Outrage Fatigue and Protest Apathy

I have quite a few friends that are left of center when it comes to political beliefs. That is fine with me as they tend to be interesting and smart in spite of their liberalism. (NB: when I say I am a moderate, I am a moderate. The left irritates me almost as much as the right does. I just happen to agree with the left more than the reactionaries on the right.) They post interesting reads to Facebook, Twitter, Google +, and whatever other social media platform that they use, and in person, they always have something interesting to talk about, whether it is something severe like the State murdering citizens or illegal wars in Asia, or something of less immediacy, like…chickens. Anyway, they are fun, and they are good about keeping me in the loop about the things that are important to them. It is nice to know what people really believe in and what they are voracious in defending.

That being said…

If someone was committed to a variety of organizations that were supportive of sustainable communities, human rights, and social justice, when would they have time to do anything aside from holding a placard and chanting slogans?

I have attended my fair share of protests, rallies, and organizational meetings (and one time, a book burning, but…I thought it was a counter protest to the book burning, and when I found myself throwing copies of The Handmaid’s Tale and Nancy Drew Mysteries into the pyre, I realized that I was actually rallying with the .*) and I am very committed to certain issues, especially sustainable communities, now that New York is a SSM state. This does not mean that I am not following other movements closely. The #OccupyWallStreet movement is something that I think I could get behind. While if anyone attempted to hurt someone close to me, I would murder them, I agree with the anti-capital punishment organizations. I even think the movement in California to end the barbaric process of circumcision (see: http://www.huliq.com/12079/laws-banning-circumcision-sought-two-california-cities) is honorable and worthy of my support. Heck, even the backyard chickens thing in Albany (see: http://alloveralbany.com/archive/2011/06/06/albany-chicken-veto-override-vote) held my interest for a while.

Thanks to social media, I was given considerably more information about these various causes than I would have reasonably gathered by myself (unless I became suitably obsessed with something) and I was able to see the spectrum of opinion on them. It is imperative that the discussions that I have witnessed via social media regarding important things that inspire passion have been fascinating. My friends, and their friends, the author notwithstanding, are amazingly articulate and caring people of diverse interests.
Also, thanks to social media, I started receiving invitations to rallies, protests, meetings, sit-ins, marches, lock-ins, flash mobs, and “events”, which is all well and good, because one of the great things about being an American is the Freedom of Assembly. However, after seeing hundreds of these invitations to various things that I care about and even more for things that I do not give a tinker’s damn** about, like restoring a program funding music education for urban youth, I started to realize that there were so many things out there that people felt passionately about and why I should care, I could not motivate myself to do so. Looking at my for instance, why would I care about music education in urban school districts? I do not play music, I have never played music, and while it does teach something like a work ethic, I firmly believe that teaching Johnny to read is more important than teaching Johnny to read sheet music.

Here is where the fatigue and apathy set in. Even if I disagree with a protest to restore funding for Johnny to read sheet music, in the past, I would offer support to those who cared about this issue. (And yes, this is a real example, and I know some people who care deeply about this, and yes, I am a completely superficial douche.) However now, because the power of protest is automated, I am inundated about reminders to remember to RSVP in the positive for the Rally to Restore Johnny’s Sheet Music Education, then when I ignore those, I am reminded that the event is happening on Saturday at Noon on a day that I am already out of town, and after the event, I am sent messages about how to deal with the Media and asking to contribute any pictures or video I have received for an event that I did not attend.

It would be bad enough, for me at least, if there was just one of these events per week, but no. There are more events than there are days in the week. Part of me thinks that this is wonderful (and once again, impressed by how much my friends care about things that are important to them) but part of me wants to scream “Enough!” at the top of my lungs.

Then I want to take the time to educate some of these people so that I am no longer irked by their (legitimate but silly) causes, protests, rallies, and cookie sales.
• Have a clear message.
• Have specific demands.
• Have an end game/minimum acceptable solution.

Have a clear message.
If someone asks you what you are protesting, you should be able to explain in a simple sentence the basic concept. If it is a hodgepodge of anger and resentment, it may make for great television but it is not going to make a difference. One of my fears regarding #OccupyWallStreet is that they do not have any of these three things. “We are the 99%” is very catchy but what does it mean?

Have specific demands.
Much like having a message, having specific demands is important. Divestiture from South Africa was the goal of the anti-Apartheid movement. It was demand that was easy to explain, had a purpose, and provided a tangible benefit. Not to keep picking on #OccupyWallStreet but have you (not me, because I went looking for them) seen any specific demands from the protestors? Could you put them in a sentence to be used as a sound bite? Do they lend themselves to chanting?

Have an end game/minimum acceptable solution
If you are an anti-capital punishment crusader, you have a clear message, “Murder is wrong, regardless of who commits it”, a specific demand, “End Capital Punishment”, and an end game, which is the end of capital punishment. What is your minimum acceptable solution? Could it be a moratorium on capital punishment while a study is conducted on whatever aspect you object to? Could it be preventing just one death? Picking on the folks at #OccupyWallStreet on last time, what is their end game? What is their minimum acceptable solution? Yeah, I do not think that they know either.

Would these suggestions stop me from screaming, “Enough”? Probably not, if I am going to be honest with myself, but it will make me more willing to engage in a discussion about your issue as opposed to having everything that you (the notional you) say enter into a metaphorical dump file that I have created in my brain where this stuff goes when I do not care all that much about it. However, what it will do is allow me and people like me (why yes, there are people like me out there, thank you very much.) to better understand your issue, and maybe if we understand it in the five second soundbite version, we will take the time to understand it better. ***

Will it still bother me that I am being inundated with causes and suggestions for various advocacy things? Oh, most definitely, I will be bothered, but that has more to do with me because I am getting older (I was going to paraphrase Churchill here and used the Google Machine to verify what the original quote was about being a liberal at one age and a conservative at another and I learned that is was not Churchill. http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill#Misattributed I am slightly embarrassed because I have often paraphrased it and attributed it to The British Bulldog.) and that is to be expected. I am going to be bothered because: I have the information, I hold the opposite opinion, or I do not care about something. If it is the latter, I am bothered because, as I said earlier, I should care and that is a difficult cross for me to carry. (White Guilt, FTW!!)

I do not want to be in a position where not caring is an option, or that I am annoyed by the medium of tone of the larger message. I do not want to be annoyed by the message either, unless the message is something like BHO was born in Kenya, Global Climate Change is not causing serious problems for every living thing on the planet, Mountain top removal and Clean Coal are good for the country, or something asinine regarding public transportation…then I am happily annoyed, and reveling in the sense of righteousness that is provided. (Oh, yes, I waited until the end to bring that up, didn’t I? Okay, you and I know that a lot of the people who run from cause to cause and are worried about making a difference are insufferable. I am able to admit it. That does not mean that some of the causes that are important to them are not really important to the whole world and should be treated with importance. The message is often much more important than the messenger, even if they went to Hampshire and haven’t washed their hair in two months.) On the other hand, not everything should send everyone to DefCon 1, with protests, sit-ins, bake-ins, and sing-a-longs scheduled before we know not just the answers to the question, but what the question is in the first place..

Zealots are boring, folks, and more importantly, going to the same well of indignation too often means that it may run dry, and you are left with Nixon and the Silent Majority…and leisure suits. Do you really want that?


*The parenthetical is completely false. Members of do not burn books. They do not know what books are. I have also never spent any time amongst them.
** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinker
*** I know, I know. Asking hippies to act rationally is like asking a three week old puppy to piddle outside. It may happen, but it is more of a fluke than anything resembling a plan.