In the beginning, I believed that a protest was an event or action taken to go against something in society or the world. I still believe that this is true. However, I believe a protest can be anything, big or small. Furthermore, I don't think a protest has to be a huge event in order to be considered a protest. A protest can be as small as a flier against war or a person holding a sign for Animal rights. Although I still think that in order for a desired action to occur after a protest, the protest must be big enough to gain public attention to it. By big, I mean that the protest must be a noticable event that occurs so that people will pay attention. Otherwise, there really is no point in protesting if nothing happens afterwards. People would just shrug off the protest and act as if it never happened if the protest wasn't big enough.
Nowadays, I think people should rely on the shock value to protest, but it's really hard to do so. People have seen too many shocking things to be surprised about anything any more. For instance, I never knew who Malachi Richter was until I read about him in class. It appears he burned himself to death to protest against the Iraq war or something. Although what he did to protest was shocking, it obviously wasn't that big of a deal. Not many remember him or even know about him. I think this was because he copied what others did to protest. If you see the same thing everyday, it no longer seems new or worth paying attention to. This is why I think that using the shock value is hard, but it's also the easiest way for people to listen to you. After all, I'm sad to say that our society is attracted to outrageous things.
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5 comments:
I completely agree that there is no point to a protest if it does not have any effect at all after the fact.
Your point about people becoming hardened to shock tactics is right on target. In an age when we can turn on the TV and see endless murders and violence, nothing surprises anymore. Somehow modern protesters are going to have to face this sad fact and alter their tactics to make their point.
While I agree that there are so many protests the meaning might get watered down, I disagree that protests can be too small. I mean honestly, I think that a protest might not cause social change or gain a lot of attention, but for some reason the protest might change the attitude of one person, thus causing some change. Protests turn into some sort of personal expression, and as long as the protestor thinks he or she made an impact, then that's hard to argue with. Sure the man that burned himself to death isn't going to be in the history books, but he thought he was doing something right. It's hard to say exactly what I mean, I guess.
Protests come in many forms, so I agree that they can be either large or small. As for there not being a point to a protest if nothing happens afterwards, I think this is not entirely true for some people who join a protest for just its social or adventure aspects. While the founders of the Critical Mass movement may have been adament about a cause, many of the bike riders just liked riding the streets and meeting new people.
I do not believe that a protest is necessarily going against something in society, because I believe that many protests are simply just opinions of people. I do not think that all protests are people who are trying to beat the status quo, rather, I think that some people just enjoy voicing their opinion.
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