Saturday, May 01, 2021

A great idea from Bookworm!

Bookworm has a great post on the flashmobs that are showing up in Europe.
The European anti-maskers, who are less constrained by the political straightjacket strangling public life in America, intuitively understood these things. The flashmobs seem to have really started in March in France, but they’re moving across Europe: Germany, Italy, Belgium, Spain, Holland, and maybe other places I’ve missed.
Flashmobs aren’t political. A protest in America about masks is inherently political. Republicans are anti-mask; Democrats are pro-mask. Independents stay away because they have become disgusted by American politics and because they’re concerned about being attacked by Antifa or arrested by the police. A flashmob, on the other hand, is apolitical. It’s about music and joy. Again, it draws people in.
Flashmobs aren’t angry. This is super important. The flashmob doesn’t yell about injustice from the Neo-Puritans who have set themselves above us with their crazy, contradictory, liberty-limiting edicts. Instead, flashmobs are about joy. If this were still high school, the masked crowd would be the uptight teachers’ pets whom everyone hates. The flashmob crowd is the one with the cool kids. They’re partying and having fun. Joy is much more attractive than anger and punitive discipline.
Flashmobs are a much better idea than protests. Protests have to be planned in advance, they’re angry, they’re political, and they attract attention from police forces.
Unlike a protest, flashmobs must be planned in advance only as to the core people involved for singing, playing instruments, and dancing. Their spontaneity also means that counterprotesters (e.g., Antifa, BLM, or other dangerous groups) won’t be there.
Read more here: https://www.bookwormroom.com/2021/05/01/europe-liberty-and-danser-encore-flashmobs/

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