The End of Protest: A New Playbook for Revolution - Softcover

White, Micah

Softcover

ISBN 10: 034581004X ISBN 13: 9780345810045

Publisher: Knopf Canada, 2016

Synopsis

Is protest broken? Micah White, co-creator of Occupy Wall Street, thinks so. Disruptive tactics have failed to halt the rise of Donald Trump. Movements ranging from Black Lives Matter to environmentalism are leaving activists frustrated. Meanwhile, recent years have witnessed the largest protests in human history. Yet these mass mobilizations no longer change society. Now activism is at a crossroads: innovation or irrelevance.
 
In The End of Protest Micah White heralds the future of activism. Drawing on his unique experience with Occupy Wall Street, a contagious protest that spread to eighty-two countries, White articulates a unified theory of revolution and eight principles of tactical innovation that are destined to catalyze the next generation of social movements. 
 
Despite global challenges—catastrophic climate change, economic collapse and the decline of democracy—White finds reason for optimism: the end of protest inaugurates a new era of social change. On the horizon are increasingly sophisticated movements that will emerge in a bid to challenge elections, govern cities and reorient the way we live. Activists will reshape society by forming a global political party capable of winning elections worldwide. 
 
In this provocative playbook, White offers three bold, revolutionary scenarios for harnessing the creativity of people from across the political spectrum. He also shows how social movements are created and how they spread, how materialism limits contemporary activism, and why we must re-conceive protest in timelines of centuries, not days.
 
Rigorous, original and compelling, The End of Protest is an exhilarating vision of an all-encompassing revolution of revolution.

About this title

About the Author

MICAH WHITE is the award-winning activist who co-created Occupy Wall Street, a global social movement, while an editor of Adbusters magazine. His essays and interviews on the future of protest have been published in publications including The New York Times, The Guardian Weekly and Folha de São Paulo. Widely recognized as a pioneer of social movement creation, Micah White has been profiled by The New Yorker, and Esquire has named him one of the most influential young thinkers alive today. He directs Boutique Activist Consultancy—a think tank specializing in impossible campaigns—and is a frequent guest lecturer. Micah lives with his wife and son in Nehalem, a rural town on the coast of Oregon. His website is www.micahmwhite.com

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

You are needed

You may long for the protest to end all protests, a final revolution that eradicates injustice and transforms society. You dream of a better world in which protest is no longer necessary. You wish to make protest effective so that the ideals you hold become manifest. For you the end of protest is a consummation of activism, the completion of your work and objective of your struggle. You understand that the end of protest is in itself revolution.
 
This book will offer you tools for hastening social transformation. Recognizing that protest is one tool among many for creating social change, grab what works and discard the rest.
 
And if you are threatened by revolution, fearing or disdaining movements like Occupy, and you’ve come to this book from a desire to end protest—to foreclose dissent—know that this book is for you, too. Uprisings always need people who convert to the cause from positions of power: police who switch sides, insiders who become whistleblowers, and politicians who heed the people’s demands. You may oppose us today but you will join us tomorrow. Our movement is even stronger when it includes the converted, who understand the errors of the old world because they embodied them.
 
You may be skeptical of those who take to the streets, considering them reckless. They seem to have nothing to lose, and you have worked so hard to achieve your position, wealth and prestige. You may not sympathize with their anger. You may believe that good society ought to have few disruptions. True, many aspects of upheaval are unpleasant. Revolutions are sometimes violent and always have unintended consequences. “In a society such as ours,” writes Herbert Marcuse, a leading twentieth-century social theorist and philosopher, “in which pacification has been achieved up to a certain point, it appears crazy at first to want revolution. For we have whatever we want.” He continues with a prescription: “[T]he aim here is to transform the will itself, so that people no longer want what they now want.”3 You desire the end of protest, but the fulfilment of your desire would be disastrous for you.
 
The lack of protest is perilous for society. Protest is a symptom of the need for social change, and the people in the streets are harbingers of greater democracy. The absence of effective protest is a warning sign of impending civil strife. Whether you support or suppress protesters, history shows that dissent is necessary for social growth and collective renewal. Revolution grants us the social freedom essential for humans to break old habits and reach their true collective potential.

Edition details

• Publisher: Knopf Canada
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 034581004X
• ISBN 13: 9780345810045
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 336