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Apr 10, 2007
when hunger strikes First off, one of the most entertaining parts of fast food dining is the shocked look on the face of the Subway employee when you tell them that you don't want any toppings on your sub. Back when I was in college, I had a conversation with my roommate, Nick, regarding a discussion he had during a class. Apparently, the class had read something regarding some type of people's uprising against the government in a third world country. He said that there were a bunch of people who kept asking why we didn't do something like this in our country. The reason is obvious--We live much too comfortable lives to do such a thing. Recently, this has been well illustrated. There has been a great divisive controversy in our country, one that has caused people to stand up and go to extreme measures. I am, of course, talking about Sanjaya. Apparently, judging by the hate mail on votefortheworst.com, some people literally believe that their quality of life will go down if Sanjaya wins. To the point that some have even gone on hunger strikes until Sanjaya is voted off of the show. There was one in particular that was being chronicled on youtube.com, which ended last week. She said that she had to quit because her doctor told her it was having a negative affect on her medically. Of course it was. That's the point. A hunger strike is an interesting form of protest. It, in effect, is saying that I am willing to die for my cause, but I am not willing to kill for it. It can be effective in some cases, but it does assume a certain level of compassion from the person you are trying to persuade. The hunger strike in question was never going to succeed, mostly because it's premise was so silly that it couldn't be taken seriously. Was this girl going to die for American Idol? Of course not. Nobody ever believed that for a second. This girl never intended for it to come to that. Somewhere, in her head, she believed that people would be so upset that she didn't eat for two weeks that they would change their votes. The reality is that the art of protestation has been lost in this country. It's hard to have any serious kind of protest because for decades we have been cheapening it. Protests are too often done on pointless causes, to the point we don't even notice them anymore (somewhat like a car alarm). And even more damaging is that even when something is worth protesting, few are really willing to take on the consequences of the protest, which is what makes a protest effective in the first place. posted
by Unknown @ 9:25:00 PM |
