So I gave a talk Thursday at MICA that was all about my own transition from making sculpture about environmental ideas to doing environmental activism. The questions were good ones. And the best questions revolved around the nature of the protest.
For the record: I cannot overstate how important I think it is that environmentalists stop using protest as a strategy. I believe this for two reasons. First, it's a strategy for getting what you want that frames your need or desire in terms of taking something away from someone else. Second, the way protest reads in our culture has changed tremendously. We have neutered protest by commodifying dissent. It's only useful as a way to express onself. Think Not In My Name!, the most honest and lamest rallying cry against a war that I can think of:
You have the power here and I don't, and I won't pretend I do. But dammit, I do have the power to stand up and wash my hands of the evil my government is perpetrating! This war will not happen in my name!
Protest is not always a bad strategy. We used to live in a culture in which dissent was incredibly meaningful, and there are conflicts that have clear, correct winners and losers. Ghandi was right to take India away the British. It was right to take away the political will to be in Vietnam. Racism used to be a problem that required protest (and Nate Silver has a great, short talk about why this is no longer the case). But in each example, there was a winner and a loser.
Ghandi: 1. British Empire: 0.
There can be no losers in the Environmental Revolution. There must be total inclusivity, and this is not for namby-pamby politically correct reasons, but for simple, practical ones. We must all become environmentalists because we are all actively using this environment. We shouldn't create Environmental Enemies because we can't put our Environmental Enemies someplace else. And we must all become environmentalists because each individual person is so totally powerless. We literally need every single hand on deck. We literally cannot afford to alienate anyone, and protest works because it alienates the enemy.
The most pernicious aspect of protest is that it looks like it works. I showed this slide of the kids protesting Victoria's Secret catalogs. To me, this slide represents every single thing that's wrong with environmentalism. This image to me looks downright Victorian, and these kids look like prudish scolds who have no compelling story. I see this as a total marketing disaster. The message is off the tracks. The only thing anyone who doesn't already agree with you is going to see here is:
1. Environmentalists don't understand that sex is good, and that's eggheaded and I don't get it.
2. And I don't like getting scolded about forests when all I am trying to do is buy some sexy underpants.
I got a great question about this slide. A student countered that the protest was very effective. That it got Victoria's Secret to change the way they deal with their catalogs. And my answer to that is great. But at what cost? Victoria's Secret is one company that was targeted and bullied into changing one practice. But what about every single customer who saw this protest? What about every single anti-environmentalism website that has downloaded this very photograph and used it to (rightly) mock environmentalism's Victorian finger-wagging? Wouldn't it be much more powerful to attack this Victoria's Secret Catalog problem in a way that was self-reinforcing, in which lots of companies decided to get on board because they were worked with instead of threatened? I mean, is the goal to be right, or is the goal to convince companies to use less paper and convince individuals to make better day-to-day choices?
If the goal is to convince as many people as possible, then it's important to privilege Convincing People over every other strategy. These protesters are visible not just to Victoria's Secret, but to everybody. And they are focusing on one message at the expense of a hundred others. They are winning a battle, and losing a war.
There are rhetorical strategies that are powerfully persuasive, and have nothing to do with dissent. There are terms of engagement that are strictly win-win. It is our practical imperative to find and deploy those strategies. The only responsible thing to do is delight and engage people. To stop relying on individual action and band together. To strip away the guilt, shame and finger-wagging that has so far done nothing but stunt our growth as a global species of environmentalists. Let's say Yes instead of No!
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