And you have reason to believe that that book, and that guy you heard about on a podcast, are authoritative beyond question? I mean, to the point where it's reasonable for you to insist to people who disagree that THEY'RE wrong, and to question the sincerity of their desire for change?
I'd always choose non-violent protest over violent protest. Sometimes though, that choice is taken away.
Also, many of our current societies and nations were founded by violent protest (USA, France, China, Vietnam, Algeria, pretty certain I could continue this list for quite a while ). A lot depends on the attitude of the old regime.
I'd always choose non-violent protest over violent protest. Sometimes though, that choice is taken away.
Also, many of our current societies and nations were founded by violent protest (USA, France, China, Vietnam, Algeria, pretty certain I could continue this list for quite a while ). A lot depends on the attitude of the old regime.
So in what circumstances can we, should we use violent protest? You and me that is? In what exigent circumstances in the UK? In Europe? The USA?
And you have reason to believe that that book, and that guy you heard about on a podcast, are authoritative beyond question? I mean, to the point where it's reasonable for you to insist to people who disagree that THEY'RE wrong, and to question the sincerity of their desire for change?
My point, if you bothered to read it, was that research was based on DATA. Whereupon people come along here and just say "no, I think..."
Which is ideology.
You might be entitled to your own opinion, but you're not entitled to your own fucking facts. If research has been done on hundred of protests movements and the outcomes of them, then the way to show that's wrong is to show that they're inaccurate about either which movements were non-violent and which were violent, OR which movements were successful and which movements were not successful.
The way to show that's wrong is NOT to hop onto a fucking message board and say "well I think that violent protest works better". But hey, the whole world works these days on people ignoring efforts to collate actual data, so why should this be any different.
As to your proposition of questioning the sincerity of their desire for change... you didn't actually look up who Srdja Popovic is, did you? I can tell.
And you have reason to believe that that book, and that guy you heard about on a podcast, are authoritative beyond question? I mean, to the point where it's reasonable for you to insist to people who disagree that THEY'RE wrong, and to question the sincerity of their desire for change?
My point, if you bothered to read it, was that research was based on DATA. Whereupon people come along here and just say "no, I think..."
Great, more capital letters. I hope you're stamping your foot when you type that way; that way at least somebody gets something out of it.
Yes, research is based on data. But there's a lot of research that's contested, or just wrong; it's worth asking why someone, particularly a non-expert, seems so certain that a source is authoritative. (Perhaps your say-so doesn't carry the persuasive weight that you seem to think it does.)
As to your proposition of questioning the sincerity of their desire for change... you didn't actually look up who Srdja Popovic is, did you? I can tell.
Can you now? Is this another thing you're certain of? Is your research based on data - excuse me, DATA?
Seriously, your response is to complain that I used capital letters instead of bold or italics or some other way of conveying emphasis?
Well I'm convinced now.
Okay fine, let's look at the other alternative to you not looking up Srdja Popovic. The alternative is that you looked him up and concluded one of several things:
1. A man led a protest movement but was secretly against change.
2. A man created an organisation focused on advising other people how to successfully agitate for change, but is secretly against change.
3. People keep going to this man and his organisation for advice despite the fact that his advice doesn't work... because he's secretly against change.
I mean, I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt and describe you as lazy, but if you want to claim illogical and stupid instead, go for it.
@ orfeo
I didn't see any link by you. The article linked by Dafyd said non-violent protests were twice as likely to work, not that violent protests did not work. Twice as likely means 1/3 of the violent protests worked. As I posted earlier:
The article you linked shows no data directly. Instead, it links to one book which covers 323 protests over 100 years across multiple cultures. The variables presented by the time and culture variation raises many questions without seeing the framework of the study
@ orfeo
I didn't see any link by you. The article linked by Dafyd said non-violent protests were twice as likely to work, not that violent protests did not work. Twice as likely means 1/3 of the violent protests worked.
Well I know it says that they're twice as likely to work. I never claimed otherwise.
Though you are incorrect in saying that this means 1/3 of the violent protests worked. If non-violent worked 80% of the time, violent worked 40% of the time. If non-violent worked 30% of the time, violent worked 15% of the time. And so on.
It's fascinating, though, why anyone who actually wanted to achieve change would take that information and then go on to use it to justify violent protest. It doesn't. It says that if you choose violent protest you cut your chance of success in half.
