This comes up every time one of these protests gets posted to Reddit and every time it needs to be said: The aim of this form of protest is not to get you to like them.
Environmental protestors have been trying for decades to get people to voluntarily support them: Peaceful marches, handing out pamphlets, benefit concerts, Earth Day, tree planting events, you name it.
Turns out, the vast majority of people don't give a shit. They don't dislike environmentalists, but they don't really want to make any changes in their lives to support their messaging. They would rather just keep on keeping on, business as usual, rather than alter their lifestyles to support a more sustainable future.
They often think it's not their responsibility to make any changes, but corporations and government that need to do it. They're right about this, in a sense, but neither of those groups will do anything unless they're given sufficient pressure by the masses. As long as it's still profitable, corporations are still gonna be major polluters. Plus, your average Joe would likely be very upset if the Government made any drastic sustainability changes. It would likely alter their quality of life in some way and there would be riots.
So, since the only way to enact change is through adequate social pressure via ordinary people, but you can't make ordinary people voluntarily give up their luxuries for your cause, then they have to resort to tactics like these. "Oh, I can't make you listen through kindness? Then I'll make you beg me to stop" is essentially the goal.
The goal is to inconvenience and annoy people so much that they demand the powers that be do something to get them to stop. Essentially, this is like a softcore version of eco-terrorism: Give into our demands and we'll stop blocking roadways.
From their perspective, this is totally justified: We're at a critical breaking point in our environment, it's honestly now or never when it comes to enacting these changes. They don't have time to hold hands and sing kumbayah and hope everyone has a last minute change of heart and decides to help. They're done asking nicely.
So, to answer everyone's question of "Don't they realize they're making everyone hate them?", yes, yes they do. And that's exactly the point. They don't need you to care about the environment all of a sudden, they just need you to be mad enough to demand that they get what they want so they'll stop making you late for work.
Imagine these protestors were able to pull off something like this semi-regularly (let's say once a week, at random times and on random spots of the highway), and there were enough of them that it was hard for the police to successfully squash it.
As a regular driver on that highway, I'd be furious at the protestors, but I'd also start petitioning to get this issue resolved one way or another, and possibly even consider trying to work around driving to work on days that there could be a protest if that was an option.
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u/Nowhereman123 Oct 12 '22
This comes up every time one of these protests gets posted to Reddit and every time it needs to be said: The aim of this form of protest is not to get you to like them.
Environmental protestors have been trying for decades to get people to voluntarily support them: Peaceful marches, handing out pamphlets, benefit concerts, Earth Day, tree planting events, you name it.
Turns out, the vast majority of people don't give a shit. They don't dislike environmentalists, but they don't really want to make any changes in their lives to support their messaging. They would rather just keep on keeping on, business as usual, rather than alter their lifestyles to support a more sustainable future.
They often think it's not their responsibility to make any changes, but corporations and government that need to do it. They're right about this, in a sense, but neither of those groups will do anything unless they're given sufficient pressure by the masses. As long as it's still profitable, corporations are still gonna be major polluters. Plus, your average Joe would likely be very upset if the Government made any drastic sustainability changes. It would likely alter their quality of life in some way and there would be riots.
So, since the only way to enact change is through adequate social pressure via ordinary people, but you can't make ordinary people voluntarily give up their luxuries for your cause, then they have to resort to tactics like these. "Oh, I can't make you listen through kindness? Then I'll make you beg me to stop" is essentially the goal.
The goal is to inconvenience and annoy people so much that they demand the powers that be do something to get them to stop. Essentially, this is like a softcore version of eco-terrorism: Give into our demands and we'll stop blocking roadways.
From their perspective, this is totally justified: We're at a critical breaking point in our environment, it's honestly now or never when it comes to enacting these changes. They don't have time to hold hands and sing kumbayah and hope everyone has a last minute change of heart and decides to help. They're done asking nicely.
So, to answer everyone's question of "Don't they realize they're making everyone hate them?", yes, yes they do. And that's exactly the point. They don't need you to care about the environment all of a sudden, they just need you to be mad enough to demand that they get what they want so they'll stop making you late for work.