The Art of Protest

Looking at the recent Wall Street protests in the news, I've wondered, perhaps naively, what a protester thinks he is accomplishing with his protest. I think the basic assertion or motivation for protesting is to attempt to drive systemic change (i.e. political, social, economic, etc.) in order to improve society. This is all well and good. If true, we could also say, at the danger of crude oversimplification, that the protester may believe that the ills of society are due in large part, if not primarily, to inadequate social systems.

I have written before (it has been several years now) why I hate politics and I think that my annoyance with the recent Wall Street protests strikes at the heart of the matter: while there is an obvious need for social systems, their inevitable and continual reform doesn't fix/change the root of the problem. The root of the problem, or, if you will, "the heart of the matter," is and always has been, the human heart. I find it interesting that the recent economic woes from which these protests are directed were not, in my understanding, the result of a misguided system as much as they were the result of the actions of misguided and corrupt (i.e. greedy) individuals.

Thus, the protests, at least for me, ring hollow. In many ways I see them in the same vein -- missing the mark -- as the conservative Christian Coalition of the 1980s and 90s, seeking to affect societal change through the legislation of morality. Different side of the same coin.

Of course, this does not mean that there is no value to having moral laws any more than it means that there is no place for political involvement. I just choose to not spend my time or energy in those arenas.