Seriously, your response is to complain that I used capital letters instead of bold or italics or some other way of conveying emphasis?
Well I'm convinced now.
Okay fine, let's look at the other alternative to you not looking up Srdja Popovic. The alternative is that you looked him up and concluded one of several things:
1. A man led a protest movement but was secretly against change.
2. A man created an organisation focused on advising other people how to successfully agitate for change, but is secretly against change.
3. People keep going to this man and his organisation for advice despite the fact that his advice doesn't work... because he's secretly against change.
I mean, I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt and describe you as lazy, but if you want to claim illogical and stupid instead, go for it.
You seem to have wandered off into an almost comical misunderstanding of a very short post. When I said this:
And you have reason to believe that that book, and that guy you heard about on a podcast, are authoritative beyond question? I mean, to the point where it's reasonable for you to insist to people who disagree that THEY'RE wrong, and to question the sincerity of their desire for change?
I was referring to your post here, in which you were the one questioning the sincerity of others posting on this thread.
I see that you've added personal abuse to your repertoire; I can't say that I find it any more compelling than your overuse of capitalization.
The article linked by Dafyd said non-violent protests were twice as likely to work, not that violent protests did not work. Twice as likely means 1/3 of the violent protests worked.
The claim is actually that about half of the non-violent resistance movements succeeded, but only a quarter of the violent ones did - from the Atlantic article:
They concluded that nonviolent protests were twice as likely to succeed as violent ones—53 percent of the nonviolent demonstrations achieved their goal, as opposed to 26 percent of violent ones.
@ orfeo
I didn't see any link by you. The article linked by Dafyd said non-violent protests were twice as likely to work, not that violent protests did not work. Twice as likely means 1/3 of the violent protests worked.
Well I know it says that they're twice as likely to work. I never claimed otherwise.
Though you are incorrect in saying that this means 1/3 of the violent protests worked. If non-violent worked 80% of the time, violent worked 40% of the time. If non-violent worked 30% of the time, violent worked 15% of the time. And so on.
It's fascinating, though, why anyone who actually wanted to achieve change would take that information and then go on to use it to justify violent protest. It doesn't. It says that if you choose violent protest you cut your chance of success in half.
Nice. You ignore my very real criticism of taking the purported data at face value and then make build a strawman to burn instead.
Seriously, your response is to complain that I used capital letters instead of bold or italics or some other way of conveying emphasis?
Well I'm convinced now.
Okay fine, let's look at the other alternative to you not looking up Srdja Popovic. The alternative is that you looked him up and concluded one of several things:
1. A man led a protest movement but was secretly against change.
2. A man created an organisation focused on advising other people how to successfully agitate for change, but is secretly against change.
3. People keep going to this man and his organisation for advice despite the fact that his advice doesn't work... because he's secretly against change.
I mean, I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt and describe you as lazy, but if you want to claim illogical and stupid instead, go for it.
You seem to have wandered off into an almost comical misunderstanding of a very short post. When I said this:
And you have reason to believe that that book, and that guy you heard about on a podcast, are authoritative beyond question? I mean, to the point where it's reasonable for you to insist to people who disagree that THEY'RE wrong, and to question the sincerity of their desire for change?
I was referring to your post here, in which you were the one questioning the sincerity of others posting on this thread.
I see that you've added personal abuse to your repertoire; I can't say that I find it any more compelling than your overuse of capitalization.
The article linked by Dafyd said non-violent protests were twice as likely to work, not that violent protests did not work. Twice as likely means 1/3 of the violent protests worked.
The claim is actually that about half of the non-violent resistance movements succeeded, but only a quarter of the violent ones did - from the Atlantic article:
They concluded that nonviolent protests were twice as likely to succeed as violent ones—53 percent of the nonviolent demonstrations achieved their goal, as opposed to 26 percent of violent ones.
OK, no, it doesn't say 1/3. However, it does illustrate why just the simle synopsis of the article is insufficient to make the conclusion that violent protests are ineffective. 21% of the protests are completely unaccounted for. We can assume they didn't work, but were they violent or non-violent? Or what percentage of each? And given the lack of parameters of the book's study, it is difficult to know if they are comparing apples to apples or hammers to featherbeds.
It's fascinating, though, why anyone who actually wanted to achieve change would take that information and then go on to use it to justify violent protest. It doesn't. It says that if you choose violent protest you cut your chance of success in half.
