Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Riots and Political Theory: A Reading List

southampton.ac.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 87 posts

Re: Riots and Political Theory: A Reading List

#71

Post by john_moscow »

EricE wrote: post #70
john_moscow wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many young people don't feel secure about their own lives. Priced out of property ownership, didn't find a serious partner to make family with, don't have a rewarding job. By supporting the rioters they feel like they are attacking a common enemy (people that are better off). Except, it won't work. The rioters are destroying one of the last remaining pillars of the middle class - small businesses. Sure, Walmart and A…

"Many young people don't feel secure about their own lives. Priced out of property ownership, didn't find a serious partner to make family with, don't have a rewarding job." Good grief - by this logic the entire country would have been continually rioting during the great depression. Many of the current rioters are rioting because it's fun and/or a way to get free stuff. No need to make it more complicated than that.

Yes and no. I think, some level of hardship is absolutely required in order to develop good personality traits. Sure, if you get too much, and it will break your back. But if you get too little, you grow up as a useless entitled narcissistic asshole, completely toxic to everyone around them.

I bet none of those rioters had to actually work their asses off to put the food on the table. Because once you do, you start respecting other businesses and won't go break their displays for fun.

Re: Riots and Political Theory: A Reading List

#72

Post by john-shaffer »

SenoraRaton wrote: post #56
john_moscow wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no organized money behind this May I humbly ask where did all the millions donated to BLM go?

Lets just take Amazon for example. They donated to organizations(ACLU/NAACP etc). Likely non profits that support the POC communities. No one is paying protesters to be in the streets.

I don't think he's talking about Amazon's donations, but BLM itself. There is a big DONATE button on blacklivesmatter.com, and they take in millions in donations. No one knows how it is spent.

Re: Riots and Political Theory: A Reading List

#73

Post by vkou »

beat wrote: post #61
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As a Minneapolis third precinct resident who saw what went down here, I saw the "looting" call in Chicago and immediately thought "Organized crime". Something that happened here, as the protests kicked up, was organized robbery under the guise of looting. We'd see a van pull up to a boutique clothing/electronics store, and a group would pour out... a mix of "looters", lookouts, and security. They'd smash the store, g…

The same thing happened in Bellevue, WA, on the second night of the protests.

The protesters were in open communication with police and city officials. The protest was peaceful, the police did not start a fight, and neither did the protesters. The protest peacefully dispersed later in the evening.

Meanwhile, a few blocks away, what some might describe as a gang did a smash-and-grab at the (closed) Bellevue Square mall, grabbing merchandise off the store shelves, loading it into cars, and fleeing.

If the police wanted to pick a fight, they would have declared the situation a riot, and opened fire on protesters. They didn't, though.

Re: Riots and Political Theory: A Reading List

#74

Post by dredmorbius »

andonisus wrote: post #2

The problem with riots is they often get co-opted by actors whose goals are not in alignment with the goal of the original rioters. Also, there isn't usually a singular person, group, or entity who will take responsibility of the riots and say "We are rioting for XYZ reasons". Contrast this with peaceful protests, where the reasons for and goals of the protests are laid bare by its leaders. They are, in turn, able to…

I'm in agreement with the co-option risk.

Keep in mind that coption (or corruption) holds true for all tools of power.

Regulation (capture). Legislation, executive, judiciary and bureaucracy (bribery, lobbying, special interests, nepotism, blackmail, ...). The press. Police and military. Taxes. Fines. Investigations (surveillance). Treaties. Emotions (fear, anger, guilt, embarrassment). Attention. Religion. Culture. Language. Narrative. Buildings, roads, ports, railroads, walls, canals, and tunnels. Bulldozers. Guns and stilettos. Bread and circuses. War. Peace.

Literally everything.

This doesn't make all of these bad, or mean they're never useful. But tools of power are useful because they do have effect, and can be used for both good and ill.

The trick is seeing the tools are used for good.

Re: Riots and Political Theory: A Reading List

#75

Post by Pfhreak »

packetlost wrote: post #11
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".

I think you'd be surprised at how many (particularly young) people and leadership from organizations either refuse to denounce or outright condone rioting.

How do you feel about events like the Stonewall Riots[1], where police historically assaulted LGBTQ+ people, and those people fought back? These people should have just accepted being beaten and arrested for being gay? That should have waited until legislation caught up with their rights?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots

Re: Riots and Political Theory: A Reading List

#76

Post by dredmorbius »

betaby wrote: post #15

In places where information distribution monopolized by ruling class riots are the only method to signal disagreement to both a) ruling class and b) other non-ruling people.

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

-- John Fitzgerald Kennedy

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/89101-those-who-make-peacef...

Re: Riots and Political Theory: A Reading List

#78

Post by commandlinefan »

devnull255 wrote: post #68

This is a fantastic article and reading list. I'm disappointed at how so much of the discussion around the most recent rioting has devolved to being pro-protest vs anti-rioting. The riots, like the spread of the pandemic are symptoms of wide-spread, systemic failures in our social, political and economic institutions. The psychologist Stephen Pinker, has pointed out that violence itself is a tool of last resort in th…

> determine the changes that are necessary to remediate legitimate grievances

Except that the grievances don't appear to be that legitimate and the changes that would be necessary don't appear to be too popular with the majority of the population. Capitulating to a violent mob out of fear of further violence surrenders control from the democratic process to escalating barbarism.

Re: Riots and Political Theory: A Reading List

#79

Post by packetlost »

mcguire wrote: post #69
packetlost wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Refusing to denounce rioting is almost always paired with something along the lines of "rioting is the language of the unheard" or "our organizations will not denounce any black person’s display of grief and/or rage", as is the literal case with one of the organizations from my hometown [0]. I cannot see that as anything but support. But trying to justify actions, you are, by definition, supporting those actions. To…

"If you are not with us, you are against us."

I go out of my way to show that's not the mentality I have, nor one I want to promote.

Re: Riots and Political Theory: A Reading List

#80

Post by packetlost »

Pfhreak wrote: post #75
packetlost wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you'd be surprised at how many (particularly young) people and leadership from organizations either refuse to denounce or outright condone rioting.

How do you feel about events like the Stonewall Riots[1], where police historically assaulted LGBTQ+ people, and those people fought back? These people should have just accepted being beaten and arrested for being gay? That should have waited until legislation caught up with their rights? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots

I'm speaking specifically in the context of the riots we've been seeing over the last few months. To my knowledge the Stonewall riots did not result in the widespread destruction of uninvolved parties, vandalism, arson, etc. (there was some). It was a much smaller scale than what we're seeing now, which I think plays a part. It also had clear, actionable wants, something I think the recent movement lacks.

To answer your question, no I don't think every part of the Stonewall riots were moral or justified, but to some degree the end justifies the means and we look at it historically through that lens.

Post reply on HN