In light of the recent school shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, high school students nationwide have begun to organize walk-outs as part of the #NeverAgain Movement. Some school districts have issued statements condoning student walk-outs and administrators have even taken on a facilitating role in walkouts.
This begs the question of the purpose and validity of “protest” as a democratic instrument.
As argued by the co-principals of Washington Campus of Waukegan High School, “student-led civil disobedience […] has led to meaningful reforms” over the course of American history. There is no denying that students have the right to assemble peacefully to take public stances on pressing social issues, but what is lost is the opportunity cost of a more meaningful discussion. Central to democracy is a free and open dialogue where ideas are subject to revision from the best objections on all sides of an issue. However, protests are limited as a vehicle of democracy because of their confrontational nature–they limit the opportunity for opposition to be voiced because intrinsic to the protest is a notion of absolute opposition to the opposite perspective. In that sense, protests preclude modification of ideas towards more nuanced and true ideological perspectives. Protests, in their posters and chants loaded with aphorisms, replace nuance and complexity with gross oversimplifications. Nothing could be farther from healthy democratic dialogue.
The answer to a problem as recent, complex, and pervasive as gun violence in America will likely be a series of reform packages in multiple areas, such as sales of stocks, background checks, and mental health. For such comprehensive packages to be researched, drafted, and passed, takes time, which chants such as “we want change” does not account for. While the ethical imperative to change a dystopian status quo in which gun violence is possibly feature most commonly shared by schools in every state is apparent to students, school administrations, and the political spectrum barring the far right, delayed legislation in response to the recently increased trend in mass shootings is hardly the fault of apathy and is attributable to thorough research and detailed policymaking. Though interest groups like the NRA exert tremendous power over Congressional legislation, there is certainly sufficient support at a grassroots and state level to implement gun reform on a statewide basis. None of this complexity can be communicated through a four-word chant at a student protest, or even on a short poster intended as an aphorism rather than a functional argument which contributes meaningfully to the national conversation over gun control.
Alternative solutions to protests ought to take the form of town halls such as the one conducted between Sen. Marco Rubio and Parkland students in the aftermath of the Stoneman Douglas shooting, letters to representatives, or dialogue with the NRA about supporting better policies on gun safety. These solutions are dialogue-based and open to the possibility of revising one’s position on an issue, such as Sen. Rubio’s admission in the town hall that hearing and understanding the perspectives of students opened him to the possibility of a ban or limitations on assault weapons. The potential for revision of one’s beliefs (or in cruder terms, the possibility of convincing an adversary of your position) is lost when the premise of demonstration such as protest is intrinsically adversarial and posited as a non-revisable final stance.
Protests, too, are dependent by nature on a swirling mass of participants, all of whom participate for varied reasons. it is impossible to verify that each participant in the protest shares even similar opinions related to the aim of protest–take Trans-Exclusive marchers at the Womens’ March on Washington–and proves that the draw of protests, that they represent unity, is paradoxical. Unity in a cause would be better achieved by agonistic discourse, else the aim of protests ought to be revised.
The second problem with some #NeverAgain walkouts originates in administrative facilitation of protests. In short, civil disobedience is not disobedience if there is nothing to disobey. At best, administrative support of walkouts removes any conflict from a contentious situation, sheltering students from the realities of democratic discourse and playing pretend at civic engagement. At worst, administrative support of walkouts and demonstrations is insidious–used as a means to limit the potential spread of information about protest. Congress members do not themselves review mail from consitituents; aides do. When school administrations are condoning protests so as to allow the protests no more than a minimal level of disturbance, the attempt at democratic engagement posed by the protest is simply swept under the rug and dismissed by linkage institutions such as local media who might communicate to a larger audience the aim of the protest and engage a communal form of dialogue. Protests, when supported by the administration, become part of the aesthetics of resistance and represent a superficial and false form of engagement, rather than a legitimate forum where solutions can be posed and objections can be raised. This is inconsistent with democratic society. Though participants argue that protests represent not a challenge to school administrations, but rather the government, the value of protests is solely instrumental–protests are dependent on publicity and media hype, which administrative support precludes. Thus, though protests may provide catharsis or displays of solidarity, these can be achieved in far better and more nuanced ways such as letter-writing, poetry and arts, supporting political candidates, or engaging in tangible political activism like helping to register voters.
