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Pls dont do violent protests, think of the poor Gestapo agents you could hurt, instead work with the System
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this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2025
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AAAAARGH MLK jr.’s method of protest was only successful because it was the “good cop” to black nationalism’s “bad cop.” It was the threat of Malcolm X’s “by any means necessary” that drove the liberal establishment to begrudgingly accept desegregation.
This strategy is explicitly understood and taught by Peace Studies academics as a legitimate method of protest strategy, one that has repeatedly created positive, if limited, change. The only reason to obscure it is either ignorance, malice, or both.
What to the Violence Studies academics think of it?
I also think that an MLK-style "good cop" is a necessary element in a resistance movement, and should even be more heavily emphasized than the "bad cop" element.
Ultimately, violence is an effective tool for getting what you want. How it is used determines whether it is morally good or bad. The vast majority of people (hexbears included) believe violence is only good when
Tangent on human nature
I think we can learn a lot about human nature when we consider "trolly problems" where both tracks have significant social consequences, and those consequences direct you to one of the choices. For example, if you see someone drowning and you are able to save them, there is an overwhelming social pressure for you to save them. If you save them, it is rewarded - you're a hero! However, if you don't save them, it is punished - you are a coward.The rewards and punishments don't match typical social behavior motivators, where one option has a reward or a punishment and the other is neutral. You're not a hero if you don't beat your child, and you're not shamed if you don't donate all your money to charity.
We can design this type of trolly problem for violence, where you have a gun pointed at an active shooter and you need to decide whether to pull the trigger. If you do, you are a hero. If you do not, you are a coward. Humanity exists in the gaps between what is more "formally" moral and how we feel. It is human to approve of violence in some situations.
The Left, by definition, holds values that the vast majority of people hold. If there are people who oppose the left, it is because they hold incorrect beliefs about those values. Most MAGA chuds hold our values, they just think we're trying to kill all cis people or whatever and they think that's bad.
The Left, also by definition, gets its power from having an absolute fuckload of people pulling in the same direction. To become powerful, we MUST grow and to do that we need to show people that we hold their values.
MLK and Malcom X were both fighting for good, but fighting for good is not enough if you lose. We need to WIN, and we can not win if we don't have enough power.
And so we reach the heart of the problem: how do we balance effective resistance with growing power, which requires appealing to the ignorant, propagandized masses?
First: There are plenty of actions that are both effective resistance and good for growing the movement. I think those actions should be prioritized and promoted as the public face of the movement. That's irrelevant to the discussion of violence, though.
A resistance WILL be more effective per person if it is violent. However, it then runs a significant risk of running afoul of public perception, which slows its growth (and therefore power). Since violence is only appropriate under narrow conditions, our enemy can delegitimatize our violence by suggesting any of the above conditions aren't met ("being trans is bad, actually" or "sure, we want to keep our communities safe too, but there are other ways").
A commitment to nonviolence is a safe public stance, since it is more resistant to misportrayal and many will see violent suppression by the government as immoral. Your movement is sympathetic to the public, and should grow more as a result, but is less effective per person.
If violence is necessary, it may need to be denounced as separate from the moment. Not because it is morally wrong, but because our enemy gets to shape the narrative and they will show us in the worst light possible.
Generally agree. In this specific context, I think the combination of how heavy-handed ICE has been and the legacy of January 6th leads me to think that the protesters in LA aren’t likely to alienate the general public.
I've never thought about it that way. And now I need to think about that for a while.
Without going out and checking it appears to be true of every successful nonviolent movement. During Ghandi's time there was absolutely a violent independence movement, and Mandela literally started out as a "terrorist" (and those more active orgs were still around when he rebranded as non violent). Why would the powers that be give in to a group that doesn't threaten them otherwise? Certainly not because they suddenly grow a conscience. If it were just Dr King and a bunch of nonviolent protesters - even a lot of them - why would the American government listen? It's pretty obvious they don't actually have to listen to people's opinions, or they wouldn't be supporting Israel and ICE would either be abolished or at the very least very, very different. Nope, gotta be materialist about these things. Peaceful protest alone has never achieved anything and even when it's successful tends to only be partially so, because the peaceful protesters are there to negotiate and have more moderate demands to begin with - consider MLK v Malcolm X and exactly how much further they each would have liked the civil rights movement to proceed - obviously neither would have been happy with where it ended but I suspect Malcolm X would have been less so and would have driven it further.
In the same vein, social-democratic reform in Europe was a release valve to deter more radical, soviet-backed movements from gaining strength.
Yet another reason for the fall of the USSR to be a tragedy; it removed any incentive for western-capitalist governments to even pretend to care about workers.
The peaceful protest side also helps! The state would much rather make concessions to peaceful protest than they would to an armed one, because the latter challenges the state's monopoly on power. The existence of a peaceful protest lets the state pretend to ignore the armed one, while still giving into their demands. Of course the state would rather make no concessions at all, so both are necessary.
I mean, yes, that's what I was saying, but you've named the problem right here. Peaceful protest doesn't challenge state power, it can reform things but not make radical change, so if radical change is necessary (it is), peaceful protest serves only to distract from truly effective movements.
That's not what I'm saying.
I'm saying that if you don't have the numbers for armed resistance to actually win, a parallel peaceful protest movement can still give a path to get concessions (but peaceful protest won't get anything by itself).
And taking advantage of that phenomena to quell people's outrage is very explicitly something the bourgeoisie do to keep the more extreme movements from being able to expand to the point that they CAN make the actual, needed, radical change.
Further reading on this topic
Well I see the point in that, too. I'll note that though Malcolm became peaceful, and mlk2 they both ended up eating lead.