Post-Modern Drunk: Far From the Sorites Crowd
A good friend of mine from college is doing her dissertation at UW-Madison--so it's exciting around there right now, for all the teachers and potential teachers and everyone who believes that labor and unions have a place in this country. I haven't been making much of a contribution to the movement, these days, unless you count starting fights with friends of friends on Facebook a key part of the movement. And I start fights with the friends of friends on the average of about once a week, so this just took the place of the health care bill as the fight-topic of the day.

I've never taken to the streets, on purpose. The only street protests I've taken part in were in foreign countries--the first one a French protest that I wandered into and never quite figured out, the second a Irish Take-Back-The-Streets that went from party to police riot. I was an observer, not a protestor, in both of those cases. I also joined the protest against the Irish police riot, a couple of days later, but that was mostly because my mates were going out to the pub afterwards and I never turned down a chance to go down to the pub in Dublin.

But more than that, I tend to think that my participation in a street protest isn't going to make any difference. Not that street protests are worthless--they are moderately effective, at times incredibly effective. But one more person isn't going to make a difference, so I might as well stay home. This is related to the old Greek philosophical paradox called the Sorites Paradox, or the Paradox of the Heap.

The Sorites Paradox focuses on the idea that incremental changes--both additions and subtractions--result in a situation where there's never a moment where something definitely changed, but the change definitely happened. Think of it like this: you have a heap of sand. You remove a grain of sand, and you still have a heap of sand. But if you keep removing grains, eventually you will get to a point where you no longer have a heap.

Or think of it this way. You have a bit. You get a little more, and then a little more, and then you have some. You take that some and add some more, and suddenly you've got a lot. At no point did you concretely pass from a bit to some, to a lot, but it happened.

Some if there's a small protest and I go, it'll still be a small protest. If I don't go to a large protest, it'll still be a large protest. There's nothing that I distinctly contribute to the protest to make it worthwhile, because I don't have any funny signs, and my loud voice isn't that important in a mass of thousands of people.

I realize that if everyone felt like this, the movement would die, and the Man would be a lot happier. But I'm selfish, and unhealthy, and it's a lot easier to stay at home and watch Buffy and insult people on Facebook and hope that that changes their minds.

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