At the moment, I count myself among supporters of democracy, particularly social democracy. Part of this support includes support for a wide range of means to participate, primarily among them voting, but also protesting and other forms of civil disobedience.

Civil disobedience exists as a right in most democracies because it is premised upon the wise realization that institutions – even well meaning democratic ones – usually if not always become corrupted in some way, and the public requires a way to make its voice properly heard and effect change when the political institution is no longer able to do its job.

Within the short political history we humans have, the trend has been that those with economic and social privilege systematize their privilege and associated ideologies. If democracy is a system of equality, then the systemization of privilege for one group is at the same time the systemization of discrimination for all others.

There are many who would argue that the current situation in the ‘West’ (and thus the world economy), and more specifically in Canada, has been corrupted in just this way; that a certain few enjoy a systemic privilege at the expense of the rest of the world. Since the corruption is systemic, the usual means of civic engagement are no longer effective, and alternative means must be found in order to restore equality.

Civil disobedience is one, and there are many ways to be disobedient ranging from ballot spoiling to tax evasion to petitioning to constitutional challenges to protesting.

In my mind, constitutional challenges are the best option because it is a rational approach to addressing the problem. But it has at least two enormous faults: 1. it’s expensive, and government-supplied funds for legal challenges are drying up; and 2. the legal system is populated (but not exclusively) by the very people who enjoy systemic privilege. Nice combo. Let the multi-million-dollar salaries reign!

Tax evasion normally ends up in imprisonment, which won’t help feed the kids. Ballot spoiling is about as effective as … not spoiling your ballot?

Protesting, however, is an easy choice because it looks good (especially on TV), is easy to do (everyone from children to the elderly can do it), it’s free (positively, if you can afford the time), and sometimes effective (the squeaky wheel etc. etc.). Protesting, when done appropriately, is a suitable extension of the democratic premise of public dialogue. This is why the freedoms to assemble and associate are critical to the proper functioning of a democratic system.

‘Protesting appropriately’ is a funny phrase, I admit. If we work from the above-mentioned premise, then protests indeed should be disruptive since the intent is to express discontent and, hopefully, a point. In addition, protests should be allowed without interference from authorities, and protesters should be allowed to protest in any manner they so chose, so long as they meet the following conditions: they should not be violent, they should not restrict the freedoms of non-participants, and they should not impose an ideological reality on non-participants. Breaking any of these conditions is contrary to the premise of public dialogue, and is instead an attempt at domination of one view over another, i.e. probably the very thing they are protesting at its root.

But the protests in Montreal in opposition to the Grand Prix, where I am while I write this, have become ‘inappropriate’ according to the above conditions. Anti-capitalists piggy-backing on the momentum of more appropriate student protests are employing anti-dialogical methods such as terrorism/fear-mongering, violence, and imposing an ideology on those who might not agree with it.

Of course, there is at least one issue with my complaint; systems of privilege have it within their interests to limit dialogue. They don’t want people thinking and talking about how a system of privilege is in turn a system of discrimination, and usually indoctrination and control as a matter of course. Such activities would ‘destabilize’ the system (which actually means ‘equalize’), which means no more multi-million-dollar salaries.

If this happens to be the case, it could be easily argued that protests need to be severely disruptive, need to restrict the rights of others, and need to impose an ideological reality on non-participants, since the public needs to be ‘awakened from their slumber,’ as Marx would say. This is the situation of which many Marxists and Anarchists dream.

But this is not, I believe, the situation in Montreal, Quebec, or Canada. Not yet. And even if it were, recent revolutions in the Middle East have shown positively that non-violent protest can achieve desired ends. Yes, the country must be shut down, but no rocks or cocktails need to be thrown – which is what some protesters in Montreal were hoping to do.

Another issue is that political ends are always already mixed with economic ends, among other social and cultural ends as well. Is it possible to have a non-capitalistic democracy? I suppose so. But the frustrated citizen who wishes for such a thing must ask “How does a nation-state such as ours get there?”

It’s tempting to shortcut the process with violence. How many of us have had the quiet wish that a catastrophic ‘reset’ of the economic system could happen like what is suggested at the end of “Fight Club”, or something even more total? But even as “Fight Club” ultimately argues, such a route is motivated by an emotional and rational pre-pubescence – the protesters who are choosing to be violent lack the perspective to assess their (and other) ideologies in the larger historical, political, cultural, and social context.

So when critics complain that the protesters are ‘just a bunch of kids’, I’m inclined to agree but probably for different reasons, and probably in a different way; I wouldn’t say such a thing to be dismissive, but rather to be explanatory.

In fact, the worst thing to do is be dismissive, which is just what the authorities are doing. If ever there was a time for openness and engagement, it is now. But the Charest government has done all of the wrong things, including forbidding protesters to wear masks; if that law isn’t an indication of just how out of step the government is with protesting students and, seemingly, democratic basics, then I’m a peanut.

But I get it. There’s a need to save face, there’s a need to ‘show leadership’ and ‘be authoritative’, to draw a line. But why? Democracy is intended to be plastic, to always be under the assumption that it is wrong all of the time. There are no absolutes, and what we have is not good enough. And there are no stupid questions, and there are no mistakes. In this way, democracy is not an ideology per se, but a container in which, as per Rousseau, a constant and natural calculus of common and private interests is always producing the general will.

So, protest and let protest. We are all better for it. Just don’t an ignorant ass about it.