Rebellion or something.

[Doktor Howl]

Dear A Mod:
I request that the thread this is broken into is named "People on the internet repeat minor variations on conversations had in Paris in 1968"

Dear Enki:  Stop being a shithead.

[Left]

I have to take a shit-ton of meds just to breathe.
I happen to like breathing properly, and think it superior to the various options of Not Breathing properly.

  I can "prep" all I want.  Inhalers stay chemically active for about 4 years, I believe. 
After that I am going to slowly succumb to a degenerative illness-untreated asthma causes lung capacity to shrink, you see.
Eventually I'll die...slowly.
When I was younger I didn't really care if I lived or died-I felt like dying for a cause would justify my heretofore shitty life, so I was ok with that concept.
I'm selfish enough to want to keep my oxy habit now.

So I'm predisposed to NOT want to rip it all down.

[Doktor Howl]

I have to take a shit-ton of meds just to breathe.
I happen to like breathing properly, and think it superior to the various options of Not Breathing properly.

  I can "prep" all I want.  Inhalers stay chemically active for about 4 years, I believe. 
After that I am going to slowly succumb to a degenerative illness-untreated asthma causes lung capacity to shrink, you see.
Eventually I'll die...slowly.
When I was younger I didn't really care if I lived or died-I felt like dying for a cause would justify my heretofore shitty life, so I was ok with that concept.
I'm selfish enough to want to keep my oxy habit now.

So I'm predisposed to NOT want to rip it all down.

Yep.  Burn it all down, you kill everyone who needs dialysis, insulin, etc. 

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

The way I look at it, civilization is like a car with cruise control. If you leave it to its own devices for long enough, you are going to end up in a ditch. Protest movements are one of the few ways you can apply pressure to the people who are ostensibly steering, and that works a lot better than blowing up the car.

[Doktor Howl]

The way I look at it, civilization is like a car with cruise control. If you leave it to its own devices for long enough, you are going to end up in a ditch. Protest movements are one of the few ways you can apply pressure to the people who are ostensibly steering, and that works a lot better than blowing up the car.

But that's hard work.   

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

The way I look at it, civilization is like a car with cruise control. If you leave it to its own devices for long enough, you are going to end up in a ditch. Protest movements are one of the few ways you can apply pressure to the people who are ostensibly steering, and that works a lot better than blowing up the car.

But that's hard work.   

Well, you could also spend your life trying to get on the committee to discuss the probable outcomes of adjusting the steering wheel by .2 degrees, if you want hard work.

[Doktor Howl]

The way I look at it, civilization is like a car with cruise control. If you leave it to its own devices for long enough, you are going to end up in a ditch. Protest movements are one of the few ways you can apply pressure to the people who are ostensibly steering, and that works a lot better than blowing up the car.

But that's hard work.   

Well, you could also spend your life trying to get on the committee to discuss the probable outcomes of adjusting the steering wheel by .2 degrees, if you want hard work.

Is there coffee on?

Dok,
Channeling Mike the Engineer.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

To expand on the idea a little bit, success in a civilization is by definition a moving target. We don't, and cannot, want a civilization that stands still, we want something that will continue moving in better directions. Even in arbitrarily frozen sub-cultures, there is pressure to improve access to justice over time. You can't get that by setting a system in place and trusting it to go, no matter how well-engineered the system is. You need hands on the wheel to make adjustments as things change. You also need people making sure that whoever's steering isn't asleep at the wheel, or changing directions entirely to suit their own purposes. But even with all those safeguards in place, the people way in the back need to start yelling if they notice a problem. Nobody likes it, because it's noisy and sometimes they yell about things that aren't problems at all, or problems that the guys up front are already trying to work on, or no one can agree which fork to take and it's just a screaming match forever and ever, but it's still better than being in the ditch.

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

Dear A Mod:
I request that the thread this is broken into is named "People on the internet repeat minor variations on conversations had in Paris in 1968"

And in Boston in 1773, and countless other times throughout history, yet it appears to be a conversation that needs to happen over and over and over again, because we always seem to forget, even though it was deemed important enough to write it into the US Constitution.

Protest is significant to the political process on a number of psychological levels. It visibly demonstrates to every frustrated person that there are others who have the same frustration. It is a visible expression of discontent. There is a reason governments try to quash protests, and there is a reason corporate-run media avoids reporting on them, and casts them in a negative/pathetic light when they do. It's because they're dangerous to the status quo, and it's unfortunate that so many people buy into the media-fed, politico-fed notion that protesting is meaningless.

