If you're not uncomfortable, I'm not being radical enough
Good art seeks to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable
Just annoying
At this stage, I hope you're annoyed. I'm angry as hell, and I have no time for bottom feeders that can't look up. You should turn your annoyance into anger and fear, because the truth is, everyone should feel that way. Don't worry though; when fascism fucks up your life, I won't even bother saying "told you so."
If you're the kind of person who thinks feminism is annoying, then you deserve to be annoyed. It wouldn't upset you if you were cooler.
Assuming this is real (it's not) the art teacher might possibly be right in saying dial it back. Subtlety and nuance are great in art. People like to interpret artists meaning (even if it's pretty obvious). If they're anything like the art teachers I've had they were familiar with feminism and trying to help the student grow as an artist.
I'm happy to see you're not talking in the 3rd person anymore though.
Assuming this is real (it's not)
Proof?
Subtlety and nuance are great in art
They can be. But if that was the intention, that's what the teacher should have said. "Dial it back" is a far cry from "your art would be more powerful with a more subtle message". And anyway, sometimes the artist doesn't want to be subtle and that's ok too. Subtle art can be easy to misinterpret. Look at all the chadbros who idolise the characters in Fight Club.
I'm happy to see you're not talking in the 3rd person anymore though.
Pretty sure they just didn't have reason to refer to themselves in that comment. They've always used normal pronouns for other people.
Yeah, thereās great art thatās subtle, but also a lot of great art is in your face. The subtle lesbianism of Gerda Wegner vs the overt gender fuckery of Claude Cahun. Blues doesnāt hide what it has to say, but jazz often makes you find the message. āThe Monsters are Due on Maple Streetā is one of the most acclaimed cinematic productions of all time and was very clear in its message, it had to be lest it be misunderstood at a time where it needed to be said.
The greatest work of art ever created was made by writers who think subtext is for cowards. It's called Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. It's about a cyborg ninja who turns fascists into human confetti. It tackles fundamental themes of human agency from the point of view of nature, nurture, culture, and identity. It deconstructs and then reconstructs the concept of free will while criticizing the military industrial complex and entire entirety of conservative ideology. The final boss of the game is a United States senator who wants to "make America great again" and you rip out his fucking heart after spending an hour debating political philosophy with him.
Turn it up to 11
For an extra $1,000 I'll make you one that goes to 12
Get back on the transporter terminal, O'Brian.
You should come down to transporter room 3, the pattern buffer has something you'd find interesting....
O'Brian?
He's from the mirror universe! Stop that man!
Hot take (apparently): Women deserve to be taken seriously.
āRAGING FEMINISTā (apparently)
Hysterical.
It has to start somewhere
It has to start sometime
What better place than here?
What better time than now?
Lights out
Guerrilla radio
Turn that shit up
I just had a flashback to playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater after school
You can get kits online for pretty cheap, and probably make something like this yourself if you really wanted to. Just get a kit to make a fuzz pedal or overdrive, and do some custom modifications to the enclosure.
Isn't art about uh... Expressing yourself?
I want one that goes up to eleven
Why not just make "raging feminist" louder?
But it doesn't have any units. It's an arbitrary scale mapping outputs to numerals.
I there with ya
Ice Cream (1964)
Evelyne Axell
Banned on Facebook
Rage like California wildfire.
And here I thought that old "SFW porn gif" reddit sub was an original idea...
That's actually a pretty sick piece of art though.
"Turn down for what"
That is a great piece of art
Fart
"art"
It looks like this dial can go a little beyond the current setting. Give it a try!
I see this as malicious compliance, and I love it.
Did she dial down the Feminism? If she didn't I wouldn't call it compliance since she didn't actually do that.
Which side is down and which is up?
"raging feminism" often actually causes increased misogyny. This dial is the perfect metaphor, because somewhere in the middle is "staunch advocacy" that actually creates progress
That nice girl feminism got us to lose abortion rights. I'm in the vengeance stage whether you like it or not.
Americans lost abortion rights because of the piss-weak Democratic party relying on a shaky legal foundation to keep them in place rather than legislating it themselves at any of the times they controlled the Senate, House, and White House under Carter, Clinton, Obama, or Biden. All of whome had a period where that was the case. It's not feminists of any sort that are to blame.
