on Nelly Bowles, conspiracism, and what's at stake in dismissing protestors as whiny babies
a new review
about a new book by Nelly Bowles, but also about the anti-democracy implicit in her scornful attitude towards mass movements. Would love if you would read it here, and perhaps share it: https://wapo.st/3UJo6l2
This review made my month. Just a stunningly good piece of writing.
Can I use the on-going university encampments as an example of the mass movements you say Bowles dismisses? The ‘divest from Israel’ protest at the University of Toronto. Once the protesters had dug themselves in, they sent the administration their ‘demands’: 1) they must be supplied with toilets (lol), and 2) they don’t want to ‘talk’ until the school agrees to do everything they ask, without condition.
In interviews with the students, it comes up repeatedly that they’re just not built for debate anymore: when someone who disagrees with them comes near the camp, they say they feel ‘scared’ or ‘unsafe’.
You wrote how Bowles’ rejection of these movements is ‘deeply anti-democratic’. There are about 100 protesters camping overnight. By contrast, U of T has 97,000 active students, and even more alumni. It apparently never occurred to the protesters to demand a campus-wide poll — all the students, not just them — and accept the results of that as binding. That would be democratic.
Maybe the campus would vote wildly in favor of divestment. Who knows? The protesters don’t know, and clearly they don’t care. In their minds, there’s no debate; it’s time for ‘action’.
This attitude is a near-constant in contemporary progressive mass movements, at least the ones I’ve seen firsthand, in my city.
If Bowles is anti-democratic, so are the protesters: and I don’t think they can be reformed. The admin is there to do their bidding and empty their toilets. The rest of the students don’t get a vote. Alumni? They’re old.
How is it possible to do politics according to this model? It would grant anyone who sets up a tent the right to issue diktats (or vetoes), no matter what the other students want. The admin can't grant the protesters’ demands, even if they’re wholly right, because the precedent is untenable. Democracy is a process, not a contest of feelings.
Progressive protesters of all kinds seem to believe that, if something upsets them (even if it’s a lie), they have a right to issue ‘demands’ and have them met ‘unconditionally’. If I’m upset, the debate’s over, and you’ll do what I say, or I’ll obstruct you (and if you remove me, I’ll accuse you of violence, which also means I get my way). You must admit... pretty common attitude.
It implies that votes are weighed by intensity of feeling, and not just, you know, counted.