NOTES ON PROTEST A love letter to my conservative and mainstream liberal friends (most of whom have never participated in a protest) who either dismiss protests as “a bunch of whiny pussies” or insist that they are “pointless”: 1. Protest is the concrete actuality of the abstract right of the First Amendment. This country was founded in protest, fighting for all those sacred rights of life, liberty, happiness, et al. Freedom is not merely a concept, or ink on paper, but an embodied activity that involves presence, movement, and speech. To dismiss protest is to erase living bodies. It is to turn a human into a ghost. To dismiss protest is to reverse the process of creation, sacrifice, and reconciliation. Protest is the transubstantiation of the Word into Flesh (John 1:14). I speak, therefore I am. 2. The democratic protest is the antithesis of the fascist’s march. It is the nourishing natural rhythm of rain moving from sky to soil as opposed to the rigid perversity of an unwavering lock-step. It is the reconciliation of plurality and unity, a spontaneous symphony that synthesizes dissonance and harmony and turns cacophony into chorale, the “I” that is a “We” and the “We” that is an “I.” I sing, therefore I am. 3. Protest is the chemical experiment that proves that we are not merely atoms isolated from each other and constantly in an unavoidable war of all against all, but that we are co-participants in organism that does not threaten our uniqueness and individuality, but outlines its purpose and meaning. By rubbing up against these strangers, colliding with their skin and speech and smells, we exchange cells. Such is the process of electricity, which is the source of energy. Such is the way that elements are formed. Such is the way that the fundamental particles of reality are revealed. It is the process of discovering who we are and where we come from. I collide, therefore I am. 4. Protest its he religious experiment of transgression that teaches us that we are not merely Adams that must follow external decrees from beyond the Empyrean, but that we are capable of eating from all the trees, and it is that fact that makes us free. Thank God that we were expelled from Eden, and though we may march through the desert or the valley of death, it is towards a Paradise that WE cultivate. Hell is not other people, rather the face of the Other is the face of God, and that Other is the Eve that offers us another horizon of possibility, a garden of our own, and forces us to finally activate our autonomy through choice and encounter. We are not alone. I rebel, therefore I am. 5. Protest is the aesthetic performance of solidarity. It is the cathartic sharing that is the proof that emotions evolved not as interior private phenomenon but as exterior evidence of our shared existence. We have survived as a species precisely because of the capacity to feel WITH others in all of its modalities: anger, joy, sadness, anxiety, fear, and love. The protest is one way in which we activate empathy and transform tragedy into beauty. It is a work of art without an artist, which is exactly the truth of the cosmos which many of us seek. I feel, therefore I am. P.S.—The People united will never be defeated Eric Anthamatten

November 2016



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