Nonviolent Protesting

[Aquaplant]

Originally Posted by apache_blanca

I agree with Dognik about "if you want to change the world - start with yourself". Yes, sure - the world is not perfect. Are we?

It doesn't work like that, because the change has to be in a massive enough scale to matter, because single individuals doing few things here and there doesn't mean anything, because there will always be surplus willing to take their place in the system.

I disagree about a human being being a mass animal (and nothing more).

There's this thing called culture, I think you've heard of it? Granted I'm rather individualistic myself, but that has only caused problems for me in life. Society works on conformity, and the more you deviate from the norm, the less useful you are. I don't think anyone of us wants to feel useless, so we at least try to follow the masses, some more than others.

Personally, I choose to admire the silent protesters. The concentrated silence was So powerful. Yes, true, people achieved many things with violent, or aggressive, protests over centuries (thinking French Revolution for example, with their addiction to chop heads off) - but now times are different, & maybe the protesting methods need a revision: less violence, more consciousness. Or more conscience.

Dead protesters are also silent, and that's the way they will eventually end up if they choose the passive method. There will never be peace unless we learn not to oppress one another, and while many submit to such cruelty because they simply have no other choice, there will always be those who won't take it anymore.

As much as I hate brute force, partly because of the jealousy that I don't possess any, but mainly because no matter what you intend to achieve, you can usually get it done with violence, because when people cause you problems you can't solve, you simply remove the source of the problem.