Status Updates From The Emotions of Protest

Trump reaches his supporters directly through his tweets, appealing to their emotions without the intermediary of the news media. Similar to Hitler and other demagogues: they did not use intermediary institutions such as newspapers or unions but instead reached the masses directly. This idea was called mass society theory, and it also played a role in crowd theories which appealed to emotion rather than reason.

Democracy is not simply a set of formal procedures along with the cognitive rules and understandings that make them function. It includes feelings, centering on respect for others, compassion for beings that are suffering, and the dignity of all citizens. Its failings also consist largely of emotions: the arrogance of those with too much power and wealth, the shame of those with too little.

When we remain part of a group, our loyalty is such a basic commitment that we cannot imagine regret. It is who we are. Someone whose loyalty to the grouo conflicts with other appropiate emotions, sometimes moral commitments, can become the true believer who is more loyal to a group than to its principles. Extreme loyalty to one group/idea can prevent appropiate feelings about other groups/ideas to which we belong.

When do stereotypes lead to abiding hatred or aggression? It depends on group goals, competition over resources, a sense of threat from other groups, moral indignation over perceived unfairness from other groups, and the physical and cultural traits of the strategic arenas where organized groups engage one another.

(cont.)
symbols of permanence and continuity, the capacity to modify and act on our surroundings, and a reflection of our values and ideas. The last four could apply to the places associated with any group.

The strong affective loyalties associated with home are pitted against the harsh threat (and actuality) of displacement, a frequent moral battery for political action. The deep psychosocial attachments most people have to home, as a source of ontological security, include carriers of childhood memories, a sense of security and control, a refuge from the outside world, a place to bond with family and friends, (cont.)

(cont.)
Revenge is not necessarily a means to some other goal, it is satisfying in and of itself. When there is nothing left to lose, it may be the only goal that remains.
Group commitments may give us something to lose, even when there is little else. When we identify with a group, we care about its reputation and we work to preserve and advance it.

Occupation of your neighbourhood or nation by an alien power creates a frustrated mood of humiliation and desperation. A majority of Palestine suicide bombers between 2000-05 were motivated by a desire for revenge and retaliation. What is left when much of your family has been killed? When you, and the remaining members of your family, have been so humiliated that you feel you have no honor left?

External pressures helped pull the movement apart along the lines of tactical tastes: "increasing evictions, a more determined and fierce government response, and a public that was running out of patience and understanding." Caught in the naughty-or-nice dilemma, those who wished to confront the state with violence and those who saw duch confrontation as disastrous began to blame one another for the setbacks.

Nancy Whittier and Helena Flam have (independently) used the inevitable term emotional liberation to get at a similar package of emotions that are useful to protest movements. Full emotional liberation would contain changes in five types of feelings: some collective control over urges and reflex emotions; a hopeful, exhilirating mood; shifting affective loyalties; and outrage and indignation around the new grievance.

to the bus stop feeling humiliated and frustrated." More typical participants, not writing the PhD dissertations as Summers Effler was, would not return.

although it is possiboe also to detect some shaming. Each of her reflex emotions contributed to her emerging bad mood:"I was becoming more and more tense as the negative reactions seemed to heap one upon the other, each one happening before the effects of the previous one had worn off. The few positive responses did little to counter my mounting desire to flee." At the end, she says, "Emotionally worn out, I walked

Bad moods tend to break down the reciprocal love that fosters collective identity, suggesting their disruption potential. Erika Summers Effers recounts her own deteriorating mood at a poorly organized picktlet against the death penalty - clearly a failed interaction ritual. "I wasn't sure where to go... I wasn't sure where to look." Hostile passerby yelled at her. She describes her feelings as anxiety and frustration

Energy dissipates when fewer people show up than expected or when they leave too soon. Expectations are important here, as they are for most emotions. We compare what we expected to what then happens. As a result, people feel less attached to a cause or a group, or they feel that the movement is in decline. They leave in a bad mood.

Deborah Gould, in her study of the radicalisation of lesbian and gay rights movements, suggests how action puts us in good moods. “Expression of anger and defiance was just the thing [we] needed.” After chanting “Civil rights or civil war!” for a while, one participant commented, “This morning I was feeling really depressed, now I feel great. We really needed this. We need to show we’re not gonna take it.

Political activities contain many processes to slow down our thinking to try to avoid both regret and disruption (eg. meetings & coordination with other people).

Some of our reflex emotions, urges, even moods may subside during that period.

Only two of the reflex emotions, anger and fear, are high in both regret and disruption potential. A depressed mood can also be extremely disruptive. Disgust can send a strong and unintended signal to others that might prevent later alliances.

If emotions lend various intrinsic rewards to many actions, this can confound means and ends, making it impossible to select the "best" means to attain a given goal. Constructing a proud collective identity is a great satisfaction to group members, but it also energizes them to pursue further group goals. The ends are also means. This blurring of means and ends is a challenge to some definitions of rationality.

Some disruptions occur because a person feels that an action is an end in itself, regardless of practical consequences - what Max Weber called the ethic of "ultimate ends". Nonviolence or participatory democracy may not always advance a protest group's stated goals, but each is a strongly felt taste in tactics - in other words, a kind of goal in itself. Commitments like these can disrupt other flows of action.

Five types of feelings:
Reflex Emotions: quick, automatic responses to events and information,
Urge: urgent bodily needs that crowd out other feelings and attention until they are satisfied
Moods: feelings that do not normally take direct objects, can be changed by reflex emotions
Affective commitments: love/hate, like/dislike, trust/mistrust...
Moral emotions: feelings based on moral principles, eg shame, guilt...