At the same time there's data that half of non-violent protests achieve the change being called for, and a quarter of violent protests. So, if (say) you're part of a community that has spent 50 years campaigning peacefully to have the same rights as your pale-skinned neighbours without success does the data support continuing with the non-violent approach, or that if you also start to engage in acts of violence against your oppressors you also have a 25% chance that that may tip the balance to achieve the equal treatment you deserve? At what point does the general data (non-violence is twice as effective) stop over-riding the specific data (we've been protesting non-violently for 50 years without success)?
@ orfeo
I didn't see any link by you. The article linked by Dafyd said non-violent protests were twice as likely to work, not that violent protests did not work. Twice as likely means 1/3 of the violent protests worked.
Well I know it says that they're twice as likely to work. I never claimed otherwise.
Though you are incorrect in saying that this means 1/3 of the violent protests worked. If non-violent worked 80% of the time, violent worked 40% of the time. If non-violent worked 30% of the time, violent worked 15% of the time. And so on.
It's fascinating, though, why anyone who actually wanted to achieve change would take that information and then go on to use it to justify violent protest. It doesn't. It says that if you choose violent protest you cut your chance of success in half.
So protest can work between 120% and 45% of the time? And not work -20% to 55% of the time?
Lilbuddha is technically correct that if all there were to the article were the statistics then there could be a confounding variable: protest movements are more likely to use violent means when the regime is stronger, for example.
But that's not all there is to the studies. The studies suggest that what successful violent and nonviolent protest movements have in common is:
They have the active support of a large number of the population (the article says 15%).
They have the active support of a diverse cross-section of the population;
They cause widespread economic disruption;
The supporters of the ruling elites view the protestors as less of an economic threat if they're given what they want.
All of these are harder to achieve if you use violence. Yes, even the last: violent protest movements that claim that they won't send their opponents to the guillotine or gulag tend not to be believed.
Seriously, your response is to complain that I used capital letters instead of bold or italics or some other way of conveying emphasis?
Well I'm convinced now.
Okay fine, let's look at the other alternative to you not looking up Srdja Popovic. The alternative is that you looked him up and concluded one of several things:
1. A man led a protest movement but was secretly against change.
2. A man created an organisation focused on advising other people how to successfully agitate for change, but is secretly against change.
3. People keep going to this man and his organisation for advice despite the fact that his advice doesn't work... because he's secretly against change.
I mean, I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt and describe you as lazy, but if you want to claim illogical and stupid instead, go for it.
You seem to have wandered off into an almost comical misunderstanding of a very short post. When I said this:
And you have reason to believe that that book, and that guy you heard about on a podcast, are authoritative beyond question? I mean, to the point where it's reasonable for you to insist to people who disagree that THEY'RE wrong, and to question the sincerity of their desire for change?
I was referring to your post here, in which you were the one questioning the sincerity of others posting on this thread.
I see that you've added personal abuse to your repertoire; I can't say that I find it any more compelling than your overuse of capitalization.
The article linked by Dafyd said non-violent protests were twice as likely to work, not that violent protests did not work. Twice as likely means 1/3 of the violent protests worked.
The claim is actually that about half of the non-violent resistance movements succeeded, but only a quarter of the violent ones did - from the Atlantic article:
They concluded that nonviolent protests were twice as likely to succeed as violent ones—53 percent of the nonviolent demonstrations achieved their goal, as opposed to 26 percent of violent ones.
OK, no, it doesn't say 1/3. However, it does illustrate why just the simle synopsis of the article is insufficient to make the conclusion that violent protests are ineffective. 21% of the protests are completely unaccounted for. We can assume they didn't work, but were they violent or non-violent? Or what percentage of each? And given the lack of parameters of the book's study, it is difficult to know if they are comparing apples to apples or hammers to featherbeds.
I think you’re misunderstanding these percentages - there’s no “21% unaccounted for”. They analyzed a large number of resistance movements and rated each of them as violent or non-violent and successful or failed. Of the cases they rated as violent, 26% succeeded; of the cases they rated as non-violent, 53% succeeded. Adding these numbers and subtracting from 100 doesn’t correspond to anything.
Lilbuddha is technically correct that if all there were to the article were the statistics then there could be a confounding variable: protest movements are more likely to use violent means when the regime is stronger, for example.