No, no. I meant, specifically, talking about the ways in which signs and symbols of protest get co-opted back into the spectacular-consumerist process.

I'm all for talking about protest and its effectiveness (and I do believe it to be effective, in particular ways, for particular purposes). But, rehashing the Society of the Spectacle with the caveat that somehow all rebellious posturing prior to 1980 was authentic is foolish, when we could just read the thing and recognize that rebellious posturing prior to 1968 was also inauthentic.

We're not spending time talking about rebellion so much as talking about manufactured symbols of rebellion and their reintegration and absorption back into the system from whose opposition they sprang -- which is an interesting topic with a great deal of existing work on it. I mention the Situationists because they focused on this angle, and invented much of the terminology and many of the basic memes we use when talking about it, and because their work on it is freely available, relatively accessible (as far as french marxist philosophers performing literary criticism and studying the effects of media on society go), and familiar to a lot of people on the board already. But, even Baudrillard did work on this, not to mention Zizek. And, we're spending far too much time assuming nobody else has read Society of the Spectacle and repeating bits of it only marginally incorrectly. If we assume instead that everybody has already read and understood the Situationist arguments, we can move forward by critiquing them directly, building upon them, or producing variations upon them -- since they form a powerful and almost ubiquitous foundation for discussion on this topic.

(One meme that is not directly addressed in Society of the Spectacle, but is implied, is that dissent and protest are a feature that the spectacle uses to generalize itself: dissent is encouraged and cultural representations of dissent are encouraged, and when those cultural representations of dissent become sufficiently autonomous they are reintegrated into the spectacular system in a de-fanged manner, after which the spectacular system covers an area of memetic territory closer to that of the radical splinter group and thus the radicals seem less radical, but it never covers the entirety of the group because of that group's actions. It takes a more extreme group with more extreme demands to fully normalize and assimilate an extreme group.)

[hooplala]

We have to buy everything from "Them" anyway, that's why we protest.

I have heard many versions of "pointing out the hypocrisy in protesters" and they all boil down to the same basic message, which is "How dare that slave try to run away wearing trousers the Master gave him".

Actually it's more than just making masks with cheap labor. I mean, that by itself is morally equivalent to broadcasting pirate TV or radio on frequencies owned or licensed by somebody else. What I object to isn't the physical act of making the masks and how that ultimately benefits the same entities who benefit from consumerism, but the fact that Anonymous, like everything else, is just another Brand™ to choose from. Another prepackaged, rebel-based motif with which to decorate your entirely docile, domesticated, non-threatening existence. Like anything that called itself "punk" after 1980.

Anonymous is now a product on the shelf, and though that isn't what it's intended to be and certainly isn't what it started out as, it has been effectively consumerized in record time. The picture sort of illustrates that point, for me at least.

Actually, I think that's nonsense. Saying that it's been "consumerized" because the emblematic mask that was chosen for its symbolic link to the freedom fighter from V for Vendetta is now more recognizable as a symbol of Anonymous protest is blatantly ridiculous. It's like saying that protesting is consumerized because of the recognizable prevalence of red bandanas as protest wear. Red bandanas were already being mass-produced before people started wearing them to protect their airways from teargas, and Guy Fawkes masks were already being mass-produced before they were latched onto by protesters (which happened before Anonymous co-opted them, by the way). Anonymous is a tiny fraction of the market for those masks... and if it's more than a tiny fraction, then they are indeed a movement for the powers-that-be to fear.

Being "Consumerized" is what we call it when products are driven to market by a movement, not what we call it when a movement happens to pick something up that is widely available and cheap.

No, that wasn't what I was saying. It isn't "consumerized" just because it has a symbol, or just because that symbol is co-opted from mass media, or because it is mass-produced. It's consumerized because rebellion in general is now a brand. A subculture. Almost as easily defined and prepared for as it is recognizable. "Down with the system" is the new "Just do it." The net result on society is zero -- not because nothing changes but because those changes are gradual enough for the status quo to adapt to them ahead of time.

Protesters brought down a string of governments across North Africa and the Middle East, but so far their revolutions have failed to accomplish anything very impressive at a cultural level. In the rest of the world, these protesters have done even less. We amass in Free Speech Zones,  wave signs, make a racket with drum circles, get kicked and shot at by the police, choke on tear gas, get knocked over by water cannons, arrested, released, and then we go home and blog about it between community service assignments.

