In another thread, a Doper mentioned that many people want protests to be done in a way that can be ignored - which does not work - so they object to, for instance, protesters blocking road traffic or whatnot, because that form of protest poses an inconvenience and cannot be ignored.
But - I think that rather misses the point. By and large, if someone objects to Cause X, they object to Cause X. It does not matter what method people use to protest on behalf of Cause X, such a person would object to the cause regardless.
For instance, suppose that young-Earth creationists were protesting, demanding that all school curriculum abolish evolution and replace it with young-earth Creationism. (Or, maybe, pro-lifers demanding a nationwide closure of all abortion facilities.) I think that the majority of Dopers would be opposed to such a cause, regardless of whether it took the form of peaceful placard-holding on the sidewalks, or a physical obstruction of the highways, or outright arson and vandalism.
Anyway - since this is IMHO - what method of protest would work to convince you to support a cause you currently oppose? Would it have to be a peaceful method? If protesters posed enough of an inconvenience - blocking you on the road on your way to work - would that do the trick? What if it were a sit-in, a lie-in or chained-together sort of protest?
I think it would depend on the cause and why I disagreed with it. I mean, I think my views on gun control actually were shifted somewhat by the Parkland protests, but they were never all that strong in the first place – we’re talking about a shift from “I believe this is a losing issue for my party, and I wish they would just let it go” to “huh, this is more popular that I realized, so maybe it makes sense to take a strong stance on it.” (So, I guess, it would have to be a BIG protest to influence me, and one that drew a group of people that I saw as reasonably representative of Americans-in-general.)
The purpose of the protest isn’t to change minds. The protest is supposed to make people pay attention to the cause. The cause then has to convince people on its own merits.
I don’t think it’s a question of changing anyone’s mind. Unabashed racists are only likely to become more entrenched in their racism by any form of BLM protest. It’s a question of drawing attention to the reality of racism. Most people, most of the time, tend to just get on with their lives and not pay attention to social problems that don’t affect them.
Nothing is guaranteed, but one person with a reasonable, evidence-based argument has the best shot.
It’s hard to convince people to join you no matter what you say or do, but a bad protest can certainly drive people away. PETA is part of why I’m not a vegetarian, and I suspect many Trump supporters aren’t so much racist as fed up with off-the-wall progressives.
So this perverse line of moral reasoning goes: Although I believe that it is morally wrong to do X, I see the fact that some people who oppose X do so in a style that I disfavor as a valid reason to continue to do X.
I mean, I don’t for a moment believe that most Trump supporters think this way, because they don’t believe that their racism is morally wrong. It’s not as though “polite” progressives are okay, all progressives annoy them in direct proportion to how vocal they are.
But let’s assume that you’re right - and I take you at your word that this is why you are not vegetarian - are you really defending this line of reasoning as morally justified?
How successful have you been, or others been, in using reasoned argument on the SDMB to convince you to change deeply held opinions?
Because it’s more reasonable here than someone blocking a highway or whatever. I agree you can draw attention to a cause, but won’t usually be persuaded of its merits by the level of inconvenience. Sometimes that might work against it.
I always have to pause and re-think when people care so very much for an issue that they actually commit suicide to protest it. The Vietnamese monks who set fire to themselves over U.S. support for the corrupt Thieu regime were more persuasive than if they had burned banks or looted shops.
I do not recommend this method to protesters in the U.S. today.
Most of us live in a bubble to at least some extent, and it’s very easy even for good people to turn a blind eye to the evils of the world. A successful protest isn’t trying to change your mind about an issue, it’s trying to make it impossible for you to ignore it.
With other members, I believe the only thing a protest will convince me of is how much people care about an issue. It doesn’t particularly matter what kind of protest, although I will have an urge to ignore an issue for a while out of spite if its advocates resort to domestic terrorism (a la the Oklahoma City bombing, Unabomber).
Now, if I oppose some policy because I think people don’t care, then protests can be effective at changing my mind on the policy.
I think this would be the most likely path to me changing my mind about something I oppose.
If, for example, large protests broke out in favor of allowing only electric vehicles on the roads, to the exclusion of all petrol powered cars, I’d be instinctively annoyed and opposed. On the other hand, I’d find it hard to avoid all arguments about why I could quite conceivably adjust my behavior and thinking with respect to owning an EV. The right argument and data tailored to my car enthusiast mindset and needs would stand a better chance of convincing me to consider an EV as my next car.
But their protest only persuaded people because the regime really was corrupt. (Nitpicking but it was the Diem regime, not the Thieu regime, they were protesting against.)
When Daniel Rudolph cut off his hand with a circular saw to “send a message to the FBI and the media” I don’t think he persuaded too many people of the validity of his cause. Most people just thought there was another nut in the Rudolph family tree.
Little_Nemo: ouch, I should’a (“should of”) (grin) looked that up before posting… And, yeah, self-destructive acts in general can be monumental failures as signals and symbols… But, still… If enough people renounced U.S. citizenship, I think it would send a significant message. And, unlike dying, they can then write from their new homes and tell us how much better things are… (For those lucky enough to be able to find a new home… It isn’t easy…)
At a lower level, it makes me stop and think when someone quits their job in protest. That’s a significant personal cost, and tells me they’re very serious.
For me, blocking traffic doesn’t do it, and looting some small business – a sports trading cards and memorabilia shop, two blocks from where I live, was looted and vandalized – makes me disrespect the ostensible message of the protest. Hurting oneself is a sacrifice; hurting other people is just shitten.
And, of course, the obvious example of Islamist suicide bombers. The fact that somebody is prepared to die for a cause has little correlation to whether the cause is just. Again, as you said earlier:
I question whether we can really consider looters to be part of the protest. I feel it’s equally likely they’re just regular criminals who are using the protest as a cover to commit crimes.
Don’t forget the agents provocateurs. When a liquor store, TV store, etc., is looted it’s criminals and opportunists. When storefronts with little stealable value are looted it’s vandals or troublemakers from the other side.
I don’t think things like the Hungarians pulling down a Soviet statue, the Boston Tea Party, or the BLM protests are about changing minds; I think that they are a message that enough is enough and that the protestors are committed. It’s more about firing up their base than convincing the opposition to stop being oppressive. There are of course the so called moderates who might be forced to finally pick a side.
It looks a lot more to me that some protesters just lost control of their emotions, got worked up into a violent state, and, lacking self-control, acted on it. Others just copycatted.
Most just watched, possibly with various degrees of disapproval. Almost no one tried to stop it – and I can’t blame them, because that would be insanely dangerous.
That there might have been deliberate provocateurs, I can buy. That fits with the facts. But that there were guys who wanted sports memorabilia and so used the protests as an excuse to loot a small shop, that doesn’t really seem to match the facts.