Yup. Technically non-violent protest is supposed to be one that does not go into violence, but still causes some challenge to the power of the authorities. Whether it is blocking roads, striking, or looting it is all there. And a major component in it is that it relies on the authorities responding out of proportion, because that is what discredits the authority. But it also relies on the implicit threat that it can turn violent.
In modern discourse a lot of these have been turned into "violent" ones both for consent manufacturing, but also because of this thing literally ingrained in education since early on that anything violent is really really bad. The system exists to a large extend because people do not know what is violent and are trained to be docile. Protests are reduced to a government sanctioned parade, that in no way or form challenges power. This is actually quite interesting to consider from a historic perspective - one of the big thing governments have learned since the 19-th century is how to pacify entire populations and how to make it so that any real challenge to authority is considered completely out of norms. Which means that in essence the vast majority of peoples anger will be redirected to above mentioned government sanctioned parades.
Yup. Technically non-violent protest is supposed to be one that does not go into violence, but still causes some challenge to the power of the authorities. Whether it is blocking roads, striking, or looting it is all there. And a major component in it is that it relies on the authorities responding out of proportion, because that is what discredits the authority. But it also relies on the implicit threat that it can turn violent.
In modern discourse a lot of these have been turned into "violent" ones both for consent manufacturing, but also because of this thing literally ingrained in education since early on that anything violent is really really bad. The system exists to a large extend because people do not know what is violent and are trained to be docile. Protests are reduced to a government sanctioned parade, that in no way or form challenges power. This is actually quite interesting to consider from a historic perspective - one of the big thing governments have learned since the 19-th century is how to pacify entire populations and how to make it so that any real challenge to authority is considered completely out of norms. Which means that in essence the vast majority of peoples anger will be redirected to above mentioned government sanctioned parades.