āraging feminismā often actually causes increased misogyny
Are you fucking high?!
"you spoke mean and hurt my feelings, that's why I voted for Hitler. It's your fault."
So accurate, though I dare say they're even more pathetic - "I was hateful and abusive to you, but you spoke up and demanded I stop, which hurt my feelings, thatās why I voted for Hitler. Itās your fault.ā
Because the only people drifting further in to bigotry "because" those they're bigoted against stand up for themselves, were already bigots to begin with. They're just critically aware (though they'll never admit it) of just how much privilege they actually have, and find the idea of having that challenged, never mind being equal and equitable to everyone else, completely unacceptable and even repulsive, but mostly terrifying (because the only way they can fathom it going is that they will be treated under feminism the same way they treat us under the patriarchy) and they will invest everything they have in to maintaining the oppressive structures that serve them.
Radical, illogical levels of misogyny are not an altered state of consciousness. Evil is mundane.
Nope, I'm very lucid. If you haven't seen people's reaction to "raging feminism" then you haven't been paying attention. Most people who are already on your side will give you a "yassss gurl", but most people who aren't already on your side will react by moving in the opposite direction.
To reiterate, i specifically said that the "doing nothing" side of the dial is wrong too. Be a strong advocate, but don't try to "burn it all down", because that'll cause the opposite effect of what you're trying to achieve
Is that reaction actually increasing the misogyny though? I kinda expect it's just bringing out into the open what is already there tbh
It's definitely causing more misogyny. When people feel like you're attacking them, it makes them attack you back
"This rape would be going a lot better for you if you'd just stop struggling so much!"
Wow, perfect way to EXACTLY demonstrate my point. By totally and completely making an offensive bullshit false analogy about what I said, that makes me want to attack you back in response
Imagine getting triggered by women not wanting to be assaulted
āAll men are fucking douchebags and should dieā -> āif they already think Iām a douchebag and the other side will be nice to meā¦ā
Donāt get me wrong, I understand that thatās an extreme but that doesnāt mean it doesnāt happen either. Iām not saying I agree really with either side and āturning down the feminismā is a kinda weird thing to say to your student but I have heard multiple different times of someone who saw how much they seemed to be hated and drifted to the right as they were accepted there (even if for the wrong reasons).
I don't think it's feminism at that point. It's misandry. I know many women who don't understand the difference, but they're not the same.
And we can see plenty of men here who are told what the difference is and ignore it to pursue their grievance.
Thatās true but if they are often confused even within their own circles, the type of men who would drift to the right from it are also unlikely to know the difference
exactly exactly exactly
Immediately jumping to a rape analogy isn't fair or apt, you can always make someone else's argument appear dumb when you jump to an EXTREME
How dare I follow their argument to its logical conclusion
That's why beacon comments were dumb from the beginning I guess.
Instead of complaining that feminists speak out, why not call out the actual problem: the misogynists? Be a "staunch advocate" and have the conversations that women can't.
It really doesn't. But it does make raging misogynists pissy and insecure.
The point of the dial is there is no middle ground. You either take it quietly or you're a troublemaker.
I don't mean to diminish the larger point you're making about feminism not having middle ground, but from an interface design perspective, a dial very much implies a continuum of settings. When there isn't middle ground, the interface should be a toggle switch instead.
Of course this is art, not a real device, so obviously a dial is appropriate because it's a response to being told to "dial down," not "switch off."
(I almost feel like there could've been something different about the way the dial was depicted -- maybe with a range with "raging feminist" next to "complicit" and something more extreme above it, or maybe indeed using a toggle instead of a dial -- in order to emphasize that "raging feminist" already is as "dialed down" as you could reasonably ask for, but such UI realism would probably just clutter up the design without improving the message. As art, I think the artist got it right as-is.)
You're not wrong. But I picture this dial to snap between two settings. Like ones that are used for on/off switches. Not like a continuous potentiometer type.
It being a dial illustrates that while people who make such statements pretend that there's a continuum, it's really rather binary.
This has now become canon
As long as you talk respectfully about the art, my guess is that the artist her the point across.
I would invite people who have different opinions to make their own art reflecting their point of views. I may make my own variation of the theme.
