Democracy is Not A Street Protest.

it's so easy to claim that you are on the right side of history and that your political opponents are on the wrong side of history and then we can try to bully and motivate one another by saying oh you want to be on the right side of history don't you you want to be like gandhi you want to be like martin luther king you don't want to be like those terrible people who kept supporting slavery when it was doomed but our claims about being on the right side of history are based on mythology [Music] i'm inviting you to join a discussion just one hour from now 10 p.m in london england 4 p.m in new york city saturday january 27 2022 inviting you to join me in a live stream discussion about one of the most important myths in our times a myth that is dangerous precisely because people do not regard it as mythology people do not scrutinize it as propaganda people don't question its origins or its purposes if you believe in the theory of public protest producing democracy why does it go so horribly wrong in practice again and again and again simply but seriously what actually happened in myanmar and why doesn't that challenge our preconceptions about protest and democracy even here at home belarus look back at the last 10 years look at the next 10 years what actually happened in belarus and what do you believe is going to happen next and if you believe in this model of democracy if you believe in this model of public protest why haven't you bought an airplane ticket to myanmar why haven't you bought an airplane ticket to belarus what if you had a wife or a girlfriend who was belarusian would you be trying to help her escape from belarus or would you be going over there to join in the revolution and be part of this democracy that's supposedly going to result from these street protests what actually happened in hong kong looking back at the last 10 years and looking ahead to the next 10 years what actually happened as a consequence of the so-called arab spring and imagine how depressing it would be if i showed you a slide for each one of these countries in this list libya egypt yemen syria bahrain what really do you believe about public protest street protest so-called activism and democracy what actually happened in france what were the real outcomes of the chilejones of their protests and yeah of their riots what actually happened in the united states of america what actually happened in seattle what actually happened in portland oregon we all lived through this there's no way you could have ignored it it's possible to ignore myanmar it's possible to ignore belarus don't do it don't let yourself ignore it it's so easy to claim that you are on the right side of history and that your political opponents are on the wrong side of history and then we can try to bully and motivate one another by saying oh you want to be on the right side of history don't you you want to be like gandhi you want to be like martin luther king you don't want to be like those terrible people who kept supporting slavery when it was doomed but our claims about being on the right side of history are based on mythology are based on half truths and outright lies that we tell ourselves about history it's based on a kind of propaganda that is not scientifically falsifiable and i think it is not a coincidence that the most powerful and influential voices in politics have harnessed this mythology and have raised millions of dollars whether you're looking at wayne syong at direct action everywhere whether you're looking at roger hallam and extinction rebellion or over a longer period of time and a larger scale the so-called effective altruism movement look at how many millions of dollars some sources claim more than one billion dollars have been raised in donations just by that third example we're living through a period of time in which people are intoxicated by a fundamentally fatuous notion that they are on the right side of history and that a certain skewed interpretation of historical facts proves that there is one and only one route to political progress to achieving democracy or achieving some kind of socialist utopia but mysteriously that one root that one methodology that they claim history proves is infallible it fails again and again and again and whether you are looking at myanmar or you are looking at belarus or you are looking at seattle and portland within the united states of america or you were looking at the chilejone in paris france it's still failing right now in about one hour please join me for this discussion [Music] but what you don't see is the nights where i cry myself to sleep or the intense loneliness that i feel or times where i just feel like giving up i am struggling and really what what you see online is not i i mean i don't want to say it's not real because it's still me it's authentic i i never lie in what i put online but of course i only show the good parts