Extrapolating from just the American civil rights movement and Indian independence movements, both of them were accompanied by barely contained violent movements with the same goals. Acceding to the demands of the peaceful protests provided a way to give the status of winning the conflict to the peaceful people while meeting the demands of the violent. Conversely, the recent Occupy movement had no real violent wing to speak of and while a lot of people showed up for the protests and there was a lot of awareness raised, there was no legislative impact at all.
I am not talking about violence, I am talking about demanding compassion in a lingo that does not sound harmless and non-threatening, so it is not “pretty please with sugar on top of it”, but kind of challenging and angry. Um, Tumblr. I would expect this to create reactions of either fear or anger, fight-or-flight in other people and that is supposed to prevent the feeling of compassion. Yet, it is working, apparently some of this chain is not true, maybe it does not create fight-or-flight or it does but people can feel compassion while feeling that too.
I guess what I mean is how do you know that it was that tactic that worked? How do you know that the people who showed compassion afterwards did so because it was demanded of them and not because people making angry demands made them feel more safe openly showing pre-existing compassion? I tend to agree with your first impression. I certainly don’t respond to hostility by handing over control of my emotions to hostile people. I get defensive of my position.
Of course this is probably me committing the typical mind fallacy and trying to avoid thinking about the question by finding ways to disqualify it. So, one mechanism that comes to mind is that people who are more prone to guilt may see angry protesting as signaling an issue that their guilt can attach to and then subsequently act compassionately to alleviate their guilt. That’s not very charitable since it assumes a kind of mental defect on the part of the compassionate, so maybe people who were not really aware of another groups suffering and don’t feel too defensive about it once they’re made aware of it and don’t have any particular problem with the defining feature of the suffering group might feel that the angry demands are justified and come to feel/act compassionately for that reason.
Extrapolating from just the American civil rights movement and Indian independence movements, both of them were accompanied by barely contained violent movements with the same goals. Acceding to the demands of the peaceful protests provided a way to give the status of winning the conflict to the peaceful people while meeting the demands of the violent. Conversely, the recent Occupy movement had no real violent wing to speak of and while a lot of people showed up for the protests and there was a lot of awareness raised, there was no legislative impact at all.
The civil rights movement also had the support of powerful parts of the government.
I think the Occupy movement’s bigger problem was their insistence on not actually making any demands at all.
I am not talking about violence, I am talking about demanding compassion in a lingo that does not sound harmless and non-threatening, so it is not “pretty please with sugar on top of it”, but kind of challenging and angry. Um, Tumblr. I would expect this to create reactions of either fear or anger, fight-or-flight in other people and that is supposed to prevent the feeling of compassion. Yet, it is working, apparently some of this chain is not true, maybe it does not create fight-or-flight or it does but people can feel compassion while feeling that too.
Why do you think that angrily demanding compassion works?
I did not want to give concrete examples to avoid rustling feathers, but I saw this at pro-gay-marriage rallies or slut-walks.
I guess what I mean is how do you know that it was that tactic that worked? How do you know that the people who showed compassion afterwards did so because it was demanded of them and not because people making angry demands made them feel more safe openly showing pre-existing compassion? I tend to agree with your first impression. I certainly don’t respond to hostility by handing over control of my emotions to hostile people. I get defensive of my position.
Of course this is probably me committing the typical mind fallacy and trying to avoid thinking about the question by finding ways to disqualify it. So, one mechanism that comes to mind is that people who are more prone to guilt may see angry protesting as signaling an issue that their guilt can attach to and then subsequently act compassionately to alleviate their guilt. That’s not very charitable since it assumes a kind of mental defect on the part of the compassionate, so maybe people who were not really aware of another groups suffering and don’t feel too defensive about it once they’re made aware of it and don’t have any particular problem with the defining feature of the suffering group might feel that the angry demands are justified and come to feel/act compassionately for that reason.