But that's not all there is to the studies. The studies suggest that what successful violent and nonviolent protest movements have in common is:
They have the active support of a large number of the population (the article says 15%).
They have the active support of a diverse cross-section of the population;
They cause widespread economic disruption;
The supporters of the ruling elites view the protestors as less of an economic threat if they're given what they want.
All of these are harder to achieve if you use violence.
You realise that violence often happens because:
A large % of the population won't support the protest.
The support of a diverse cross-section either doesn't happen or
Their combined influence does not create a significant impact.
The supporters of the ruling elites fear their own status will diminish by giving the protesters what they want.
Seriously, your response is to complain that I used capital letters instead of bold or italics or some other way of conveying emphasis?
Well I'm convinced now.
Okay fine, let's look at the other alternative to you not looking up Srdja Popovic. The alternative is that you looked him up and concluded one of several things:
1. A man led a protest movement but was secretly against change.
2. A man created an organisation focused on advising other people how to successfully agitate for change, but is secretly against change.
3. People keep going to this man and his organisation for advice despite the fact that his advice doesn't work... because he's secretly against change.
I mean, I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt and describe you as lazy, but if you want to claim illogical and stupid instead, go for it.
You seem to have wandered off into an almost comical misunderstanding of a very short post. When I said this:
And you have reason to believe that that book, and that guy you heard about on a podcast, are authoritative beyond question? I mean, to the point where it's reasonable for you to insist to people who disagree that THEY'RE wrong, and to question the sincerity of their desire for change?
I was referring to your post here, in which you were the one questioning the sincerity of others posting on this thread.
I see that you've added personal abuse to your repertoire; I can't say that I find it any more compelling than your overuse of capitalization.
The article linked by Dafyd said non-violent protests were twice as likely to work, not that violent protests did not work. Twice as likely means 1/3 of the violent protests worked.
The claim is actually that about half of the non-violent resistance movements succeeded, but only a quarter of the violent ones did - from the Atlantic article:
They concluded that nonviolent protests were twice as likely to succeed as violent ones—53 percent of the nonviolent demonstrations achieved their goal, as opposed to 26 percent of violent ones.
OK, no, it doesn't say 1/3. However, it does illustrate why just the simle synopsis of the article is insufficient to make the conclusion that violent protests are ineffective. 21% of the protests are completely unaccounted for. We can assume they didn't work, but were they violent or non-violent? Or what percentage of each? And given the lack of parameters of the book's study, it is difficult to know if they are comparing apples to apples or hammers to featherbeds.
I think you’re misunderstanding these percentages - there’s no “21% unaccounted for”. They analyzed a large number of resistance movements and rated each of them as violent or non-violent and successful or failed. Of the cases they rated as violent, 26% succeeded; of the cases they rated as non-violent, 53% succeeded. Adding these numbers and subtracting from 100 doesn’t correspond to anything.
Of course it does. It means the others didn't succeed or didn't fit the parameters they established for violent/non-violent. Without the parameters of the study, we are flying pretty blind.
Seriously, your response is to complain that I used capital letters instead of bold or italics or some other way of conveying emphasis?
Well I'm convinced now.
Okay fine, let's look at the other alternative to you not looking up Srdja Popovic. The alternative is that you looked him up and concluded one of several things:
1. A man led a protest movement but was secretly against change.
2. A man created an organisation focused on advising other people how to successfully agitate for change, but is secretly against change.
3. People keep going to this man and his organisation for advice despite the fact that his advice doesn't work... because he's secretly against change.
I mean, I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt and describe you as lazy, but if you want to claim illogical and stupid instead, go for it.
You seem to have wandered off into an almost comical misunderstanding of a very short post. When I said this:
And you have reason to believe that that book, and that guy you heard about on a podcast, are authoritative beyond question? I mean, to the point where it's reasonable for you to insist to people who disagree that THEY'RE wrong, and to question the sincerity of their desire for change?
I was referring to your post here, in which you were the one questioning the sincerity of others posting on this thread.
I see that you've added personal abuse to your repertoire; I can't say that I find it any more compelling than your overuse of capitalization.
The article linked by Dafyd said non-violent protests were twice as likely to work, not that violent protests did not work. Twice as likely means 1/3 of the violent protests worked.