There are guitar pedals that have toggle dials (? dunno if that's the correct term). But they are dials for things with several discrete settings (usually more than the two or three that a typical dipswitch can handle).
Off the top of my head, the JHS pedals where they pack like 7 or 8 versions of an OD circuit into a single pedal (Bonsai, Muffaletta, PackRat), all have such dials. They click into place and there is nothing in between. And it works just fine.
Old television dials also come to mind. Discrete channels with nothing but dead air in between.
No, the point is that there really is no middle ground with these people.
This comes off weird. Especially when in context to the post.
I fully agree. This applies not only to feminism but in general - if you want to convince people about something, you need to plan your approach, what to say, know what works on people etc. You cannot just rage like crazy because there's a high chance you just create a counter reaction.
F.e. I'd say we can all agree that gay rights are the right thing. But if you come to some conservative village, start shouting at everyone, being super aggresive and rage like a maniac, I'd bet that the only thing you achieve is that you'll be labeled as "that crazy person"
I'm really surprised of the responses to this comment, I find this to be a common sense
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season."
Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
-Martin Luther King Jr
Got a lot of the same vibes, really
Preach on.
I went to the Women's Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls, NY, and of all the things that really struck me hard there (it was a lot) I think the biggest hit was realizing how fucking long it took between the start of mainstreaming the movement and women actually getting the vote. None of the women who started that movement lived long enough to cast their own vote.
There was no "women's black panthers". There was no threat of violence if women can't control their own lives. Everybody got to pretty much just stay comfortable with their nice order. And change did. not. happen. For years.
Maybe the slow pace was worth it, I don't know. I'm not a woman and I'm not much devoted to order. But it seems pretty clear that "avoid offending anybody" is not an effective tool for change.
Fair enough, good quote (btw I'm not from US so my knoledge here is limited). Although I'm not sure what portion I agree/disagree with it, I have to think about it much more.
But I mean, even MLK understood that there's a limit, right? Like he didn't take AK47 and started to murder all the racists he saw but have chosen rather strong but non violent approach and he thought about what he was saying and what "works". And that's all I'm saying, I've never said that you cannot take a strong stance. But if you turn it to 11 and just RAGE!!! then be prepared that you might not achieve anything or even make the situation worse
Let me say as I've always said, and I will always continue to say, that riots are socially destructive and self-defeating. I'm still convinced that nonviolence is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom and justice. I feel that violence will only create more social problems than they will solve. That in a real sense it is impracticable for the Negro to even think of mounting a violent revolution in the United States. So I will continue to condemn riots, and continue to say to my brothers and sisters that this is not the way. And continue to affirm that there is another way.
But at the same time, it is as necessary for me to be as vigorous in condemning the conditions which cause persons to feel that they must engage in riotous activities as it is for me to condemn riots. I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation's summers of riots are caused by our nation's winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.
-The Other America
And this was over The Long, Hot Summer of 1967 where neighborhoods literally got burned to the ground in riots and dozens of people were killed. Shooting your mouth off in response to someone being a bigot is a piddling offense by comparison.
Like, I'm not going to stand here and tell you it's being on your best behavior. But neither is saying some bigoted shit to someone that causes them to pop off in return. Two people can be doing wrong things, and one can even be more at fault!
MLK didnāt; Malcom X did. MLKās underlying message was āacknowledge my peaceful protest, or you get stuck with his less peaceful protestā. Peaceful protesting alone tends to get you a whole lot of nothing.
Edit: of course, most history classes seem to forget Malcom X even existed, because the ājust peacefully protest over in that corner and donāt bother us, it will totally make us change our waysā narrative is much more desirable for certain demographics.
I fundamentally disagree
Good for you. History disagrees with your disagreeing.
Look up Malcom X, the Black Panthers, and the Battle of Blair Mountain sometime. Pretty much every victory oppressed groups have won has had to draw blood in order to win the day.
The pairing of the open palm and the raised fist often is very successful. The violent side creates the conditions for victory and the nonviolent side creates the conditions for peace. Without the threat of violence no pressure is applied, but without the peaceful people the oppressors have nobody theyāre willing to settle with.
The labor wars ended with afl-cio dominance for a reason.
