“Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue,” King wrote. “It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored.”
If you genuinely think a dictionary has a better understanding of protests than Martin Luther King Jr, you either don’t know his history or are not being serious
Got it, so all the protests for US labor laws, for the end of segregation, and for the end to Apartheid South Africa are all not protests by your definition. Because they interfered with the flow of other’s lives.
I strongly suggest you read any of the works of MLK Jr or his autobiography. Because you fundamentally misunderstand the point of nonviolent protests against injustice
Of course they can. Dictionaries are not the Bible. They exist to describe how words are used, not how they should be used. Words’ meaning changes over time (“gay” meant “happy” in the 20th century, to use the tired example) and new words get added to the dictionary every day (most dictionary websites have little blurbs showing words they’ve recently added). Dictionaries have historically, and continue to, change in response to how people use words, not the other way around. If your entire argument rests on the dictionary definition of the word “protest” not explicitly mentioning that to be considered a protest, something must be disruptive, it’s not a very good argument.
It also fails to consider that methods of convincing people who would rather simply ignore the issue to care about it that are not disruptive are few and far between.
And when exactly did “people turn it into” that? The purpose of a picket line is to be disruptive, and people have been doing those for over a century.
The point of protest is literally exactly that. The point of protest is to make the message impossible to ignore.
I’d urge you to look up the definition of protest and see where it says that it should be disruptive?
See-
I’m talking about REAL definitions. Not what people have turned it into.
MLK is not a dictionary. Try again.
If you genuinely think a dictionary has a better understanding of protests than Martin Luther King Jr, you either don’t know his history or are not being serious
So…. Anyone can rewrite the definition of something whenever they want?
Is that a serious question? Do you seriously think MLK Jr is just ‘anyone’ on the subject of protests?
He doesn’t get to redefine anything any more than anyone else. Protest by definition does not include interference with the flow of other’s lives.
Period.
Got it, so all the protests for US labor laws, for the end of segregation, and for the end to Apartheid South Africa are all not protests by your definition. Because they interfered with the flow of other’s lives.
I strongly suggest you read any of the works of MLK Jr or his autobiography. Because you fundamentally misunderstand the point of nonviolent protests against injustice
Of course they can. Dictionaries are not the Bible. They exist to describe how words are used, not how they should be used. Words’ meaning changes over time (“gay” meant “happy” in the 20th century, to use the tired example) and new words get added to the dictionary every day (most dictionary websites have little blurbs showing words they’ve recently added). Dictionaries have historically, and continue to, change in response to how people use words, not the other way around. If your entire argument rests on the dictionary definition of the word “protest” not explicitly mentioning that to be considered a protest, something must be disruptive, it’s not a very good argument.
It also fails to consider that methods of convincing people who would rather simply ignore the issue to care about it that are not disruptive are few and far between.
lol…. Okay. Buddy.
And when exactly did “people turn it into” that? The purpose of a picket line is to be disruptive, and people have been doing those for over a century.