Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Who Protests Anymore?
So, reading the article about 'the streets as democracy', a question took root in my mind, foreign amongst all the movie highlights and dead baby jokes. What does it take to get a person of our generation to leave their house/apartment/box and actually take to the streets? A lifetime of guaranteed security, food, and cold, pseudo-reality entertainment, for the large majority anyways, has left us inured and apathetic to global or local issues; whatever primal protest urges that might still surface are satisfied neatly by joining a facebook cause, chipping in a couple dollars, or, in extreme cases, venting about it in one's blog. To take a recent example, Restricted Access garnered 400 attendants out of a student body of over 35 000, and maybe 50 of those were people like myself who only showed up because it was mandatory in order to get points for a Lister tower competition. Though perhaps thats more an indicator of the strength of that particular cause, what will we do when a real, dire, nation-building or crisis cause presents itself? The hunger rally of '32 related to us in class seems distant, and Edmonton hasn't seen anything like the Depression since, well, the Depression. Protests are always represented as being started from a spark, a catalyst, of some sort; one must also realize fuel, such as long-felt communist oppression or widespread shortages, is a far more necessary ingredient to the cake of protest. In the immortal words of Tyler Durden, 'our generation has no great war, no great depression. No purpose, no place'. Maybe thats something to be proud of...but humanity defines itself in adversity, and we, specifically Edmontonians, have no adversity to speak of. Except, perhaps, the possibility of the Oilers not making playoffs.
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Yes, we are all part of the same compost heap. None of us are unique or special snowflakes.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what it would take to spark city-wide protests. Naturally, it would have to be an issue that profoundly effected everyone, or near enough, but I'm not sure Edmonton is homogeneous enough to be galvanized over any single issue. If you look at places where widespread protests are relatively common, it appears as though the populations in these areasare tightly bound together through cultural/religious/political ties, whereas here interests are too disparate, too diluted. Also, when the prevailing cultural ideology is one of postmodern relativism it might be harder to convince people protests are in any way meaningful. That might be a bit of a stretch though.
The only gathering a large portion of Edmontonians would show up for is some kind of competition against Calgary...other than that I'm not sure.
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ReplyDeleteWell... I would disagree in some respects.
ReplyDeleteI don't necessarily think that it's out of apathy that "our generation" and people in general do not protest as much anymore.
Apathy may be one small part of a very large puzzle effecting this aspect of Edmonton and Canadian society, but I don't think it's the whole story or even the a hugely significant part of the story.
One reason for the decline in protest culture, I think is relativism. We're taught to much in schools to "respect others opinions" and "that everyone has a different view point". Essentially we've raised a generation that isn't willing to stand up for an opinion or point of view, not out of apathy, but because "everyone's opinion is valid". To be honest I think Canadian society in general has become weak and far far far too addicted to compromise, negotiation and worst of all, relativism. Constantly acknowledging the validity of others opinions inevitably diminishes the strength of your own.
Another reason so few people protest or pay attention to protests when they happen is because society by enlarge doesn't agree with the protesting groups cause or the statement that they are trying to make.
This is due to the fact that there are too many political niches using protest as tool. When so many different groups with so many different statements are constantly protesting eventually people become accustomed to it, protest as a form of expression looses it's effectiveness