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Riots and Political Theory: A Reading List

southampton.ac.uk

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Re: Riots and Political Theory: A Reading List

#41

Post by grasshopperpurp »

jetzzz wrote: post #33

A lot of people in this thread seem to have some false dichotomy in their mind - either you are peacefully protesting or you are rioting by burning random cars and destroying uninvolved storefronts. There is another option: peacefully protest but try to occupy administrative buildings and only use violence as a response to police violence. This is what happened in many post-USSR countries in the so called "colour rev…

>Meanwhile in US/Western Europe riots are for some reason seem to be directed not at government and police but at uninvolved car/store owners.

Makes it seem like those rioters have different - maybe opposite - motivations than the protesters.

Re: Riots and Political Theory: A Reading List

#42

Post by pdonis »

jetzzz wrote: post #33

A lot of people in this thread seem to have some false dichotomy in their mind - either you are peacefully protesting or you are rioting by burning random cars and destroying uninvolved storefronts. There is another option: peacefully protest but try to occupy administrative buildings and only use violence as a response to police violence. This is what happened in many post-USSR countries in the so called "colour rev…

> there were heavy clashes with police, but no destruction of private property (at least not deliberately by protesters)

I think this is the key distinction. Protesting against injustice by government is one thing. Perpetrating further injustices is another.

Re: Riots and Political Theory: A Reading List

#43

Post by patcon »

recursivedoubts wrote: post #3

There definitely is an informal and growing consensus on just riot theory. I hypothesize that the treatment of riots by liberal (classical sense) scholars has been based on their rationalistic optimism and a belief that domestic political problems can be solved non-violently. If they can't, that throws the entire liberal (classical sense) project into question, and opens exhilarating, dangerous doors on both the left…

I've heard complexity science folks entertain the premise that a riot (or any non-equilibrium social order) is perhaps like a phase transition in the social strata of complex matter (like how boiling or combustion is a phase transition in the physical, molecular strata of matter).

A forest isn't a forest if it's always on fire, but the system of the forest is often in equilibrium only when forests are swept with fire every so often. A similar logic might be part of a complete political theory.

Re: Riots and Political Theory: A Reading List

#44

Post by pydry »

grasshopperpurp wrote: post #41
jetzzz wrote: post #33

A lot of people in this thread seem to have some false dichotomy in their mind - either you are peacefully protesting or you are rioting by burning random cars and destroying uninvolved storefronts. There is another option: peacefully protest but try to occupy administrative buildings and only use violence as a response to police violence. This is what happened in many post-USSR countries in the so called "colour rev…

>Meanwhile in US/Western Europe riots are for some reason seem to be directed not at government and police but at uninvolved car/store owners. Makes it seem like those rioters have different - maybe opposite - motivations than the protesters.

This is pretty common:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/quebec-police-admit-they-went...

"However, the police force denied allegations its undercover officers were there on Monday to provoke the crowd and instigate violence."

"Police came under fire Tuesday, when a video surfaced on YouTube that appeared to show three plainclothes police officers at the protest with bandanas across their faces. One of the men was carrying a rock."

"In the video, protest organizers in suits order the men to put the rock down, call them police instigators and try unsuccessfully to unmask them."

These events are not commonly believed when there isn't clear cut video evidence, though. Property destruction will be, by default, blamed on the protestors rather than police instigators. In this case the police were easily identified simply because they were sloppy and forgot to not wear police issue boots. Had the video not proved that and that they intended to commit violence, this would have been a wild conspiracy theory.

I don't quite understand why this practice isn't extremely illegal in every country that has pretenses towards democracy. It's a form of fraud.

Re: Riots and Political Theory: A Reading List

#45

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

Pfhreak wrote: post #40
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm referring to clear, unambiguous riots, where people run around looting stores or burning buildings down. Misuse of the American legal definition is a separate issue, and not one I'm interested in discussing.

There are very few clear, unambiguous riots. What is a protest that has a few looters or arsonists operating within it? I've seen plenty of events here in the Pacific Northwest that police have labelled riots that I would in no way call a riot. I think that the legal definition very much plays into the discussion, because it gives the police the power to tell the media that a riot occurred.

There was one in Chicago just over the weekend. Police declarations of riots are much more common than what you or I would call a true riot, but I don't think it's reasonable to suggest that riots are a non-issue.