If I may hijack this discussion, I find that quite interesting what you are saying! I'm currently see myself getting more radicalised by the weak reaction of our (German) Government towards the rising fascists.
Pretty much every victory oppressed groups have won has had to draw blood in order to win the day.
Where and how do you Differentiate between legit violent Protest and Terrorism?
Is ist just the agreement with the one side but not the other?
Because, If I may go there, even Hitler claimed that Germans were being oppressed in Poland and Czechoslovakia.
The line to draw, I feel, is are you attacking institutions (i.e. smashing the windows of Wall Street, chaining yourself to the doors of the police station), or people (like the loons here in Oregon attacking minority families during the fires)? Are you harassing oppressed groups (like kristallnacht did) or the overpowered establishment (like Blair Mountain did)?
(Obviously, punching individual Nazis is still fine.)
But really, at the end of the day, violence is still violence, and while it may be the right action, it is never a good action. That is something I feel all protesters need to keep in mind.
To paraphrase Dan Shive, there are times when you best (or only) choices lie between the least-bad and most-bad options. And when that happens, humans tend to try and rationalize the least-bad choice as being the good one. This is a trap. If you start to think of the least-bad choice as a good choice, pretty soon you start to believe itāand then you stop looking for the actual good options.
Even if an actual good optionālike a nonviolent protestāisnāt feasible for one situation, you should always try to find a truly good option, if you can. Thatās why the combo of violent protests on one side, peaceful group on the other, tends to get the best results.
I think the difference between EfreetSK's example and the situation to which MLK's quote applies is that MLK already had enough people on his side to force others to take him seriously.
In the UK, demonstrations for trans rights are fairly common. It is also almost exactly as common for them not to be reported on at all in any major news outlet. With the laws in the UK as they are, any trans person participating in a "disruptive" protest is liable to end up in a men's prison (and if self-medding, as many must, deprived of HRT) for a long time, so there aren't many takers for the Just Stop Oil brand of protesting either. It sucks, but sometimes softly softly is what's required.
Iām really surprised of the responses to this comment, I find this to be a common sense
The closer a person and the people they care about get to the chopping block the less common sense it seems.
actually it's been pretty well shown that radical annoying people help move the overton window so the gentle advocates seem more palatable and reasonable
this is the same principle that fascists use to normalize oppression.
The point of art is not necessarily to convince. What if her point is to call for action, to nurture debate or to get attention to something that doesn't get space in people's minds. It's a piece of art, not a PhD thesis.
She is awesome
One of my heros
If you're not uncomfortable, I'm not being radical enough
Good art seeks to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable
Just annoying
At this stage, I hope you're annoyed. I'm angry as hell, and I have no time for bottom feeders that can't look up. You should turn your annoyance into anger and fear, because the truth is, everyone should feel that way. Don't worry though; when fascism fucks up your life, I won't even bother saying "told you so."
If you're the kind of person who thinks feminism is annoying, then you deserve to be annoyed. It wouldn't upset you if you were cooler.
Assuming this is real (it's not) the art teacher might possibly be right in saying dial it back. Subtlety and nuance are great in art. People like to interpret artists meaning (even if it's pretty obvious). If they're anything like the art teachers I've had they were familiar with feminism and trying to help the student grow as an artist.
I'm happy to see you're not talking in the 3rd person anymore though.
Proof?
They can be. But if that was the intention, that's what the teacher should have said. "Dial it back" is a far cry from "your art would be more powerful with a more subtle message". And anyway, sometimes the artist doesn't want to be subtle and that's ok too. Subtle art can be easy to misinterpret. Look at all the chadbros who idolise the characters in Fight Club.
Pretty sure they just didn't have reason to refer to themselves in that comment. They've always used normal pronouns for other people.
Yeah, thereās great art thatās subtle, but also a lot of great art is in your face. The subtle lesbianism of Gerda Wegner vs the overt gender fuckery of Claude Cahun. Blues doesnāt hide what it has to say, but jazz often makes you find the message. āThe Monsters are Due on Maple Streetā is one of the most acclaimed cinematic productions of all time and was very clear in its message, it had to be lest it be misunderstood at a time where it needed to be said.
