The truth is that I hardly know what is occurring at the moment, but as the capital building is under attack, by unhappy protesters, it seems appropriate to dwell on the issue.
The act of protesting is not a part of nature, it’s a part of culture. Such a statement as this would, and does, presuppose the justice of the natural order. Life is justice on its own accord, humans are unjust. The natural order of life demonstrates itself in varying degrees, some of it is a mystery, like the unreasonableness of love, and others is clear as summer skies. Fire, as Leigh Hunt noted, is a tangible mystery, and death is an inscrutable reality. Life is just, this does not mean life presents itself as the land of milk and honey; nor, that it is as harsh as the pits of hell, but merely that the circumstances it produces are within the realm of human reason and impossible to reason. One gets the sense of Job, unable to understand the suffering endowed upon him betwixt with his refrain of charging God with wrongdoing. When Job answered the Lord, concerning the understanding of himself and God’s plan, he settled on the conclusion that he did not know himself or God’s plan.”You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.” (Job 42: 3 NIV) Thus, we too have a feeble understanding of the natural order.
However, the act of protest is a part of culture. Only people can protest and organize in groups to make their unhappiness known. To me, protests are not avoidable, people will always have something to disapprove. If you believe, as a conservative, that the current structure of government is flawed, but insist that it is fine and works well, you will not be surprised to hear an anarchist insist that: “yes, it might work well, also, true it is flawed; however, down with it!” The difference in reception of protests are always amusing. Anyways, on this bases, if there is enough of a stimuli to kindle a protest, then it will occur. Protests are always traditional, like culture, and can dance, like culture, but often times it is livid like culture. I am reminded of Dostoyevsky’s reaction to the Paris commune: “The burning of Paris is something utterly monstrous: “Since we have failed, let the whole world perish!” — for the Commune is more important than the world’s weal, and France’s!” From this reaction, we also get the notion that protests are sometimes aimless, dangerous, or bacchanalian. Can it be any other way, should it be any other way? Here on Earth, with our great potential of human fallibility, I suppose not because these belong to culture, and not nature.