The claim is actually that about half of the non-violent resistance movements succeeded, but only a quarter of the violent ones did - from the Atlantic article:
They concluded that nonviolent protests were twice as likely to succeed as violent ones—53 percent of the nonviolent demonstrations achieved their goal, as opposed to 26 percent of violent ones.
OK, no, it doesn't say 1/3. However, it does illustrate why just the simle synopsis of the article is insufficient to make the conclusion that violent protests are ineffective. 21% of the protests are completely unaccounted for. We can assume they didn't work, but were they violent or non-violent? Or what percentage of each? And given the lack of parameters of the book's study, it is difficult to know if they are comparing apples to apples or hammers to featherbeds.
I think you’re misunderstanding these percentages - there’s no “21% unaccounted for”. They analyzed a large number of resistance movements and rated each of them as violent or non-violent and successful or failed. Of the cases they rated as violent, 26% succeeded; of the cases they rated as non-violent, 53% succeeded. Adding these numbers and subtracting from 100 doesn’t correspond to anything.
Of course it does. It means the others didn't succeed or didn't fit the parameters they established for violent/non-violent. Without the parameters of the study, we are flying pretty blind.
No, it really doesn't - there aren't any "others". The 26% and 53% number are success rates for the two classifications of movements; they aren't fractions of the total number of successful movements.
According to these authors, violent movements succeed 26% of the time and fail 74% of the time (26%+74%=100% of violent movements); non-violent movements succeed 53% of the time and fail 47% of the time (53%+47%=100% of non-violent movements.)
Seriously, your response is to complain that I used capital letters instead of bold or italics or some other way of conveying emphasis?
Well I'm convinced now.
Okay fine, let's look at the other alternative to you not looking up Srdja Popovic. The alternative is that you looked him up and concluded one of several things:
1. A man led a protest movement but was secretly against change.
2. A man created an organisation focused on advising other people how to successfully agitate for change, but is secretly against change.
3. People keep going to this man and his organisation for advice despite the fact that his advice doesn't work... because he's secretly against change.
I mean, I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt and describe you as lazy, but if you want to claim illogical and stupid instead, go for it.
You seem to have wandered off into an almost comical misunderstanding of a very short post. When I said this:
And you have reason to believe that that book, and that guy you heard about on a podcast, are authoritative beyond question? I mean, to the point where it's reasonable for you to insist to people who disagree that THEY'RE wrong, and to question the sincerity of their desire for change?
I was referring to your post here, in which you were the one questioning the sincerity of others posting on this thread.
I see that you've added personal abuse to your repertoire; I can't say that I find it any more compelling than your overuse of capitalization.
The article linked by Dafyd said non-violent protests were twice as likely to work, not that violent protests did not work. Twice as likely means 1/3 of the violent protests worked.
The claim is actually that about half of the non-violent resistance movements succeeded, but only a quarter of the violent ones did - from the Atlantic article:
They concluded that nonviolent protests were twice as likely to succeed as violent ones—53 percent of the nonviolent demonstrations achieved their goal, as opposed to 26 percent of violent ones.
OK, no, it doesn't say 1/3. However, it does illustrate why just the simle synopsis of the article is insufficient to make the conclusion that violent protests are ineffective. 21% of the protests are completely unaccounted for. We can assume they didn't work, but were they violent or non-violent? Or what percentage of each? And given the lack of parameters of the book's study, it is difficult to know if they are comparing apples to apples or hammers to featherbeds.
I think you’re misunderstanding these percentages - there’s no “21% unaccounted for”. They analyzed a large number of resistance movements and rated each of them as violent or non-violent and successful or failed. Of the cases they rated as violent, 26% succeeded; of the cases they rated as non-violent, 53% succeeded. Adding these numbers and subtracting from 100 doesn’t correspond to anything.
Of course it does. It means the others didn't succeed or didn't fit the parameters they established for violent/non-violent. Without the parameters of the study, we are flying pretty blind.
No, because the percentages are expressed over the two sub-populations of violent and non-violent protests, not over the total population of all sampled protests. So the full percentages are:
NON-VIOLENT
53% successful
47% unsuccessful
VIOLENT
26% successful
74% unsuccessful
It's like saying (for example) 21% of Scots vote Conservative and 45% of English people vote Conservative - you can validly say that the English are more likely to vote Conservative than the Scots, even though the percentages are over different populations (and indeed different sized populations). But adding 21% to 45% doesn't get you a meaningful number.