The greatest work of art ever created was made by writers who think subtext is for cowards. It's called Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. It's about a cyborg ninja who turns fascists into human confetti. It tackles fundamental themes of human agency from the point of view of nature, nurture, culture, and identity. It deconstructs and then reconstructs the concept of free will while criticizing the military industrial complex and entire entirety of conservative ideology. The final boss of the game is a United States senator who wants to "make America great again" and you rip out his fucking heart after spending an hour debating political philosophy with him.
Turn it up to 11
For an extra $1,000 I'll make you one that goes to 12
Get back on the transporter terminal, O'Brian.
You should come down to transporter room 3, the pattern buffer has something you'd find interesting....
O'Brian? He's from the mirror universe! Stop that man!
Hot take (apparently): Women deserve to be taken seriously.
āRAGING FEMINISTā (apparently)
Hysterical.
It has to start somewhere
It has to start sometime
What better place than here?
What better time than now?
Lights out
Guerrilla radio
Turn that shit up
I just had a flashback to playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater after school
I want that guitar pedal
It's got to be a boost or an overdrive right?
Nah, it's a tone knob
At 10 you sound like bikini kill
https://youtu.be/f1aGcJVrvlo?si=jVd-z74C_-lm7IaM
Nice
Fuzz maybe.
You can get kits online for pretty cheap, and probably make something like this yourself if you really wanted to. Just get a kit to make a fuzz pedal or overdrive, and do some custom modifications to the enclosure.
Isn't art about uh... Expressing yourself?
I want one that goes up to eleven
Why not just make "raging feminist" louder?
But it doesn't have any units. It's an arbitrary scale mapping outputs to numerals.
I there with ya
Ice Cream (1964)
Evelyne Axell
Banned on Facebook
Rage like California wildfire.
And here I thought that old "SFW porn gif" reddit sub was an original idea...
That's actually a pretty sick piece of art though.
"Turn down for what"
That is a great piece of art
Fart
"art"
It looks like this dial can go a little beyond the current setting. Give it a try!
I see this as malicious compliance, and I love it.
Did she dial down the Feminism? If she didn't I wouldn't call it compliance since she didn't actually do that.
Which side is down and which is up?
"raging feminism" often actually causes increased misogyny. This dial is the perfect metaphor, because somewhere in the middle is "staunch advocacy" that actually creates progress
That nice girl feminism got us to lose abortion rights. I'm in the vengeance stage whether you like it or not.
Americans lost abortion rights because of the piss-weak Democratic party relying on a shaky legal foundation to keep them in place rather than legislating it themselves at any of the times they controlled the Senate, House, and White House under Carter, Clinton, Obama, or Biden. All of whome had a period where that was the case. It's not feminists of any sort that are to blame.
Are you fucking high?!
"you spoke mean and hurt my feelings, that's why I voted for Hitler. It's your fault."
So accurate, though I dare say they're even more pathetic - "I was hateful and abusive to you, but you spoke up and demanded I stop, which hurt my feelings, thatās why I voted for Hitler. Itās your fault.ā
Because the only people drifting further in to bigotry "because" those they're bigoted against stand up for themselves, were already bigots to begin with. They're just critically aware (though they'll never admit it) of just how much privilege they actually have, and find the idea of having that challenged, never mind being equal and equitable to everyone else, completely unacceptable and even repulsive, but mostly terrifying (because the only way they can fathom it going is that they will be treated under feminism the same way they treat us under the patriarchy) and they will invest everything they have in to maintaining the oppressive structures that serve them.
Radical, illogical levels of misogyny are not an altered state of consciousness. Evil is mundane.
Nope, I'm very lucid. If you haven't seen people's reaction to "raging feminism" then you haven't been paying attention. Most people who are already on your side will give you a "yassss gurl", but most people who aren't already on your side will react by moving in the opposite direction.
To reiterate, i specifically said that the "doing nothing" side of the dial is wrong too. Be a strong advocate, but don't try to "burn it all down", because that'll cause the opposite effect of what you're trying to achieve
Is that reaction actually increasing the misogyny though? I kinda expect it's just bringing out into the open what is already there tbh
It's definitely causing more misogyny. When people feel like you're attacking them, it makes them attack you back
"This rape would be going a lot better for you if you'd just stop struggling so much!"
