Protest, in its sign-waving, chant-shouting incarnation, is dead. If it isn't dead, then it is limping slowly toward its ultimate demise as an even remotely effective tool for social change.
The power of rally-style protest was its ability to confront and shock the public into awareness. As anything that works at first, it becomes abused, and protest has been used to fault.
The body politic has become resistant to protest. The three reasons protest has devolved into a symbolic rather than effectual mechanism are: 1) Overuse, 2) Misuse and 3) Misapplication.
Historically protest has been applied to significant injustices. Workers rallies, women's suffrage and Vietnam demonstrations all had clear messages, were revolutionary in their participants, methods and dealt with issues responsive to the means of protest.
But with the use of protest for issues from tuition to coffee its efficacy fades away. Issues which benefit from protest are issues where targets are accountable to the public and the harm impacts a significant portion of the population. These are the issues drowned out by the plethora of petty bitch sessions.
The efficacy of protest is in being able to change the minds of individuals who can affect change and proving the cost of acting outweighs the benefits of not acting. When you hold a rally regarding labor practices for a specific segment of workers in a different part of the world, you are setting yourself up for failure.
First, if there is no immediate benefit for the mass public to act, they will not. Especially in an age when individuals are over-stimulated by information from every direction, more noise fails. The complexities of life have increased tenfold with the integration of the technology into everyday life. When we are asked to care about yet one more thing, for many, it ends up being just one too much.
For changing policymakers' minds, the scale of most protests cannot get the attention of those in power. One of the effects of numerous protests is the limit placed on any of them individually being big enough to notice. Numbers undermine quality. Twenty thousand people marching on Washington change minds; five people standing in a circle chanting is just sad.
Furthermore, the method of most rally-style protest kills efficacy. By calling the corporations you want to change \soul-less Satans"" you don't promote dialogue. When push comes to shove, they control the problem process, and until you show them it is in their benefit (either by avoiding litigation or cost wise) they won't change.
Does this mean that activism is dead too? Not in the least. What needs to happen is a change in tool. To affect change, activists need to inform the mass public and get them motivated. While for those in power, a win-win mentality needs to take the place of ""we're right, you're wrong, change now."" Rather than seeking an alternative to the mainstream, changing the direction of the mainstream through becoming part of it is the future of social change.
When activists say that people 'just aren't listening' they are right. However, that doesn't mean they are unwilling, just how you are saying it isn't reaching them. The answer isn't chanting louder'but less and using the system to an advantage. Sometimes you need to agree in the short-run to mold the long-run.
