Why do people protest?

Protests sweeping the world today seem to be a strong echo of the protests that rocked the middle east in the Arab spring. People are trying to find a unified reason for these protests as they tried for the Arab spring, and they are having barely any more luck. This is because people are looking in the wrong place, and because what we identify as a catalyst is actually a cause.

People are protesting because of the Internet.

It is not that protests are made easier by the Internet. It is not that social media makes it easier to organize. The Internet is the actual root cause of the current round of protests, the Arab spring, the election of Trump, flat earthers, incels, and the rise of the right in Europe. All these things are a manifestation of only one thing: entitlement.

And I don’t mean entitlement in a bad way. I just mean it in a descriptive way. For example, people seem to agree that millennials are entitled. This is the experience of everyone everywhere all over the world. I don’t think there has ever been a time where people in all areas of the world agree that there is a certain trait that characterizes a whole generation. Even after historic events of epic proportions like the second world war, the impact on the war generation was always different. The UK was not affected the same way India was. Hell, the impact on France and the UK wasn’t even very similar.

So what has changed. The internet. It’s pure and simple. It is true that the Internet, and particularly social media has worked as a catalyst for protest movements by providing a means of organizing. And it is true that protests almost always have some foundational causes, and that they are almost always leveraged by the governments of powerful countries to gain influence. But that’s not what these protests are about. These protests be they street protests, social movements, or voting decisions, are an expression that people are finally discovering that they are worth something.

It is a cry against an elite of some sort. An economic elite, a political elite, a scientific elite, or a woman-hogging elite. But it is always a cry against the dominant order by people who, for very long, have had to contend with being second rate. The Internet finally gave voice, form,  and credence to these counter-movements. “Counter” they no longer had to be, they did not have to be defined as marginal. They were as good as whatever they are countering, because they are an expression of real people who for very long did not have a voice.

It is difficult and sometimes dangerous to try and make sense of these protest movements. It is difficult because there is something there, there is an element of legitimacy. But if you approach these movements that way you will never understand them, because they are not about legitimate concerns or logical discussion. They are not about finding a solution or the real world, they are about an expression of exasperation. And when you start to dig a little deeper you find a lot to make fun of. The whole thing crumbles, serious street protests as fast as flat Earth experiments. Which is dangerous, because you then run the risk of being tarred and feathered by the establishment common wisdom.

There are a few axioms that are assumed about all these protest movements, some of which are true and some are myths:

-They are often thought to be leaderless. And they very often are. Some people have trouble getting to grips with this, assuming there must be a nefarious foreign hand involved. And there often is! The two things are not mutually exclusive. It is naïve to think western intelligence is not stoking tensions in Hong Kong to put pressure on China. In fact, if western intelligence didn’t, western intelligence would be criminally negligent. But also, these movements are often spontaneous and leaderless. It’s a little tough to believe, but that’s because you are missing that critical component: the Internet. It has allowed a swarm intelligence to develop around many subcultures in a very undirected manner.

-The movements are always legitimate. They aren’t always. In fact, they almost never are. While some are based in legitimate concerns, they do not have legitimate demands, realistic goals, or even a world view that accepts diversity.

-The movements provide an alternative to what they are rebelling against. They don’t. There aren’t always two sides to every issue. Flat Earth is not an alternative, it is bullshit. There aren’t good guys on the neo-NAZI side. And equally true, the Lebanese protestors aren’t protesting the right things, and protestors in Chile are making things worse.

The last two statements are dangerous. It is forbidden to criticize street protests, especially ones in which people die or are wounded. And double especially if there is legitimacy to the grievances. The Lebanese leadership is corrupt, kleptocratic, and sectarian. The Lebanese protestors are indignant about a situation that they themselves causes, they are making it worse, and they are demanding things that can never happen. Both sentences are true.

And yet, you have to give them legitimacy. Why? Because our brains aren’t programmed to grasp the concept that movements so large and so seemingly purposeful could be chaotic, destructive, ineffective, or aimless. That’s because we are living in a universe that is being reshaped by the democratization of self-worth. You do not have to be right. You do not have to learn. You do not have to prove. You are worth something because you are you.

What we are witnessing is a manifestation of the post-truth world in which there are versions of reality and alternative facts. This transcends left and right, White and Black, religious and atheist.

We are in the alternative fact universe.