The revolution is a product, another group identity available to anyone who's too jaded to be a Wiccan. It's barely more dangerous than being a Goth kid was when I was in high school, and all the extra danger is to your own reputation and employability.

I see your point, but I think the difference is Anonymous now and then actually does fuck with people who deserve to be fucked with.  Yeah, sometimes its a couple of douchebags from Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares, but since Anonymous is -by definition- anonymous, anyone can claim an act in their name... but every once in a while they take a good sized chomp on Scientology, or kiddie porn sites, or the Westboro Baptists.  These people desperately need to be fucked with, and since I don't know enough computer voodoo to do it myself, I am glad that they are out there.  They are batman enough for me.

Yes, protest has become a subculture, and people reposting outrage on Tumblr while waiting for their poptart to warm in the toaster are worthy of your ire, I don't really think most of Anonymous is.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I have to take a shit-ton of meds just to breathe.
I happen to like breathing properly, and think it superior to the various options of Not Breathing properly.

  I can "prep" all I want.  Inhalers stay chemically active for about 4 years, I believe. 
After that I am going to slowly succumb to a degenerative illness-untreated asthma causes lung capacity to shrink, you see.
Eventually I'll die...slowly.
When I was younger I didn't really care if I lived or died-I felt like dying for a cause would justify my heretofore shitty life, so I was ok with that concept.
I'm selfish enough to want to keep my oxy habit now.

So I'm predisposed to NOT want to rip it all down.

And that's the thing... the vast majority of protesters and activists don't WANT revolution, they don't want to "rip it all down". They just want things to be better. They want labels on their food, and adequate compensation for their work, and health care, and not to be foreclosed on.

And as loud as some people keep repeating that protesting and activism doesn't do anything, it, nonetheless, does have an effect on both other people's minds (think that the nationwide shift towards acceptance of gay marriage just happened magically, on it's own?) and on the political powers-that-be, as witness to the fact that after next year State universities in Oregon will switch to the pay-it-forward system, we are having a review of health care practices with an eye to switching to a single-payer system, and we require banks that are foreclosing on mortgage holders to attend independent mediation, at their expense, wherein they must demonstrate that they followed correct legal procedure, including a good-faith attempt to work with the homeowner to keep their house. Minimum wage here is $8.95 and servers cannot be paid less just because they also receive tips.

We haven't gotten jobs or the housing situation sorted out yet, but changes are in the works, and you better believe that a LOT of this has come about due to pressure put on our politicians; pressure that was visibly demonstrated by protests and marches and activism. If everybody just stayed home and kept their mouths shut, do you think any of this would be happening? Would gay marriage and marijuana be legal in Washington without activism? LOL NO.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

You don't need any amount of computer voodoo to Anonymous, for the record.

[Doktor Howl]

Thing is, Nigel, this has resulted in the population galloping to the left.  It's hard to see day-to-day, because the 20% that thought Palin was a good idea are LOUD.  But looking at things from a results-based viewpoint, what's changed, there's no doubt that a bit of sanity is returning.

It's a long game.  Results take time, but they are occurring.  Getting impatient and declaring the system defunct plays directly into the hands of the people who aren't really happy with the idea of a republic...The Koch brothers, among other people.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Thing is, Nigel, this has resulted in the population galloping to the left.  It's hard to see day-to-day, because the 20% that thought Palin was a good idea are LOUD.  But looking at things from a results-based viewpoint, what's changed, there's no doubt that a bit of sanity is returning.

It's a long game.  Results take time, but they are occurring.  Getting impatient and declaring the system defunct plays directly into the hands of the people who aren't really happy with the idea of a republic...The Koch brothers, among other people.

Bingo.

And the screeching and trying to pass insane restrictive laws... that is a sign of fear, because the right knows they're losing ground.

[Doktor Howl]

Thing is, Nigel, this has resulted in the population galloping to the left.  It's hard to see day-to-day, because the 20% that thought Palin was a good idea are LOUD.  But looking at things from a results-based viewpoint, what's changed, there's no doubt that a bit of sanity is returning.

It's a long game.  Results take time, but they are occurring.  Getting impatient and declaring the system defunct plays directly into the hands of the people who aren't really happy with the idea of a republic...The Koch brothers, among other people.

Bingo.

And the screeching and trying to pass insane restrictive laws... that is a sign of fear, because the right knows they're losing ground.

This is true.  The fear, of course, isn't in the representatives, it's in the louder portion of their constituents.  The representatives are merely - for the most part, there are some genuine nuts - pandering to their base.