The Future of the Protest Paradigm

"Any advert in public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It's yours to take, re-arrange and use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head."

--Banksy

A friend and I play disc golf at a local disc golf course. Neither of us have ever bought a disc. We have found them lodged in trees, abandoned in ditches, and lost over sides of cliffs. We have played with them. On two separate occasions, people have remarked that there are a number of names written on the disks, which indicates that we found them. We have been called thieves and been threatened with physical violence. These people have informed us that "the way it works" is if a disk is found, you put it in the lost and found bin. I have looked over the official rules of disc golf and there is no provision that if one finds a disk, that one is obliged to return it to its "owner." However, people continuously assert that these are "the rules." The result of these "rules" is that an entire bin of disks sits unused by the side of the road while some of us could be playing with them (instead of spending fifteen or twenty dollars on a new one). This whole scenario has struck me as somewhat absurd; the disks are of no use off the golf course, but concepts of private ownership keep me and those like me from using the disks that are otherwise sitting in a bin. Furthermore, the indignation of people has been staggering. The rate at which my friend and I have been villianized is alarming. One woman yelled rather offensively that I had no morals (and added that my mother was a bitch). I responded by asking if she had ever considered the role that her own concepts of private ownership played in the formation of her sense of morality. I don't think my point was very well-received, nor do I think that the fairway of a golf course was the optimal setting for such a conversation. Public opinion has been so strongly opposed to my position that at times I even felt guilt for defending it.

After discussing this with another friend, it was indicated that I could in some way acquire the lost-and-found bin of disks, sand off the names and phone numbers, and write on each one something like: "These disks belong to everyone. Put them back when you are done." In order to completely undermine the current sentiment of ownership and erode the necessity of buying new discs and the commodification of the pastime.

I now realize that this has indicated to me a larger strain of thought and action which makes that bin of discs seem a trivial target. What indicated this further development is the fact that that bin of discs is protected by NO law.

The last century has essentially handed us two diametrically opposed methods of dissent. On the one hand, armed struggle, traditional anarchism, and marxist revolt. On the other, civil disobedience and Gandhism. Both systems work within the premise of exhibiting social pressure from outside of legality (i.e. sitting on a lawn with a don't sit on the grass sign). However, the political has changed since the last century. The Patriot Act ensures security against such acts, no matter how benign. If an ELF activist vandalizes some Hummers, that is now considered terrorism, though terror is not a premeditated ingredient of any such act, nor plays an instrumental part.

It is by now well understood that the Patriot Act makes its appearance most often in two theaters: the war on drugs and protection of corporate property. Today, vandalizing some Hummers is a VERY dangerous proposition and is not advisable. Furthermore, given the community sentiment regarding such acts, the ensuing reaction makes this the least efficacious technique.

And so, in our Brave New World there is a necessity for a radicalism of legality. It should be attempted to apply social pressure to well-protected concepts, but (unlike our predecessors) from WITHIN the realm of legality. One immediately asks how effective such an approach would be. Certainly Nader's Raiders for Consumer Advocacy is a natural example. However, I am not interested in consumer advocacy, nor am I interested in lobbying or political action committees. I am interested in addressing "rules"-- challenging them without breaking them. I am interested in framing a rule in such a context, such a bizarre twist of logic, in which the rule loses meaning and coherence. I am interested in creating contexts in which a rule no longer makes sense, and as a result, suffers a deficit of authority. This might entail strictly following/enforcing a rule which obeys legality but undermines the intention of the rule.

As one of you has frequently mentioned to me, a consequence of the Skolem paradox is that once an axiom has been fixed, there is not a unique model to represent it. That is, for every rule there is conceivably a context which opposes the original intention of the rule while simultaneously satisfying every other rule in the system (i.e. not incurring a contradiction).
Such an act, if orchestrated properly, would be politically benign while simultaneously addressing the prevalent perception of a systematic rule or belief. Furthermore, such an act would necessarily transcend the realm of pure politics and enter a realm of socially relevant art. Such an act would attempt to instill certain intellectual and artistic concepts into certain, well-devised communities-- the planned, premeditated dispersion of perceptions regarding the role of such fields as linguistics, cognitive sciences, artificial intelligence, and game theory. We, as sojourners at the very lip of the future, are in a position to help direct the intellectual and artistic perceptions of this new century, to actively and calculatedly proliferate memes in the coming culture.

"Mindless vandalism takes a considerable amount of thought"