Wow, perfect way to EXACTLY demonstrate my point. By totally and completely making an offensive bullshit false analogy about what I said, that makes me want to attack you back in response
Imagine getting triggered by women not wanting to be assaulted
āAll men are fucking douchebags and should dieā -> āif they already think Iām a douchebag and the other side will be nice to meā¦ā
Donāt get me wrong, I understand that thatās an extreme but that doesnāt mean it doesnāt happen either. Iām not saying I agree really with either side and āturning down the feminismā is a kinda weird thing to say to your student but I have heard multiple different times of someone who saw how much they seemed to be hated and drifted to the right as they were accepted there (even if for the wrong reasons).
I don't think it's feminism at that point. It's misandry. I know many women who don't understand the difference, but they're not the same.
And we can see plenty of men here who are told what the difference is and ignore it to pursue their grievance.
Thatās true but if they are often confused even within their own circles, the type of men who would drift to the right from it are also unlikely to know the difference
exactly exactly exactly
Immediately jumping to a rape analogy isn't fair or apt, you can always make someone else's argument appear dumb when you jump to an EXTREME
How dare I follow their argument to its logical conclusion
That's why beacon comments were dumb from the beginning I guess.
Instead of complaining that feminists speak out, why not call out the actual problem: the misogynists? Be a "staunch advocate" and have the conversations that women can't.
It really doesn't. But it does make raging misogynists pissy and insecure.
The point of the dial is there is no middle ground. You either take it quietly or you're a troublemaker.
I don't mean to diminish the larger point you're making about feminism not having middle ground, but from an interface design perspective, a dial very much implies a continuum of settings. When there isn't middle ground, the interface should be a toggle switch instead.
Of course this is art, not a real device, so obviously a dial is appropriate because it's a response to being told to "dial down," not "switch off."
(I almost feel like there could've been something different about the way the dial was depicted -- maybe with a range with "raging feminist" next to "complicit" and something more extreme above it, or maybe indeed using a toggle instead of a dial -- in order to emphasize that "raging feminist" already is as "dialed down" as you could reasonably ask for, but such UI realism would probably just clutter up the design without improving the message. As art, I think the artist got it right as-is.)
You're not wrong. But I picture this dial to snap between two settings. Like ones that are used for on/off switches. Not like a continuous potentiometer type.
It being a dial illustrates that while people who make such statements pretend that there's a continuum, it's really rather binary.
This has now become canon
As long as you talk respectfully about the art, my guess is that the artist her the point across.
I would invite people who have different opinions to make their own art reflecting their point of views. I may make my own variation of the theme.
There are guitar pedals that have toggle dials (? dunno if that's the correct term). But they are dials for things with several discrete settings (usually more than the two or three that a typical dipswitch can handle).
Off the top of my head, the JHS pedals where they pack like 7 or 8 versions of an OD circuit into a single pedal (Bonsai, Muffaletta, PackRat), all have such dials. They click into place and there is nothing in between. And it works just fine.
Old television dials also come to mind. Discrete channels with nothing but dead air in between.
"Rotary switch"
No, the point is that there really is no middle ground with these people.
This comes off weird. Especially when in context to the post.
I fully agree. This applies not only to feminism but in general - if you want to convince people about something, you need to plan your approach, what to say, know what works on people etc. You cannot just rage like crazy because there's a high chance you just create a counter reaction.
F.e. I'd say we can all agree that gay rights are the right thing. But if you come to some conservative village, start shouting at everyone, being super aggresive and rage like a maniac, I'd bet that the only thing you achieve is that you'll be labeled as "that crazy person"
I'm really surprised of the responses to this comment, I find this to be a common sense
-Martin Luther King Jr
Got a lot of the same vibes, really
Preach on.
I went to the Women's Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls, NY, and of all the things that really struck me hard there (it was a lot) I think the biggest hit was realizing how fucking long it took between the start of mainstreaming the movement and women actually getting the vote. None of the women who started that movement lived long enough to cast their own vote.
There was no "women's black panthers". There was no threat of violence if women can't control their own lives. Everybody got to pretty much just stay comfortable with their nice order. And change did. not. happen. For years.
Maybe the slow pace was worth it, I don't know. I'm not a woman and I'm not much devoted to order. But it seems pretty clear that "avoid offending anybody" is not an effective tool for change.
