed.

My own perspective on this issue is a bit ambiguous, even to myself. There is a part of me that really hates getting inconvenienced by protests in which I'm not participating. Case in point, the 10,000-strong protest in Brussels last month (Vaara tells the tale), many of whose participants inconvenienced my luggage-laden walk to the Gare du Midi. My criticism of their signs notwithstanding -- i.e., "Not In My Name" (Me to myself: 'It's not in your name, goddammit! It's in MINE!! *sob* *sob* MINE, I tell you!" Ahem.) -- I also realized, upon finally taking my seat in one of the remarkably comfortably new Belgian trains, that not only did I support their cause but also empathized with their motivation.

As Burke makes pretty clear, and I'm inclined to agree with him, mass protesting itself is not an effective tool for socio-political change. That said, I think he undersells the 'banality' of the institutionalization of contemporary protests. The processes of globalization -- and no, not all of them are bad -- have a tendency, it seems, to devaluate one's status as an individual agent of change, and thus also by extension, the efficacy even of one's relationships. Hyperbolic, 'narcissistic' displays of protest are obvious signs of frustration at the complex socio-political mechanization of western culture -- versus, that is, the more 'organic' sense that I and my relationships define my world as much as they are defined by it. The de-humanization that I find most disturbing about the former is not simply a bygone wish for simpler, stable times; rather, it is directed toward the, sometimes rather dystopian, consequences of not recognizing individual subjectivity. I think what we're seeing in some of the most recent protests, particularly those that are most 'radical' or 'inconvenient', is indeed very narcissistic. However, it is a narcissism bred by fear of being not only forgotten but erased.

This, of course, doesn't mitigate Burke's concerns and recommendations, but it does lend a suggestive point of empathy and understanding for those, like me, who sometimes find themselves grumbling as they wade through a sea of protesters whilst on their way to a train.