Re: Riots and Political Theory: A Reading List

#46

Post by rexpop »

jhardy54 wrote: post #25
Shivetya wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now riots and civil disorder are there to be exploited by the ruling class leading up to elections until the desired result is changed; they are in power. Just like the noise leading into 2008, complete with celebrity moms and widows, to protests and destruction of property, once the political goal was achieved the money behind these people are groups were removed along with any attention directed their way through t…

Smells like ideology to me.

Everything should.

Re: Riots and Political Theory: A Reading List

#47

Post by vkou »

hirundo wrote: post #6
recursivedoubts wrote: post #3

There definitely is an informal and growing consensus on just riot theory. I hypothesize that the treatment of riots by liberal (classical sense) scholars has been based on their rationalistic optimism and a belief that domestic political problems can be solved non-violently. If they can't, that throws the entire liberal (classical sense) project into question, and opens exhilarating, dangerous doors on both the left…

> If they can't, that throws the entire liberal (classical sense) project into question, and opens exhilarating, dangerous doors on both the left and right. Only if they _can_ be solved with violence. I'd argue that even if a particular issue can be solved with violence, the net result will generally be worse than the status quo as the violence will rarely be limited to such issues. I'd think that for an undirected m…

> What would be an example of mob violence that led to a net benefit?

The American revolution, the February revolution, the Red River Rebellion, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the revolutions in Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, the Chech republic, Poland, do I need to keep going?

All of them had violence inflicted on property, and most of them had violence inflicted on people.

Were one of those events happen in your town, your police department, your mayor, your governor, and your president would without hesitation call them 'a violent riot'. Your news anchors would be clutching their pearls, showing pictures of broken Amazon Go storefront windows, bookended by testimonies of police officers, and terrified citizens who'd just like the world to go back to the way it was last week.

Re: Riots and Political Theory: A Reading List

#48

Post by acephal »

I'm very very surprised that the number one parallel has yet to ever be mentioned in these kinds of discussions: the 2005 Paris riots.

French police were held responsible for the deaths of North African teenagers and riots broke out all over suburban Paris that caused waaay more property damage than anything we've seen in America this summer. French media framed the entire issue as brown people showing their true colors by not posing any 'coherent' message to French political establishment, eg. no slogans or demands. French politics sense has drifted further Rightward, further edifying the French political ideal that if you wanna live in France you better play by our rules (same thing in Germany where you have to pass a cultural test to gain citizenship, imagine such a thing in America! [And no, answering questions about the constitution, the foundational legal document, is not the same thing]).

Re: Riots and Political Theory: A Reading List

#49

Post by aedocw »

Shivetya wrote: post #17
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which I think is pretty fair. There's always bad actors who try to justify riots, but almost everyone agrees that they're bad - the "pro-riot" side of a discussion is usually along the lines of "you know, a violent crackdown just isn't going to work, so we'd better do suchandsuch or they'll keep on being angry".

Now riots and civil disorder are there to be exploited by the ruling class leading up to elections until the desired result is changed; they are in power. Just like the noise leading into 2008, complete with celebrity moms and widows, to protests and destruction of property, once the political goal was achieved the money behind these people are groups were removed along with any attention directed their way through t…

The protests against police violence in Portland have continued every night since George Floyd was murdered. There has been a lot of attention at times and crowds swelled to the thousands. There is no organized money behind this, especially now that the groups are much smaller (and the police brutality and intimidation has risen to new levels).[1]

Pretty sure the ruling class would prefer for these protests to go away as quickly and quietly as possible.

[1]:https://twitter.com/r2020PB/status/1293553869470015493

Re: Riots and Political Theory: A Reading List

#50

Post by recursivedoubts »

patcon wrote: post #43
recursivedoubts wrote: post #3

There definitely is an informal and growing consensus on just riot theory. I hypothesize that the treatment of riots by liberal (classical sense) scholars has been based on their rationalistic optimism and a belief that domestic political problems can be solved non-violently. If they can't, that throws the entire liberal (classical sense) project into question, and opens exhilarating, dangerous doors on both the left…

I've heard complexity science folks entertain the premise that a riot (or any non-equilibrium social order) is perhaps like a phase transition in the social strata of complex matter (like how boiling or combustion is a phase transition in the physical, molecular strata of matter). A forest isn't a forest if it's always on fire, but the system of the forest is often in equilibrium only when forests are swept with fire…

I think that may be a false analogy.

Generally, in the modern state, I view riots as being allowed and/or managed by the ruling class for their benefit.

To quote banksy: "You are an acceptable level of threat and if you were not you would know about it."

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