That said, where I would exercise caution would be in how the two populations are obtained in the first place; protests can't be randomly sampled as easily as voters, nor are the two populations completely independent of each other (because someone could feel forced to try violent protest after non-violent protest had failed, or indeed vice versa).
Lilbuddha's statement makes sense if she's under the impression that 26% of violent movements succeed means the same as 26% of successful movements are violent.
(The two don't mean the same, to state the obvious.)
All of these are harder to achieve if you use violence.
You realise that violence often happens because:
A large % of the population won't support the protest.
The support of a diverse cross-section either doesn't happen or
Their combined influence does not create a significant impact.
The supporters of the ruling elites fear their own status will diminish by giving the protesters what they want.
The fact that people resort to homeopathy when conventional medicine doesn't work doesn't show the homeopathy is more likely to work. Likewise, the fact that people resort to violence when nonviolence hasn't worked doesn't show that violence is more likely to work. You yourself admit that you think violence is quicker; which is to say that you think nonviolence needs more patience.
All of these are harder to achieve if you use violence.
You realise that violence often happens because:
A large % of the population won't support the protest.
The support of a diverse cross-section either doesn't happen or
Their combined influence does not create a significant impact.
The supporters of the ruling elites fear their own status will diminish by giving the protesters what they want.
The fact that people resort to homeopathy when conventional medicine doesn't work doesn't show the homeopathy is more likely to work. Likewise, the fact that people resort to violence when nonviolence hasn't worked doesn't show that violence is more likely to work.
You have to examine the situation for each instance. Which, again, is my problem with the "data" in the link you used.
Likewise, the fact that people resort to violence when nonviolence hasn't worked doesn't show that violence is more likely to work.
You have to examine the situation for each instance. Which, again, is my problem with the "data" in the link you used.
You say again as if you think that what you tell us three times is true. Since the study is drawing rather more detailed conclusions than just nonviolence works better than violence I still see no reason to suppose your statement is the case. I said so in the post starting Lilbuddha is technically correct, to which you responded off the point. As orfeo points out you're claiming that there are problems with the data merely because the conclusions don't fit your preferred beliefs.
You yourself admit that you think violence is quicker; which is to say that you think nonviolence needs more patience.
Also, again, protest needs a threat to accompany it to be effective. Non-violence needs a larger threat, one that is not always possible.
Again you say again as if your point weren't anticipated in the article, in my summary in the OP, in several subsequent posts... It's a bit rich of you to stress again as if nobody's read your points when you haven't designed to read the responses.
Violence needs an equally large threat as the article explains. Because: again the people you need to threaten are not going to be directly in your firing line; again not only must your threat of violence be credible, your promise to remove the threat if you get what you want must also be credible, and the two are largely incompatible - a threat to assassinate leaders of industry is no use if they think you'll send them to the gulag if they give in; again violence tends just to result in further crackdowns or general hostility;
mostly the kind of people you need to threaten don't believe violence will happen to them - even if you target one of them successfully the others will think they're an exception.
THE. ARTICLE. IS. NOT. DATA. There is some data referenced and I've pointed out the problems with it as presented. You say you've addessed what I've said? I don't see it. You have addressed the percentage misunderstanding, but not he problems with the data as presented in the article.
Let's go through it again. The bold are the main points of your article. Practice Nonviolence For this positions, the article references this book. Without seeing the context of the protests, the data is fairly useless. They cover protests over a century across multiple cultures. We cannot see if the comparisons between them are apt, nor if they properly use the context of each protest itself. Aim for the CenterNot all protests can pull from the centre. The Civil Rights Movement in America took centuries to get the centre to begin to participate in any numbers. Unlike the Serbian uprising, the police and authorities confronting the Civil Rights Movement didn't have their families in the protesters. Neither did the apartheid forces. Hit Them Where It HurtsWhen the poor protest, they have limited economic effect. The unions listed as standing up to protect the election were noticeably absent for BLM. Not everyone has access to the same resources to create the same threat.
I'm not even dismissing their basic contention that non-violent protests are generally more effective, I am objecting to the idea that they are always the correct route.
Not everything can be proved or disproved via double blind trials: dataolatry is a major idolatry of the internet age. Philosophical arguments are tested in philosophical ways: by counterarguments, by positing phenomoena they don't account for, etc. The word "data" is not a deity before which all must bow.
