A Sunday "Amen"
“If protest depended on success, there would be little protest of any durability or significance…Protest that endures, I think, is moved by a hope far more modest than that of public success: namely, the hope of preserving qualities in one’s own heart and spirit that would be destroyed by acquiescence.” -Wendell Berry
16 comments:
Amen.
Okay, now that Sunday's over, I'll dissent. One can preserve, or hope to preserve, one's better qualities of heart and spirit in private. What does the public display of one's better self accomplish in this regard, other than demonstrating to others one's own excellence? If the protest tactic has no chance of success in either the short or long run, I say abandon it and either acknowledge defeat or try some other tactic. In short, it's not all about you.
I read Berry a bit differently. I don't interpret him here as saying that "it is all about me." I see him saying that it is about keeping the "qualities in one's own heart." In other words, it is about keeping the ideals of the protest alive.
An example might be to protest offshore drilling. Even if the public protest fails, one has at least kept the spirit of conservation and environmental awareness alive. It's alive in one's own heart and spirit. I would go further to say that it keeps the issue in front of the public conscience.
But I'm curious to hear about your experiences. I actually haven't taken part in any protest rallies of significance. Did you ever protest the Vietnam War? Do you think that the sole value of those protests were based on the results?
I sympathize with a pragmatic approach. I think one should in fact adjust tactics so that efforts are going in a direction that can bring real and lasting change--or any change at all. However, I do think that if one's efforts are fruitless in the short term, it seems like the spirit of something important is being kept alive.
"I would go further to say that it keeps the issue in front of the public conscience."
That's the main point of protest, wouldn't you say? Also, joining together with like-minded people can keep your own fire burning brighter. Attention, awareness, passion, solidarity: the hope of organized protest is that, by triggering these psychosocial responses, tangible and effective action will ensue. Maybe the quote is out of context, but Berry seems to regard protest as some kind of self-help intervention -- "in one's own heart" -- rather than a means of changing something about the world.
Yes I did protest the Vietnam war, and I think that the main value was the results. You publicly protest the war because you want the war to end. You might gain some side benefits in terms of excitement, togetherness, and a sense of empowerment. On some level that might have been the failing of Gen X: they (we) got too caught up in the subjective experience of peace, where personal peace of mind gained priority over peace in the world, and "power to the people" became the subjective sense of self-efficacy rather than the collective power to do something worth doing in the face of opposition.
I meant Boomers not Gen X -- thought about the mistake in the night but decided I could wait until morning to make the correction.
Never mind. If Berry's quote inspires you to protest, go for it. Since you say you've never participated in protests, maybe Berry would motivate you to give it a try. My sense was that the era of public protests was over in the US, with public efforts to protest the US occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and the Israeli occupation of Palestine having absolutely no impact on either party. But now there's the Teabaggers. Do you know anybody involved with that movement, Erdman? Do you have an opinion about them?
That's funny! As I was reading your comment I thought to myself, "Generation X just gave up! They didn't search for peace or anything of the sort."
I tend to agree with you....I do think that Berry is on to something, however. But I would also qualify it by saying that if one's protest does not change anything, then changing tactics is important. I think that's especially true these days. Protesting catches a headline, but does it really do much more than that? I don't know. I'd be interested in pursuing the issue more. There are peace studies programs all over. What's the latest thinking on protests?
The Teabaggers are an interesting group. With Rand Paul winning in Kentucky, there is a sense that the Teabaggers are initiating some sort of political movement. I still think it's a bunch of middle class white men who watch too much Fox News and listen to a bit too much of Rush on the radio. I don't actually think there is much to the substance of what they are doing.
There's a good number of Teabagger types in this area. From my limited encounters with them, they seem very closed to engaging other perspectives--more like they don't even know how. I think most Teabaggers live in a rather insulated world. They don't seem poverty or injustice except in movies or on tv. They live in offices, suburbs, and go to nice churches on Sunday.
I would be interested in seeing some demographic information to see if my assessment is in any way correct. For example, I'd be interested to see if Teabaggers are overwhelmingly white, middle class males.
Have you had any experience with the TeaParty crowd?