Fair enough, good quote (btw I'm not from US so my knoledge here is limited). Although I'm not sure what portion I agree/disagree with it, I have to think about it much more.
But I mean, even MLK understood that there's a limit, right? Like he didn't take AK47 and started to murder all the racists he saw but have chosen rather strong but non violent approach and he thought about what he was saying and what "works". And that's all I'm saying, I've never said that you cannot take a strong stance. But if you turn it to 11 and just RAGE!!! then be prepared that you might not achieve anything or even make the situation worse
More MLK quotes!
-The Other America
And this was over The Long, Hot Summer of 1967 where neighborhoods literally got burned to the ground in riots and dozens of people were killed. Shooting your mouth off in response to someone being a bigot is a piddling offense by comparison.
Like, I'm not going to stand here and tell you it's being on your best behavior. But neither is saying some bigoted shit to someone that causes them to pop off in return. Two people can be doing wrong things, and one can even be more at fault!
MLK didnāt; Malcom X did. MLKās underlying message was āacknowledge my peaceful protest, or you get stuck with his less peaceful protestā. Peaceful protesting alone tends to get you a whole lot of nothing.
Edit: of course, most history classes seem to forget Malcom X even existed, because the ājust peacefully protest over in that corner and donāt bother us, it will totally make us change our waysā narrative is much more desirable for certain demographics.
I fundamentally disagree
Good for you. History disagrees with your disagreeing.
Look up Malcom X, the Black Panthers, and the Battle of Blair Mountain sometime. Pretty much every victory oppressed groups have won has had to draw blood in order to win the day.
The pairing of the open palm and the raised fist often is very successful. The violent side creates the conditions for victory and the nonviolent side creates the conditions for peace. Without the threat of violence no pressure is applied, but without the peaceful people the oppressors have nobody theyāre willing to settle with.
The labor wars ended with afl-cio dominance for a reason.
If I may hijack this discussion, I find that quite interesting what you are saying! I'm currently see myself getting more radicalised by the weak reaction of our (German) Government towards the rising fascists.
Where and how do you Differentiate between legit violent Protest and Terrorism? Is ist just the agreement with the one side but not the other?
Because, If I may go there, even Hitler claimed that Germans were being oppressed in Poland and Czechoslovakia.
The line to draw, I feel, is are you attacking institutions (i.e. smashing the windows of Wall Street, chaining yourself to the doors of the police station), or people (like the loons here in Oregon attacking minority families during the fires)? Are you harassing oppressed groups (like kristallnacht did) or the overpowered establishment (like Blair Mountain did)?
(Obviously, punching individual Nazis is still fine.)
But really, at the end of the day, violence is still violence, and while it may be the right action, it is never a good action. That is something I feel all protesters need to keep in mind.
To paraphrase Dan Shive, there are times when you best (or only) choices lie between the least-bad and most-bad options. And when that happens, humans tend to try and rationalize the least-bad choice as being the good one. This is a trap. If you start to think of the least-bad choice as a good choice, pretty soon you start to believe itāand then you stop looking for the actual good options.
Even if an actual good optionālike a nonviolent protestāisnāt feasible for one situation, you should always try to find a truly good option, if you can. Thatās why the combo of violent protests on one side, peaceful group on the other, tends to get the best results.
I think the difference between EfreetSK's example and the situation to which MLK's quote applies is that MLK already had enough people on his side to force others to take him seriously.
In the UK, demonstrations for trans rights are fairly common. It is also almost exactly as common for them not to be reported on at all in any major news outlet. With the laws in the UK as they are, any trans person participating in a "disruptive" protest is liable to end up in a men's prison (and if self-medding, as many must, deprived of HRT) for a long time, so there aren't many takers for the Just Stop Oil brand of protesting either. It sucks, but sometimes softly softly is what's required.
The closer a person and the people they care about get to the chopping block the less common sense it seems.
actually it's been pretty well shown that radical annoying people help move the overton window so the gentle advocates seem more palatable and reasonable
this is the same principle that fascists use to normalize oppression.
The point of art is not necessarily to convince. What if her point is to call for action, to nurture debate or to get attention to something that doesn't get space in people's minds. It's a piece of art, not a PhD thesis.