The Paradox Embedded in Extinction Rebellion’s Appeal

The movement’s call for political diversity is inevitably, and almost uniformly, answered by liberals.

Luke Buffini

In April, I took part in Extinction Rebellion’s (XR’s) two-week demonstrations in London, along with thousands of other protestors. This was all part of an organized effort to draw attention to the climate crisis, in what is probably the most significant social movement in half a century. While we were blocking a huge four-lane road on London’s Hyde Park Corner, an angry pedestrian gave me and the other protestors a telling off. It basically amounted to: we are all rich white people, rich enough to be here protesting instead of going to work, and we are preventing people who really need the money from getting to their jobs. Variations of this comment could also be found in the media at the time. Adam Boulton, a British journalist and editor-at-large for Sky News, famously told an XR representative they were “a load of incompetent, middle-class, self-indulgent people who want to tell us how to live our lives.”

Extinction Rebellion activists block a bridge in London this past October. Photo by Stefan Müller.

It seems we’re at a point where the words “white and middle-class” amount to an insult on their own. Not to mention that this description seems to be at its most severe in the mouths of other white middle-class people. But anyone who takes the line that a political idea is invalid because of the identity of its defender already has no intention of having their mind changed.

This sort of impassable stubbornness was demonstrated quite literally to me by the pedestrian at the protests. Once he’d said his little piece, he immediately spun round and marched away. We didn’t have a chance to respond.

But there are still things worth saying in response to his critique. If nothing else, his opinion spurns the importance both of protest and freedom of speech to our democracy. More worryingly, the idea the white and middle-class should keep their mouths shut about the climate crisis ignores the plain and stark discrepancy between policy and public opinion in the country now. The rise and spread of a movement like XR evidences a sentiment in the UK that the ‘usual’ avenues through which citizens can make their political desires known have been exhausted, or have become redundant. The government’s environmental policies and general attitude towards climate issues simply do not reflect the urgency and sadness a noticeable chunk of the public feel. And this discrepancy by now represents just a small part in a widening hole between public and governmental attitudes on: austerity, NHS cuts, lack of affordable housing, tuition fees, etc.

There is further the real and justified feeling that the general population has no influence on policy. While it’s no longer possible to openly corrupt the decision-making system in the UK, certain groups exercise a disproportionate amount of influence. Think corporate lobbying, the advertising industry, and behaviour modifying algorithms used on social media for targeted political campaigns. Protest is a direct way for the people to make their will known; to register their dissatisfaction with both the corporate lobbyists and the elected officials being lobbied. To say that white middle-class people should keep quiet is to say that politicians have been carrying out their will. No one could say they believe this with a straight face.

XR rebels are protesting because they understand that climate change is going to wither the planet until it’s frail and grey. If anything, the British middle-class — among the richest populations on a global scale — is among those least endangered by climate change. People in less-developed countries are already being killed and made homeless by climate-related wildfires, floods, and famine. Even in richer nations, the brunt of climate chaos is being largely felt by the economically disadvantaged. For instance, the homes of many poor Americans are already underwater. The World Health Organization predicts 250,000 people a year will die from climate change between 2030 and 2050. The middle-classes, of course, are protesting partly out of self-preservation. But that cannot be their only motivation. They are also protesting on behalf of those around the world who stand to face the worst impacts, often those who have contributed the least to the current state of things. So why, then, do they deserve the scornful accusation of being so rich they can afford to disrupt the lives of the less wealthy?

XR rebels are perfectly aware of their own privilege. They know there exists a social privilege that allows them to take the time away from school, work, family, or any other responsibilities and show up for protests; and a historical privilege which preserves them from violence and repression. And in Parliament Square, as they crowd round the statues of Gandhi and Fawcett, they acknowledge that those who came before weren’t able to protest peacefully without great risk.

One of the hefty claims XR makes is that it is ‘beyond politics.’ In a literal sense this is true. Climate disaster will finish off everyone, so the usual political divisions should melt away, just as domestic club rivalries do during the World Cup. But the assertion is also a political gesture, meant to welcome and rally those from across the political spectrum. XR hopes to minimize any discomfort more politically conservative people might feel in joining what feels to them a politically foreign cause.

However, this may not be a useful way to try to engage with certain corners of the political spectrum. In the first place, there are any number of reasons — economic, propagandistic, (un)scientific — which might prevent those who occupy the less liberal plots of the political landscape from answering XR’s rallying call. But more to this point, psychological research has shown that the appeal to a diverse and novel political community cannot captivate the conservative mind. The ‘Beyond Politics’ hook, which aims at wrangling together people of all political complexions, can only be palatable to people who already manifest as liberals precisely because they are open to experiences of diversity like this. Thus a paradox sleeps in XR’s appeal: the call for diversity is inevitably, and almost uniformly, answered by liberals. Thus XR is an orchestra made up entirely of trumpets; a soccer team with eleven midfielders. I once read that escape rooms are a lot harder to solve if you go in with only your mates. Add a stranger or two, increase the variety of thinking styles, change the routine dynamic of the group, add dissent and compromise — and your chances of problem solving are greatly increased.

That said, an orchestra of trumpets is difficult to ignore. And for the first time, during the Extinction Rebellion, I properly understood the power of protest. That a few hundred organized people can reach out and tap the shoulder of government in a country like the UK.

The only serious problem to surmount is the sense many people have of their own powerlessness. The UK is one of the most free countries on Earth. There are other countries where civil disobedience (or simple disagreement) can get you killed. But historic intellectual and social movements have ensured that can’t happen here. The police are hesitant to physically force people off the streets, let alone arrest them. That’s why the only coverage some papers gave of April 2019’s Extinction Rebellion was that there were “over 1000 arrests.”

The suggestion, meant to be a discouraging one, is that you can be arrested simply for protesting. The reality is that it’s generally only people who really want to who get arrested. Some people were warned ten times before finally being carried into the back of a police van. At times, XR organizers would shout “arrestables to the front!” to give fair warning to all. In recent British history, the Suffragette movement managed 1,300 arrests. I’m sure XR set out to eclipse that record. By now they’ve obliterated it.

Ultimately, the fundamental difference between the psychology of XR, and that of the UK’s current Conservative government, is the difference between optimism and despair. If you’ve seen the science, and are sane, yet still don’t take enormous and immediate action, then you must not believe that things can be changed. Everyone who sits with XR is unified in rejecting this mindset. XR is based on the idea that things will change if we do something, but only if we do.

It seems like a grasp for profundity when XR invokes Martin Luther King or the Civil Rights Movement. But the fact is that they are recognizable ancestors of the current movement. Non-violence; persistence; the emergence of new cooperative communities; snubbing, demonization, or scorn from certain media; denial and pacification and repression of peaceful protest by the government. Both movements can be reduced to “the countless small deeds of unknown people,” as Howard Zinn put it. And thus the only thing that can destroy them is the apathy of the individual: millions of people glued to their sofas by the thought “what difference could I make?”