Help

Brain Pickings takes 200+ hours a month to curate and edit. If you find any joy and value in it, we would really appreciate a modest donation.

Subscribe

  • Subscribe by RSS feed
  • Subscribe by email

Connect

  • Follow on Twitter
  • Stumble It
  • Add to del.icio.us
  • Become a Fan
  • TwitterCounter for @brainpicker
ted.com

23

Feb

2010

The Art of Protest

Control vs. chaos, democratic deficits, or why modernity breeds toothless anarchy.

We stumbled across The Art of Protest by filmmaker and illustrator Temujin Doran almost randomly, only to discover a cunning and insightful mini-documentary. The film makes a simple yet powerful cultural observation: Today, protests have become their own ideological antithesis. The meticulous planning, orchestration and coordination are robbing protests of their disruptive anarchism, making them appear contained and controllable in a way that completely erodes their capacity to jolt the status quo out of its plateaus.

This becomes a democratic deficit and is a self-fulfilling process. For a public unable to effect real change by acting only as spectators means they will only ever be seen as such by those in power.

A reaction to how little was accomplished by the global antiwar marches against the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the climate discussions that took place at COP15 last December, the film offers a sober and accurate criticism of “consume and spectate activism,” exuding an urgency to revive or evolve the art of protest.

If we are ever to escape the snare of ineffectual resistance, the art of protesting needs to break free from its current condition, which blocks almost all meaningful expression and participation and allows activist organizations to become as giant and as unanswerable as the states they seek to contest.

Food for thought.

Brain Pickings takes over 200 hours a month to curate, edit and publish. If you find joy and inspiration in it, please consider supporting us with a small donation — it lets us know we’re doing something right.


Psst, we’ve launched a fancy weekly newsletter. It comes out on Sundays, offers the week’s articles, and features five more tasty bites of web-wide interestingness. Here’s an example. Like? Sign up.

25 Responses

  1. The Art of Protest – cunning, insightful minidocumentary about the toothless state of today’s activism http://ow.ly/1aluE

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    brainpicker on February 23rd, 2010 at 7:28 am
  2. RT @brainpicker: The Art of Protest – cunning, insightful minidocumentary about the toothless state of today’s activism http://ow.ly/1aluE

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    dogoodhq on February 23rd, 2010 at 7:29 am
  3. RT @brainpicker: The Art of Protest – cunning, insightful minidocumentary about the toothless state of today’s activism http://ow.ly/1aluE

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    lady_dandelion on February 23rd, 2010 at 7:31 am
  4. RT @brainpicker: The Art of Protest – cunning, insightful minidocumentary about the toothless state of today’s activism http://ow.ly/1aluE

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    zenboom on February 23rd, 2010 at 7:40 am
  5. RT @brainpicker: The Art of Protest – cunning, insightful minidocumentary about the toothless state of today’s activism http://ow.ly/1aluE

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    hyperactivex on February 23rd, 2010 at 7:42 am
  6. The Art of Protest – insightful minidoc on toothless state of activism http://ow.ly/1aluE by @brainpicker (echo in flash Haiti fundraising?)

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    TrackerNews on February 23rd, 2010 at 7:48 am
  7. RT @brainpicker: The Art of Protest – cunning, insightful minidocumentary about the toothless state of today’s activism http://ow.ly/1aluE

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    everettguess on February 23rd, 2010 at 8:01 am
  8. RT @TrackerNews The Art of Protest – activism as populist theatre http://ow.ly/1aluE by @brainpicker

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    paulcurrion on February 23rd, 2010 at 8:26 am
  9. The Art of Protest is an excellent insight into today’s activism via @brainpicker http://ow.ly/1aluE

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    bethrobson on February 23rd, 2010 at 8:28 am
  10. RT @brainpicker: If you missed it: The Art of Protest – cunning, insightful minidocumentary about the toothless state of today’s activism http://ow.ly/1av13

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    cle50000 on February 23rd, 2010 at 1:26 pm
  11. RT @brainpicker: The Art of Protest – insightful minidocumentary about the toothless state of today’s activism http://ow.ly/1av13

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    robertpearre on February 23rd, 2010 at 1:30 pm
  12. RT @brainpicker: The Art of Protest – cunning, insightful minidocumentary about the toothless state of today’s activism http://ow.ly/1av13

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    drgrist on February 23rd, 2010 at 1:31 pm
  13. The Art of Protesting: http://ow.ly/1av13 “Activist organizations have become as giant and unanswerable as the states they seek 2 contest.”

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    mcmuffinofdoom on February 23rd, 2010 at 1:40 pm
  14. RT @brainpicker: If you missed it: The Art of Protest – cunning, insightful minidocumentary about the toothless state of today’s activism http://ow.ly/1av13

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    neemor on February 23rd, 2010 at 2:22 pm
  15. RT @brainpicker: If you missed it: The Art of Protest – cunning, insightful minidocumentary about the toothless state of today’s activism http://ow.ly/1av13

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    mirizon on February 23rd, 2010 at 4:20 pm
  16. The Art of Protest A very sad assessment of the modern protest movement. Today they have no teeth. Watch this. http://bit.ly/drY80e

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    jessebdylan on February 24th, 2010 at 2:25 am
  17. RT @brainpicker: The Art of Protest – cunning, insightful minidocumentary about the toothless state of today’s activism http://ow.ly/1av13

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    renemartens on February 24th, 2010 at 4:54 am
  18. The Art of Protest | Brain Pickings http://ow.ly/1b775

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    RebecaMiranda on February 25th, 2010 at 7:10 am
  19. Art of Protest is v powerful short film on why modern protest doesnt work @HallyMk1 @josswinn @jamiepotter http://icio.us/a4vayg

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    WarrenPearce on February 25th, 2010 at 1:52 pm
  20. why modernity breeds toothless anarchy http://icio.us/a4vayg [via @WarrenPearce]

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    HallyMk1 on February 26th, 2010 at 4:36 am
  21. RT @HallyMk1: why modernity breeds toothless anarchy http://icio.us/a4vayg [via @WarrenPearce]

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    jules_u on February 26th, 2010 at 5:10 am
  22. shoutout on my site , fyi
    heart!

    @femmmefatal on February 28th, 2010 at 3:45 pm
  23. Is the art of protest loosing its edge? http://bit.ly/dA1qgp via @brainpicker

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    marcusod on February 28th, 2010 at 3:55 pm
  24. The Art of Protest http://tinyurl.com/y8ga864

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    _Lindiwe_ on March 7th, 2010 at 12:27 am
  25. [...] may recall filmmaker Temujin Doran from The Art of Protest, a cunning short documentary about the democratic deficits of today’s political protests. [...]

Comments? Give Brain Pickings a piece of your mind: