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Added a globalize tag to the article, as I feel it is presently too focused upon the minor scale antics of mainly US-focused leftwing political groups. I've updated the article with some thumbnail pics alluding to major historical events, such as Tienanmen Square and the Berlin Wall, but the text of the article needs wholesale rewriting.-- Froglich ( talk) 22:52, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
I moved blockades from the list of types of violent direct actions to nonviolent direct actions. There of course can be violence during blockades—just like there can be violence during sit-ins, strikes, and occupations—but it's not an integral part of the action, and they are usually nonviolent. The relevant part of the linked blockade page reflects this. With emphasis added:
There are a number of protest actions with the specific aim of cutting off material, people or communications from a particular area by non-violence, either in part or totally. The effectiveness of such blockades rely on the principles of nonviolent resistance especially the participation of people and lock-on techniques.
I really don't see any reason why blockades would be considered violent. Warm Worm ( talk) 16:14, 20 May 2014 (UTC)
I think blockades can easily become unlawful restraint or false imprisonment. Roads are often blocked in ways that don't permit people to retreat or escape. I think that's a form of kidnapping and thus violence. PapayaSF ( talk)
The opening explanation states that direct action originated as an anarchist term for economic and political acts.
However, that oversimplifies the history. Direct Action was, and continues to be, used by political and religious groups from one end of the spectrum to the other, including those who believe in order, but who believe in taking action to bring about change. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.134.21.160 ( talk) 12:43, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
I've made Call to action a redirect to this article, so we might want to mention it somewhere here. Unless someone has covered it elsewhere? - CorbieV ☊ ☼ 20:35, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
Many of the other results are things like guidelines that cover any type of CTA - marketing as well as political. Best, - CorbieV ☊ ☼ 16:52, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
That's one of the most abstract and obtuse lead paragraphs I have read in Wikipedia. Needs a re-write. The first sentence should make clear to the reader what "direct action" is; the reader should NOT have to read the article in order to get "the gist" of it. First off, it should describe "what it is", not how it originated. THIS doesn't help a reader: (current version) "Direct action originated as a political activist term for economic and political acts in which the actors use their power (e.g. economic or physical) to directly reach certain goals of interest; in contrast to those actions that appeal to others (e.g. authorities); by, for example, revealing an existing problem, using physical violence, highlighting an alternative, or demonstrating a possible solution."
Please see
Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section.
Normal Op (
talk)
17:16, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
@
Vallee01: Your sentence "Direct action is used by anarchists to due to a rejection of unjustified hierarchy and anarchist reliance on decentralization and fluidity"
is the odd one. First, it included "to due to" which makes no sense, but I'll assume for a moment that maybe you meant "due to". I'm pretty sure you're describing
leaderless resistance, not
direct action, when you speak of decentralization and fluidity. And the use of leaderless resistance doesn't "cause" direct action, which is how your sentence is constructed. And that's why I called it odd. Since both of your citations require subscriptions to read them, I couldn't even figure out how to fix your wording. Please fix this.
Normal Op (
talk)
08:26, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
"Direct action is used by anarchists due to a rejection of party politics, and refusal to work within hierarchical bureaucratic institutions.") But the concept... hmm. Are you saying that anarchists turn to direct action when they believe that diplomacy doesn't work? Or are you saying that direct action is only used by the fringe of an anarchist movement because they don't like working within groups? You see, the sentence is still sort of hanging out there in the air and doesn't really paint the scenario, like its context is missing. Maybe weave it into the "History" section with more sentences, then it makes sense to put something in the lead section about anarchism. Normal Op ( talk) 18:48, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
Had removed the unsourced blockade mentions from the listing of nonviolent activities, and this was good faith reversed. Although legitimately discussed as a direct action technique, blockading traffic or people from going about their business is not a tactic utilizing nonviolence. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s never used this approach, as the Selma to Montgomery marches, for example, were done along the sidewalk or the side of the highway, and the Birmingham campaign's use of children sent the children out of the 16th Street Baptist Church 50 at a time to walk to City Hall, using sidewalks and traffic lights. Gandhi's Salt March is less clear as to totally blocking roads, but from a reading the marchers did not block the roads but let traffic flow. James Bevel gives an example of a demonstrator being injured who would need immediate medical care, but does not receive it because of traffic tie-up. Each person inhibited by the blocking of roads has a personal destination in mind, some of which may be vastly important to the care and well-being of themselves or others. Blocking them from their innocent and productive forward movement, citizen travel unrelated to either the conflict or of the overall resulting goal or intent of direct action participants, does not fall into any description of nonviolence given by major adherents and students of the practice that I'm aware of. The language and links on this page for street blockades should probably obtain a separate entry of their own between the listings of 'Nonviolence' and overtly 'Violent' direct action. Randy Kryn ( talk) 13:16, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
Direct action is action that directly impedes that carrying out of an (at least perceived) injustice. Spiking trees impedes logging where that is perceived as an environmental injustice. Rescuing monkeys from a research lab, or interfering with a whaling ship, impedes operations that are perceived as an animal injustice.
Actions that draw attention to a cause that do not actually impede anything are not direct actions. e.g. trespassing to put up a large sign promoting your cause is not direct action. It is an attempt to influence others rather than acting directly.
The article reads as though the author is struggling to put together a sense of what direct action is, which is fine as a mental exercise, not so great for a wikipedia article.
The violent vs. nonviolent discussion may be off topic entirely.
The section titled "History" does reference some primary sources that put together, define what direct action is. These sources could be used for properly-referenced introductory paragraphs.
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Direct action article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Archives: 1 |
This
level-5 vital article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Added a globalize tag to the article, as I feel it is presently too focused upon the minor scale antics of mainly US-focused leftwing political groups. I've updated the article with some thumbnail pics alluding to major historical events, such as Tienanmen Square and the Berlin Wall, but the text of the article needs wholesale rewriting.-- Froglich ( talk) 22:52, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
I moved blockades from the list of types of violent direct actions to nonviolent direct actions. There of course can be violence during blockades—just like there can be violence during sit-ins, strikes, and occupations—but it's not an integral part of the action, and they are usually nonviolent. The relevant part of the linked blockade page reflects this. With emphasis added:
There are a number of protest actions with the specific aim of cutting off material, people or communications from a particular area by non-violence, either in part or totally. The effectiveness of such blockades rely on the principles of nonviolent resistance especially the participation of people and lock-on techniques.
I really don't see any reason why blockades would be considered violent. Warm Worm ( talk) 16:14, 20 May 2014 (UTC)
I think blockades can easily become unlawful restraint or false imprisonment. Roads are often blocked in ways that don't permit people to retreat or escape. I think that's a form of kidnapping and thus violence. PapayaSF ( talk)
The opening explanation states that direct action originated as an anarchist term for economic and political acts.
However, that oversimplifies the history. Direct Action was, and continues to be, used by political and religious groups from one end of the spectrum to the other, including those who believe in order, but who believe in taking action to bring about change. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.134.21.160 ( talk) 12:43, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
I've made Call to action a redirect to this article, so we might want to mention it somewhere here. Unless someone has covered it elsewhere? - CorbieV ☊ ☼ 20:35, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
Many of the other results are things like guidelines that cover any type of CTA - marketing as well as political. Best, - CorbieV ☊ ☼ 16:52, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
That's one of the most abstract and obtuse lead paragraphs I have read in Wikipedia. Needs a re-write. The first sentence should make clear to the reader what "direct action" is; the reader should NOT have to read the article in order to get "the gist" of it. First off, it should describe "what it is", not how it originated. THIS doesn't help a reader: (current version) "Direct action originated as a political activist term for economic and political acts in which the actors use their power (e.g. economic or physical) to directly reach certain goals of interest; in contrast to those actions that appeal to others (e.g. authorities); by, for example, revealing an existing problem, using physical violence, highlighting an alternative, or demonstrating a possible solution."
Please see
Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section.
Normal Op (
talk)
17:16, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
@
Vallee01: Your sentence "Direct action is used by anarchists to due to a rejection of unjustified hierarchy and anarchist reliance on decentralization and fluidity"
is the odd one. First, it included "to due to" which makes no sense, but I'll assume for a moment that maybe you meant "due to". I'm pretty sure you're describing
leaderless resistance, not
direct action, when you speak of decentralization and fluidity. And the use of leaderless resistance doesn't "cause" direct action, which is how your sentence is constructed. And that's why I called it odd. Since both of your citations require subscriptions to read them, I couldn't even figure out how to fix your wording. Please fix this.
Normal Op (
talk)
08:26, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
"Direct action is used by anarchists due to a rejection of party politics, and refusal to work within hierarchical bureaucratic institutions.") But the concept... hmm. Are you saying that anarchists turn to direct action when they believe that diplomacy doesn't work? Or are you saying that direct action is only used by the fringe of an anarchist movement because they don't like working within groups? You see, the sentence is still sort of hanging out there in the air and doesn't really paint the scenario, like its context is missing. Maybe weave it into the "History" section with more sentences, then it makes sense to put something in the lead section about anarchism. Normal Op ( talk) 18:48, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
Had removed the unsourced blockade mentions from the listing of nonviolent activities, and this was good faith reversed. Although legitimately discussed as a direct action technique, blockading traffic or people from going about their business is not a tactic utilizing nonviolence. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s never used this approach, as the Selma to Montgomery marches, for example, were done along the sidewalk or the side of the highway, and the Birmingham campaign's use of children sent the children out of the 16th Street Baptist Church 50 at a time to walk to City Hall, using sidewalks and traffic lights. Gandhi's Salt March is less clear as to totally blocking roads, but from a reading the marchers did not block the roads but let traffic flow. James Bevel gives an example of a demonstrator being injured who would need immediate medical care, but does not receive it because of traffic tie-up. Each person inhibited by the blocking of roads has a personal destination in mind, some of which may be vastly important to the care and well-being of themselves or others. Blocking them from their innocent and productive forward movement, citizen travel unrelated to either the conflict or of the overall resulting goal or intent of direct action participants, does not fall into any description of nonviolence given by major adherents and students of the practice that I'm aware of. The language and links on this page for street blockades should probably obtain a separate entry of their own between the listings of 'Nonviolence' and overtly 'Violent' direct action. Randy Kryn ( talk) 13:16, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
Direct action is action that directly impedes that carrying out of an (at least perceived) injustice. Spiking trees impedes logging where that is perceived as an environmental injustice. Rescuing monkeys from a research lab, or interfering with a whaling ship, impedes operations that are perceived as an animal injustice.
Actions that draw attention to a cause that do not actually impede anything are not direct actions. e.g. trespassing to put up a large sign promoting your cause is not direct action. It is an attempt to influence others rather than acting directly.
The article reads as though the author is struggling to put together a sense of what direct action is, which is fine as a mental exercise, not so great for a wikipedia article.
The violent vs. nonviolent discussion may be off topic entirely.
The section titled "History" does reference some primary sources that put together, define what direct action is. These sources could be used for properly-referenced introductory paragraphs.