Caring Isn't Enough
How social media has tricked campus protestors into putting virality over effectiveness
This week’s normal midweek post is late! It’s still coming in the next day or two, but I accept whatever punishment that merits. But it is for a good reason - I’ve been working on pieces for American Purpose and Foreign Policy. Excited to share the first with you guys today, and it’s in the same vein as last month’s Activism is Not a Social Club.
Activism is not a Social Club
Simulacra Levels The first thing I want to talk about today is the philosophical treatise Simulacra and Simulation by the French sociologist Jean Baudrillard. Stick with me, I promise this is going somewhere. Baudrillard makes a point that is fundamentally simple, but profound. According to Baudrillard, a lot…
I wrote about how social media has tricked campus protestors over the last month into prioritizing virality over effectiveness - while successful movements in the past were strategic and focused, today’s protests are not.
Over the past few weeks, campus protests focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have received an inordinate amount of media attention. Images of the protests, news of university actions (or lack of action) against the protests, and debates about their legitimacy have been front-page news. And yet for all the breathless coverage, one thing seems to be missing: an explanation why any of this matters at all.
You may say that these events matter to the colleges impacted or to America’s domestic politics. But the protests are nominally about what’s happening in Gaza. And there’s very little reporting on how any of the protestors plan to make a difference there.
The truth is that they’re not going to make any difference to those enduring the conflict whatsoever. Furthermore, it’s not even clear whether the protestors realize that is supposed to be the goal. Helping Palestinians in Gaza no longer seems to be the point. It’s certainly worthwhile for college students to care about injustice in the world. But caring isn’t enough.
Check out the full article at American Purpose!
I don’t think this is quite right. The protesters with SJP and PSL wanted to punish Biden and hurt liberal Zionism, and that was very effective.
I also think there’s a lot of New Left thinking animating the protest. The idea being that activism isn’t just a means to an end, but an end in and of itself. You saw a lot of this during Occupy
Enjoyed the essay, Jeremiah. I would add to your good remarks--not only are the protestors acting mostly as virtue signaling viralists; they've also done a lot of damage--not just physical--but also to the educational purpose of the universities that enrolled them as students. Their acts are not just zero impact; they're net negative. Or so I argued in another Substack I write: https://open.substack.com/pub/civicbargain/p/campus-protests-hijack-our-democratic?r=87rjc&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web