On Sat, 18 Jun 2005, Doug Henwood wrote:
>>> Wow, that's pretty amazing. Public opinion really seems to be turning,
>>> and with this sort of leadership, it could accelerate. Is Bush promoting
>>> the flameout of right-wing politics?
>>
>> The fact that public opinion is turning against the war is good news, but
>> folks should note the fact that the antiwar "movement" has not been a
>> factor in this switch in public opinion.
>
> Yeah, I'd noticed that and was trying to figure out what in meant. It's
> not just that the antiwar "movement" hasn't been a factor, it's virtually
> disappeared even as public opinion was turning in its favor. Why?
One way to look at this is that the anti-war movement became the Anybody But Bush movement. And that ironically, it won. Not in electing Kerry, which was never its main aim, but in turning people against the war, which was always the main focus its efforts, and which it continues to be fixated on to this day.
The anti-war movement seems to have affected public opinion through the most direct and bourgeois means of all: mass passionate yakking. And it's no mystery how that affects public opinion. That is public opinion. Polls are just a means of measuring it. The internet makes it easier to see it, and maybe even easier to conduct this sort of public conversation. But that's always been public opinion -- what people talk about publicly.
If we think of the anti-war demonstrations as means to affect public opinion, direct mass yakking is a huge advance in technique. All a demonstration can communicate is that we're against something. It's great for ramping ourselves up and firming our convictions. But in mass sustained yakking you can be much more sophisticated. You can give reasons, you can give references, you can make elaborate cases. You can't fit any of that on a sign.
It's interesting way to look at it. And it might be interesting to apply that retrospectively to the anti-Vietnam movement. Perhaps demonstrations should be seen as mass rituals where we confirm our convictions, like something out of Durkheim's Elementary Forms. And when successful, it leads to a second stage, where people are obsessed with it and won't let go, and talk about it all the time, even with acquaintances, structuring much of everyday life. And that it's that stage, which takes years, which changes public opinion.
Michael