Aim for the CenterNot all protests can pull from the centre. The Civil Rights Movement in America took centuries to get the centre to begin to participate in any numbers. Unlike the Serbian uprising, the police and authorities confronting the Civil Rights Movement didn't have their families in the protesters. Neither did the apartheid forces.
But the argument being made is that if the protest cannot capture the centre, then it won't succeed, regardless of whether it is violent or peaceful. IOW, if your peaceful protest fails because you can't capture the centre, then your violent protest will fail for the same reason. There are no or few examples of violent protests working without capturing the centre.
Aim for the CenterNot all protests can pull from the centre. The Civil Rights Movement in America took centuries to get the centre to begin to participate in any numbers. Unlike the Serbian uprising, the police and authorities confronting the Civil Rights Movement didn't have their families in the protesters. Neither did the apartheid forces.
But the argument being made is that if the protest cannot capture the centre, then it won't succeed, regardless of whether it is violent or peaceful. IOW, if your peaceful protest fails because you can't capture the centre, then your violent protest will fail for the same reason. There are no or few examples of violent protests working without capturing the centre.
Violence can potetially engage the centre because it can bring fear or help hit home the severity of the resons for protest.
I don't think that violence is any magic bullet. I am arguing that the while thing is not as cut and dry as some people posit.
Comments
Well the article links to one of the relevant texts.
I'm also aware of Srdja Popovic through a podcast interview, no doubt he and his organisation have various material as well.
Also, many of our current societies and nations were founded by violent protest (USA, France, China, Vietnam, Algeria, pretty certain I could continue this list for quite a while ). A lot depends on the attitude of the old regime.
So in what circumstances can we, should we use violent protest? You and me that is? In what exigent circumstances in the UK? In Europe? The USA?
My point, if you bothered to read it, was that research was based on DATA. Whereupon people come along here and just say "no, I think..."
Which is ideology.
You might be entitled to your own opinion, but you're not entitled to your own fucking facts. If research has been done on hundred of protests movements and the outcomes of them, then the way to show that's wrong is to show that they're inaccurate about either which movements were non-violent and which were violent, OR which movements were successful and which movements were not successful.
The way to show that's wrong is NOT to hop onto a fucking message board and say "well I think that violent protest works better". But hey, the whole world works these days on people ignoring efforts to collate actual data, so why should this be any different.
Yes, research is based on data. But there's a lot of research that's contested, or just wrong; it's worth asking why someone, particularly a non-expert, seems so certain that a source is authoritative. (Perhaps your say-so doesn't carry the persuasive weight that you seem to think it does.)
Can you now? Is this another thing you're certain of? Is your research based on data - excuse me, DATA?
Well I'm convinced now.
Okay fine, let's look at the other alternative to you not looking up Srdja Popovic. The alternative is that you looked him up and concluded one of several things:
1. A man led a protest movement but was secretly against change.
2. A man created an organisation focused on advising other people how to successfully agitate for change, but is secretly against change.
3. People keep going to this man and his organisation for advice despite the fact that his advice doesn't work... because he's secretly against change.
I mean, I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt and describe you as lazy, but if you want to claim illogical and stupid instead, go for it.
I didn't see any link by you. The article linked by Dafyd said non-violent protests were twice as likely to work, not that violent protests did not work. Twice as likely means 1/3 of the violent protests worked. As I posted earlier: There is data, DATA and Data
I would add that, although they are often conflated, there is a difference between violent protests and protests at which violence occurs.
Well I know it says that they're twice as likely to work. I never claimed otherwise.
Though you are incorrect in saying that this means 1/3 of the violent protests worked. If non-violent worked 80% of the time, violent worked 40% of the time. If non-violent worked 30% of the time, violent worked 15% of the time. And so on.
It's fascinating, though, why anyone who actually wanted to achieve change would take that information and then go on to use it to justify violent protest. It doesn't. It says that if you choose violent protest you cut your chance of success in half.
I see that you've added personal abuse to your repertoire; I can't say that I find it any more compelling than your overuse of capitalization.
The claim is actually that about half of the non-violent resistance movements succeeded, but only a quarter of the violent ones did - from the Atlantic article:
The last is the best, IMHO, as long as his brother isn't around.
I'd never heard of him, so I went poking around. Lots of info, but these are in his own words.
