Of course they never seem prepared. The effects of mob rule, epistemic self-closure, and groupthink - regardless of the ideological background - are literally impossible to diagnose and counteract from within.
From a larger societal perspective it’s kind of fascinating but from a psych 101 perspective it’s not anything particularly new.
I think it is pretty obvious that the protestors were utterly unprepared for national news coverage, who is?
They are learning on their feet and it is depressing to see that on the way they have lost a supportive ally.
So true. I was politicized several years back, so when Occupy hit, I was there. Most people were in their mid or early '20’s (often younger), with plenty of grievances and no experience in self-organization. To be fair, there were a lot of 30-something’s that came around, too. Most of us had to learn everything as we went, and everybody outside of the movement criticized the hell out of us for not already knowing straight out of the womb how to organize effectively. We made a lot of mistakes and had some victories, too, but in the end our projects petered off and most of us dropped out of the organizing scene, leaving the next iteration of distraught young people to start from square one again.
To me, and this seems to be the consensus among other experienced organizers in my network, the fundamental issue with our weak social movements (besides the toxic atmosphere and systematic police sabotage) is that generally they start with a blank slate every few years, because there is usually no consistent group or structure to perpetuate our work. There were virtually no elders around during Occupy (there were some, but a lot of them were very unhelpful Leninists), and I’m afraid that this is going to continue to be the situation until the different age groups get together and form new, persistent organizations outside of the established Left.
Not being black I don’t know what the inside of black liberation groups look like. I hope they’re doing better than white radicals, but to me it looks like the kids involved with BLM and now this incident are just going through the same things we went through, and all of the previous experience of older organizers is just going to waste. I think once the people whose hayday was in the '60’s and '70’s start to die off, then maybe the aura of that time period will no longer have the kind of sway that it has over inter-generational organizing right now, but I don’t feel very hopeful given the state of things, even though I’m glad to see that there is a lot more awareness about problems with the police and more generally the state itself.
She attacked a journalist on camera. She deserves to be fired as far as I’m concerned. The additional fact is she’s a professor and the journalist was a student and she laid hands on the student.
You get fired for that sort of thing at any university.
I don’t think it’s assault in this case. It’s a call for needless physical force none-the-less.
For example, in your scenario if anyone talks about calling in “muscle” to resolve a situation they’re engaging in thuggish behaviour. Most of these situations can be resolved through peaceful means (like walking around or moving aside) and social cues.
In this case they were objecting to his was supposedly crashing a private meeting, but their objections mean very little in broad daylight in an open-air campus quad during a major news event. There were a bunch of other ways for Click to handle this without calling for “muscle.”
And I feel you on annoying people blocking the pavement. But eventually (in my case) one learns to avoid Times Square whenever possible.
uhm, yeah, we were.
The weird thing is that you have the self-closure and groupthink (extreme exclusivity) mixed in with an attitude that “everyone’s voice deserves to be heard” – as long as they’re in rough agreement with us. Which is why you always get the no-added value types like the Black Bloc people (favourite vectors for police spies), the Free Mumia fringies, the annoying drummers, and the opportunistic crustpunks and degenerate addicts at demos and encampments. Which is why you also get either demos run by ineffective “general assemblies” on one extreme or ones run by Stalinists and Maoists who only care about bringing out warm bodies on the other. Either way it turns into a one-upsmanship contest for ego cases like Click. It’s frustrating.
I disagree that it’s impossible to counteract from within, though. It’s an issue of movement discipline and focus. MLK wasn’t shy about telling some self-declared allies to stay home during the civil rights era, and neither were the immigration reform protesters a few years back.
You sure you found the faculty page and not an onion article?
And what, precisely is wrong with what she studies? Because you deem it “unfit” for academic rigor?
Fair enough critique. Honestly, if it were an anthropology professor, or even a sociology professor, studying those topics, I wouldn’t be laughing at them. The fact that it’s a communications professor kind of brings a lot of stereotypes right to the fore, though. In my, admittedly not particularly in-depth, experience with that field, it strikes be as being largely composed of people who want to study a subset of the things sociologists study, but without the level of academic rigor that would be expected of sociologists. If you think I’m way off base with that assessment, feel free to set me straight.
Friend, the First Amendment does not prohibit civilians being rude to reporters or getting in the way of their shots. It prohibits the government from abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press. Before you take others to task for not understanding, ensure that you actually understand yourself.
Let’s finish that statement: …and the University system’s President and Chancellor resign to quell the protest, well gee golly, I guess someone heard the protesters, huh?
A fully formed sense of polity, inasmuch as polity refers to a “state as political entity”, would include freedom of the press, unless your hypothetical students would prefer a polity more aligned with communism or some other, dare I say more tyrannical, form of government.
Yeah, if he was really afraid he would have used his safeword!
/sarcasm
It’s a state school. Click is an employee, and thus an agent of the state. Regardless, illegitimately preventing someone from exercising their First Amendment rights is a civil rights violation, which private citizens can be held responsible for. So no, you don’t have to be the government.
This, to me, is the saddest aspect of this. Some people have ridden in on the wake of truly courageous, principled, and difficult acts (Butler’s hunger strike, the football team’s strike) and basically shat all over them with this bullying and asinine “Look at meee! Don’t look at me!” behavior. When people think of the UM protests now, Melissa Click’s face is likely to be more prominent than Jonathan Butler’s. That’s a far worse crime than pushing a photographer.
Yes, a hundred times over. And while I can appreciate @Mindysan33 and other’s thoughts that Click probably intended to protect the protesters with her own bit of civil disobedience (poorly directed but still), but that was a stupid move on her part and it was rapidly seized upon to discredit the movement as a whole.
Communications studies the mass media. 50 Shades of Gray and Lady Gaga are indeed part of the mass media. Sociologists study society, which can include the mass media, but focuses more on how that can interact with social structures. There are different, though probably some overlapping methodologies. Communications is similar to, but distinct from journalism, in that it’s more of systemic study of media texts.
I do think some of the snark is the subject, not her methodologies, though.
I mean, seriously, did he look like he was fearing for his physical safety. He might have been, but he hid it. I think the screams of “mob” are a bit out of place.
Except she was acting outside of her job, even if it was on campus. First amendment applies to specifically the state, the public sphere. Her actions doesn’t have the force of the state behind her.
I think that’s because people, other than her have made it about her.
This is technically correct (the best kind of correct!), but all professors at the University of Missouri have to sign a pledge saying they will uphold and protect the First Amendment rights of students, so it’s cold comfort. What she did as a representative of a faculty ostensibly supporting academic freedom and liberal values with regards to speech is simply unacceptable.