Boulder's not a Tea Party sort of town; I'd probably have to make the short road trip to Denver. I never watch the news on TV so I've never actually seen any of their demonstrations, just read about their impact on the political scene.
Chomsky on protest:
There is no measure of how optimistic you ought to be. In fact, as far as optimism is concerned, you basically have two choices. You can say, "Nothing is going to work, and so I am not going to do anything." You can therefore guarantee that the worst possible outcomes will come about. Or, you can take the other position. You can say: "Look, maybe something will work. Therefore, I will engage myself in trying to make it work and maybe there is a chance that things can get better." That is your choice. Nobody can tell how right it is to be optimistic. Nothing can be predicted in human affairs: nothing.
…Human affairs depends on choice, and we do not know anything about choice. Therefore, all sorts of things happen that you cannot explain. In 1990, for example, you could not have predicted that apartheid is going to disappear. In fact, it looked quite the opposite. The regime was getting more and more repressive. Anti-apartheid activists in the white community were thinking of going underground. The U.S. and Britain were supporting the apartheid regime just as they always did. It looked very grim. A couple of years later, it (the apartheid regime) was gone. You do not know how optimistic to be, but you do know that if you do not act on the basis of the assumption that something can change, it is just going to get worse. The guys on the other side, they never stop. They are very optimistic. They are always going to try and make things as harsh and brutal as possible. And, if people who are opposed to that give up, they win.
Take the movements against corporate globalisation. Where do they come from? From the South. From places like India. There were mass popular protests in India... huge ones... Or, in Brazil. One of the major popular movements is the landless workers' movement in Brazil, which has been around for more than 15 years. They have done really important things. They have taken over the unused land - there is very high land concentration in Brazil - and a huge number of landless workers. The movement has acted by setting up cooperatives to use the unused land. They face a lot of brutality, a lot of state terror and get killed. They have support from activists in the cities and elsewhere who can give them some protection, help and advise in the usual fashion. But they are the leaders. I have met them down there. Very impressive people, huge mass movement and they have done a lot of things. That is coming from the South. These movements mostly grew in the South where people are supposed to be voiceless…
I do not think one should be pessimistic. A lot of things have been achieved. Actually, the world is a lot better than it was 30 years ago. Just to give you one example, take restraints on state violence. What powerful states can do is pretty awful. But nothing like what they could do 30-40 years ago. Now, they are attacking Afghanistan and causing huge massacres, but the B-52s were attacking heavily settled peasant areas of South Vietnam 40 years ago. Millions of people died and many are still dying from the effects of chemical warfare and unexploded bomblets. The U.S. cannot do anything like that now. And remember, that (Vietnam) went on for years before there were any protests.
Finally, some protests developed and it had an effect. It had a very civilising effect on the whole society in many respects. Out of that ferment came all sorts of things, including the women's movement, the environmental movement and all sorts of other things. It kind of grew out of this dissidence. One of the things that did develop was a restraint on state violence. It is pretty ugly what results, but it is nothing like what it was. Those are reasons for optimism.
I like that. Thanks.
Where are you quoting from, what source? (And is this the same text that you cited in the Grapes of Wrath post?) I need to read Chomsky.
Here's the link for both quotes.
The international flotilla attempting to break Israel's blockade of Gaza by bringing in building materials and other stuff that Israel won't permit: I think they really were trying to make a tangible difference in the situation. I think they anticipated that they might fail, that the Israeli military would stop them by force, but that this stoppage might provoke international anger against Israel. This is happening.
We'll see whether this event makes any difference on the ground in Gaza. Remember when Israel recently pissed off the Obama administration by announcing new construction project in East Jerusalem while Biden was on an official visit? Well, the construction project is continuing, sponsored by officials in Netanyahu's administration, and both Biden and Obama seem to have stopped paying attention.
Here's a video interview with Chomsky from one week ago, after Israel denied him entry into the West Bank Palestinian Territory, where he was scheduled to deliver an invited address at a university. At the 8 minute mark Chomsky talks a bit about the OT Israeli prophets as dissidents.
That's a great clip, John. Thanks for taking the time to post it.
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