--"How to start a revolution in five easy steps: humour and hobbits, but no guns: Srdja Popovic shares his guide to changing the world – explaining why jokes are more powerful than guns and revolutions can start anywhere" (The Guardian).
--"The Power of Laughtivism: Srdja Popovic at TEDxBG" (YouTube).
Some of the comments...well, some professed Serbians aren't exactly his fans. Ditto some professed non-Serbians.
--"TEDxKrakow - Srdja Popovic - How to topple a dictator" (YouTube).
Similar comments here.
Note: I read the article (first link), but haven't watched the TED Talks.
We now return you to your data duel, already in progress.
So protest can work between 120% and 45% of the time? And not work -20% to 55% of the time?
But that's not all there is to the studies. The studies suggest that what successful violent and nonviolent protest movements have in common is:
They have the active support of a large number of the population (the article says 15%).
They have the active support of a diverse cross-section of the population;
They cause widespread economic disruption;
The supporters of the ruling elites view the protestors as less of an economic threat if they're given what they want.
All of these are harder to achieve if you use violence. Yes, even the last: violent protest movements that claim that they won't send their opponents to the guillotine or gulag tend not to be believed.
A large % of the population won't support the protest.
The support of a diverse cross-section either doesn't happen or
Their combined influence does not create a significant impact.
The supporters of the ruling elites fear their own status will diminish by giving the protesters what they want.
According to these authors, violent movements succeed 26% of the time and fail 74% of the time (26%+74%=100% of violent movements); non-violent movements succeed 53% of the time and fail 47% of the time (53%+47%=100% of non-violent movements.)
No, because the percentages are expressed over the two sub-populations of violent and non-violent protests, not over the total population of all sampled protests. So the full percentages are:
NON-VIOLENT
53% successful
47% unsuccessful
VIOLENT
26% successful
74% unsuccessful
It's like saying (for example) 21% of Scots vote Conservative and 45% of English people vote Conservative - you can validly say that the English are more likely to vote Conservative than the Scots, even though the percentages are over different populations (and indeed different sized populations). But adding 21% to 45% doesn't get you a meaningful number.
That said, where I would exercise caution would be in how the two populations are obtained in the first place; protests can't be randomly sampled as easily as voters, nor are the two populations completely independent of each other (because someone could feel forced to try violent protest after non-violent protest had failed, or indeed vice versa).
(The two don't mean the same, to state the obvious.)
But that doesn't change my objections to the data as presented.
Again you say again as if your point weren't anticipated in the article, in my summary in the OP, in several subsequent posts... It's a bit rich of you to stress again as if nobody's read your points when you haven't designed to read the responses.
Violence needs an equally large threat as the article explains. Because:
again the people you need to threaten are not going to be directly in your firing line;
again not only must your threat of violence be credible, your promise to remove the threat if you get what you want must also be credible, and the two are largely incompatible - a threat to assassinate leaders of industry is no use if they think you'll send them to the gulag if they give in;
again violence tends just to result in further crackdowns or general hostility;
mostly the kind of people you need to threaten don't believe violence will happen to them - even if you target one of them successfully the others will think they're an exception.
Let's go through it again. The bold are the main points of your article.
Practice Nonviolence For this positions, the article references this book. Without seeing the context of the protests, the data is fairly useless. They cover protests over a century across multiple cultures. We cannot see if the comparisons between them are apt, nor if they properly use the context of each protest itself.
Aim for the CenterNot all protests can pull from the centre. The Civil Rights Movement in America took centuries to get the centre to begin to participate in any numbers. Unlike the Serbian uprising, the police and authorities confronting the Civil Rights Movement didn't have their families in the protesters. Neither did the apartheid forces.
Hit Them Where It HurtsWhen the poor protest, they have limited economic effect. The unions listed as standing up to protect the election were noticeably absent for BLM. Not everyone has access to the same resources to create the same threat.
I'm not even dismissing their basic contention that non-violent protests are generally more effective, I am objecting to the idea that they are always the correct route.
But the argument being made is that if the protest cannot capture the centre, then it won't succeed, regardless of whether it is violent or peaceful. IOW, if your peaceful protest fails because you can't capture the centre, then your violent protest will fail for the same reason. There are no or few examples of violent protests working without capturing the centre.
I don't think that violence is any magic bullet. I am arguing that the while thing is not as cut and dry as some people posit.