The three entries I have decided to unpack are "Brand or be branded", "Kill them with kindness" and "The social cure".
"Brand or be branded"
The way Fleming talks about branding is very interesting. What initially drew me to explore this topic was the idea of branding being a corporate tool and to brand your movement would inherently make it pro-corporation. I think making the distinction that branding doesn't necessarily have to be corporate and that branding exists outside of the world of business allows for this philosophy to actually have a strong footing in activism. The major pros of branding a movement are plentiful from what I can discern. Having a recognisable and brand could make your movement, especially in the digital age, widespread and even iconic. People connect with aestheticism, and for your movement to have an aesthetic that people enjoy could be the difference between gaining a comrade or an enemy. I must admit, however, that the idea of branding seems very vapid and contrived and a challenge I would have for consciously doing this would be in branding how do you ensure the integrity of your movement and not get lost in the look. I also think that by giving your movement an aesthetic (similar to Otpor!) you could be alienating people who connect with your message, especially if the brand you choose is "cool"/edgy/punk. Some people, people who may be valuable members of your movement, may feel ostracised by not subscribing to your 'look' and be dissuaded from taking part. Revolution can't happen without accessibility.
"Kill them with kindness"
I need to start by saying I don't agree with this tactic, but I'm going to unpack it anyway. How I see this tactic is that it's so lovely in theory, but in practice it doesn't really work. I can absolutely understand the value of being benevolent, and I think in lots of cases this could be a very effective tactic, but only in grassroots/small scale instances. Say you're debating with your racist uncle, that could be a time when this tactic could be helpful, acknowledge his humanity, show him yours and gently persuade. But on a larger scale I believe this tactic is shallow at best and doesn't really make deep change. It's like icing sugar on top of a cake, it's nice but you're there for the cake. First, I think one of the major flaws of this way of thinking is it assumes that the enemy is empathetic to you, which a lot of the time is not the case. If someone thinks your "lifestyle" is disgusting, when you give them a flower they'll probably burn it, and worst case become even more resentful of you because your are not giving them the reaction they want (school yard politics) which could hurt your movement more than help it. Also historically we have spent so much time on promoting non-violent protest when in reality a lot movements that have succeeded have been violent in one way or another. Furthermore when the oppressors enact dominance it is never non-violent, it is violent and it is devastating. The most effective think to do it fight fire with fire, glitter won't stop tear gas, mobilise.
"The social cure"
This is a really interesting concept – peer pressure but in a good way. I think the points that are made about how this works are really spot on. Additionally though, there is safety in numbers, solidarity is empowering and more-so than feeling "cool" but feeling like you are part of something bigger than yourself is really gratifying. I think this is a totally viable model and has been used successfully many times over the years. I think however one of the draw backs of this model is that it's really hard to break. This idea of peer pressure has been used by the right as well as the left and it's power structures like this that make it that much harder to sway peoples views. When you have 100 people just like you to reassure you that you're right, someone saying you're wrong isn't going to impact you very much at all, you can just return to your fold and have them in chorus tell you that you're right and 'fuck the cucks'. But in the same breath this type of structure happens naturally anyway so there's not much to be done in regards to breaking it down.
"Brand or be branded"
The way Fleming talks about branding is very interesting. What initially drew me to explore this topic was the idea of branding being a corporate tool and to brand your movement would inherently make it pro-corporation. I think making the distinction that branding doesn't necessarily have to be corporate and that branding exists outside of the world of business allows for this philosophy to actually have a strong footing in activism. The major pros of branding a movement are plentiful from what I can discern. Having a recognisable and brand could make your movement, especially in the digital age, widespread and even iconic. People connect with aestheticism, and for your movement to have an aesthetic that people enjoy could be the difference between gaining a comrade or an enemy. I must admit, however, that the idea of branding seems very vapid and contrived and a challenge I would have for consciously doing this would be in branding how do you ensure the integrity of your movement and not get lost in the look. I also think that by giving your movement an aesthetic (similar to Otpor!) you could be alienating people who connect with your message, especially if the brand you choose is "cool"/edgy/punk. Some people, people who may be valuable members of your movement, may feel ostracised by not subscribing to your 'look' and be dissuaded from taking part. Revolution can't happen without accessibility.
"Kill them with kindness"
I need to start by saying I don't agree with this tactic, but I'm going to unpack it anyway. How I see this tactic is that it's so lovely in theory, but in practice it doesn't really work. I can absolutely understand the value of being benevolent, and I think in lots of cases this could be a very effective tactic, but only in grassroots/small scale instances. Say you're debating with your racist uncle, that could be a time when this tactic could be helpful, acknowledge his humanity, show him yours and gently persuade. But on a larger scale I believe this tactic is shallow at best and doesn't really make deep change. It's like icing sugar on top of a cake, it's nice but you're there for the cake. First, I think one of the major flaws of this way of thinking is it assumes that the enemy is empathetic to you, which a lot of the time is not the case. If someone thinks your "lifestyle" is disgusting, when you give them a flower they'll probably burn it, and worst case become even more resentful of you because your are not giving them the reaction they want (school yard politics) which could hurt your movement more than help it. Also historically we have spent so much time on promoting non-violent protest when in reality a lot movements that have succeeded have been violent in one way or another. Furthermore when the oppressors enact dominance it is never non-violent, it is violent and it is devastating. The most effective think to do it fight fire with fire, glitter won't stop tear gas, mobilise.
"The social cure"
This is a really interesting concept – peer pressure but in a good way. I think the points that are made about how this works are really spot on. Additionally though, there is safety in numbers, solidarity is empowering and more-so than feeling "cool" but feeling like you are part of something bigger than yourself is really gratifying. I think this is a totally viable model and has been used successfully many times over the years. I think however one of the draw backs of this model is that it's really hard to break. This idea of peer pressure has been used by the right as well as the left and it's power structures like this that make it that much harder to sway peoples views. When you have 100 people just like you to reassure you that you're right, someone saying you're wrong isn't going to impact you very much at all, you can just return to your fold and have them in chorus tell you that you're right and 'fuck the cucks'. But in the same breath this type of structure happens naturally anyway so there's not much to be done in regards to breaking it down.
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