I got the title from 20th Century Fox’s 1994 film, “PCU”, as satire to the Political Correctness movement back then. Given that it’s 26 years later, the relevance to today is… I don’t know if to say alarming or amazing; I’ll go with remarkable.
In all my life I’ve been in only one protest. Perhaps that’s the one that turned me off. I didn’t see it as being constructive use of my time.
Now, I’m not saying that protests are wrong. Protests are essential for large scale change, such as what is happening now in the US for “Black Lives Matter” or the LGBTQ movement. But protests for better roads, or pipe-borne water, seems over-the-top. I could understand people getting frustrated, but I don’t know if those protests work for the long term, or only for short term appeasement.
I wonder if the protests for change of the systematic discrimination for black people in the US is going to bring that, or just some short-term pandering, while stopping short of structural and legal changes to protect them.
Indeed, massive displays of support are necessary to sway people’s opinion – it’s human nature to move with the crowd. So protests, polls, parades – these could all help influence societal thinking. And we are seeing happening in the US.
It’s disappointing that there are so many worthy causes that need a protest to make it happen. But I see this to indicate a broken system. If only the system to fix the broken system wasn’t broken as well.
Until then, protests are going to happen until one day we believe that the system is good enough to say…
