Can Polarisation Help Drive Social Change?
Many mainstream campaign organisations shy away from engaging in radical, dramatic and subversive action because they are nervous about…
Many mainstream campaign organisations shy away from engaging in radical, dramatic and subversive action because they are nervous about turning people away from the movement and the cause, seeing this as a failure. Indeed, people in the Animal Freedom Movement often worry about ‘making vegans look bad’. This prevents people from taking the necessary action in the context of a campaign to make the issue a real focal point of debate.
What is polarisation?
Whilst our goal is to build popular support as much as possible, it is sometimes the (counter-intuitive) case that building such support entails doing things that are controversial and push some people away from us.
One of the strategies that is used to activate rapid social change is polarisation. This may be done by engaging in civil disobedience or presenting the issue in a certain way so people can no longer ignore it and have to take a side. We want to cleverly plan our strategies and narratives to win as many neutral parties over in favour of our aims.
A clear example of this is the Extinction Rebellion protests, which sought to shut down London, generating significant support from people who saw the necessity of this (or came to understand the necessity), as well as alienating a lot of people who thought this was too extreme. This kind of action creates a social crisis, goes to the centre of the news cycle and, critically, forces people to take a stand on the issue.
At the time, the Suffragettes, civil rights activists and others were viewed to be on the radical fringe, and the tactics were often disliked. But they were still able to achieve success for their issue. In other words, the popularity of a movement and support for an issue are two different things.
But when we force people to take a stand, this inherently means that some neutral people become passive opponents, and some passive opponents become active and vocal opponents of our cause. When people are forced to take a stand, this tends to lead them to hold viewpoints more strongly. This is why, in times of mass protest and social upheaval, you often see counter-protesters emerge, as was witnessed when people turned out to protect statues in Black Lives Matter, as well as even coming out in violence.
Why we need polarisation
Many mainstream campaign organisations shy away from engaging in radical, dramatic and subversive action because they are nervous about turning people away from the movement and the cause, seeing this as a failure. Indeed, people in the Animal Freedom Movement often worry about ‘making vegans look bad’. This prevents people from taking the necessary action in the context of a campaign to make the issue a real focal point of debate.
One of the documented dynamics of polarisation is that, at times, a dramatic action may initially produce more opposition than support. But if a campaign continues to press the issue and it becomes an issue of social debate, then people’s opinions can slowly begin to shift in favour of the movement. Of course, any decision to polarise needs to be given due consideration.
Polarisation is a big part of our theory of change. It is essential that we are willing to take calculated risks and to cause a stir in society with the confidence that we will build active and passive support over time. It is worthwhile remembering that at the time, the Suffragettes, civil rights activists and others were viewed to be on the radical fringe, and the tactics were often disliked. But they were still able to achieve success for their issue. In other words, the popularity of a movement and support for an issue are two different things. It’s worth paying attention to public opinion polls about some of the most successful nonviolent campaigns in the civil rights era.
A Long View of Public Opinion
Polarisation isn’t the only major process that happens as new attitudes and norms are introduced into society. What also happens is clustering, whereby people tend to congregate with like-minded people. In these clusters, minority attitudes and norms can be protected and entrenched among people.
This is increasingly the case in our modern societies, where local communities have broken down and people engage in online communities with increasing frequency, which, due to the nature of social media technologies and algorithms, increases echo chambers.
Studies that have explored how attitudes spread throughout society highlight how attitudes tend to shift through various local interactions between individuals in society. This is why Bill Moyer highlighted the importance of the ‘helper/citizen’ role in the social change map. Following a moment of the whirlwind, a huge level of conversation happens in different social spaces and people’s ideas begin to shift. In order to push conversations to happen publicly, campaigns need to maintain a level of controversy without bending to sensibilities that won’t be useful. This is because we want to get large swathes of society engaged in the debate and the conflict that we have created. By creating this tension, we help to create change.
What tends to happen is that different communities shift in their attitude, creating ‘social islands’ where different people and communities think certain ways (e.g. punks have tended to include lots of vegans, as do meditation communities). As different communities overlap and connect with one another, social norms can spread to new spaces.
However, at the same time, the ‘old view’ can prevail in different communities, which become increasingly more insular and guarded against the new ideas that are forming. So, if Animal Freedom were to become the social norm, there would still be large clusters of people strongly believing in the old way of thinking (like, for instance, the Bible Belt in America being opposed to gay marriage). These groups can mount counterattacks and it can often be the case that progressive legislation gets overturned some time later (as was the case with Donald Trump rolling back progressive change).
In the long term, we need to strategise not only about how we gain our support base, but also about how we work to engage with and shift those communities which oppose our way of thinking, so that they are less likely to launch a counterattack later on.
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