Words are slippery.

They mean what they mean, yes, but they mean always within a context, and contexts change.

            As a child of the Protestant Reformation, a descendant of Mennonites (a radical branch of that Protestant Reformation), and a wordsmith, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about our political language. What on earth happened to protest since the 1500s? Why could I be proud of my religious heritage, yet so much on edge and unhappy now?

The verb “protest” has become more noun than verb. One doesn’t pro-tést these days – one joins a pró-test, and that changes more than just pronunciation and grammatical function.

 So: protest as a verb. It differs from object and from disagree. To disagree means, according to Oxford Dictionary, to “hold a different opinion.” In other words, you and I don’t think the same way about some idea or some thing or some action: cement is a better surface for an urban driveway than asphalt. There are good reasons on either side of that disagreement (cost, labor, endurance) but moral implications are absent.   

To object means, again according to Oxford, to express or feel opposition or disapproval or reluctance. That’s stronger than to disagree because emotion is involved. Whatever happens in the discussion, the one who is objecting feels hurt or offended or even appalled. That would be the distinction that my editing self would make. When my late father used to introduce me to his acquaintances as the “baby of the family,” never mind that I was already an adult with children of my own, I objected strenuously. It felt belittling to me, although I’m willing to concede now that he meant it as affection. We disagreed on the meaning of “baby” and I objected to his application of it.  

But to protest is to bring in not only emotion but moral judgment. Here I’m reaching back in time to try to recover the meaning of the word before it became a noun that means an official demonstration against government or some other powerful institution or leader. That’s the primary meaning now. Even in that noun form, perhaps especially in that form, the word carries the weight of moral judgment. A protest (noun) occurs because enough people judge some action morally wrong. It’s deemed unjust, unfair.

 If we’re talking about unfairness or injustice, it follows that the protester is in a position of less power than the person or institution against which the protest has been made. The protestor may be a direct recipient of the unjust action or maybe not. Many protests have been launched on behalf of those who had no voice or influence. The common thread is the moral judgment. This or that action is just wrong; it violates a law or some accepted standard of behaviour.

 There is something else about the verb “protest” that we seem, as a nation, to have forgotten entirely: it is intended to persuade. The very fact that the objection raised is morally justified assumes that the one who protests and the one against whom the protest is made share (or should share) a common ethical standard. The concept of injustice makes no sense without an accepted definition of justice.  Martin Luther, who inadvertently began the Protestant Reformation, appealed to the standard of the Bible and the tenets of Christianity when he protested against several actions of Roman Catholic clergy. His initial intention was first open discussion, then persuasion, based on a common faith.  

(Generally speaking, it is, of course, possible that the objection has been made in bad faith and is not morally justified; equally possible is that those whose behaviour has been objectionable do not have any ethical standards to which one can appeal. Neither case invalidates the protest’s initial purpose of persuasion. I insist that the ideal not be forgotten.) 

            By this point, given the current political climate, all sorts of righteous stances are doubtless being claimed by my readers, not to mention fervent disagreements with my definition of “protest.”

 So I will retreat temporarily into a simple illustration taken from my teaching years. A student was unhappy with an assigned grade; she felt certain that I had marked her paper unfairly because I was prejudiced against her. That is a moral problem. While some subjectivity is always a factor in marking essays, outright unfairness is unacceptable, not only to students but also to university administrators and department heads.   

As long as my student expressed her opinion courteously and presented evidence for her accusation, she was completely within her rights and could hope to be persuasive. My role was either to offer a reasonable explanation of the grade or to acknowledge her point and re-evaluate the paper (and/or ask a colleague to evaluate it). Either way, we should have been able to end the discussion with our dignity intact. Indeed, it could have been the beginning of an improved relationship.  

 However, if she had insulted me as a person and added threats of character assassination or even worse, she would have crossed a line between protest and blackmail—“you do this or I will ruin you.”  That is not yet physical violence, but it is violence. Her protest would have given up the moral high ground and become intimidation, thus turning the interaction into a power struggle, which leaves no one’s dignity intact, and makes an improved relationship very difficult, indeed. 

 When Martin Luther King, Jr., and Gandhi before him, insisted that any and all protests should remain non-violent, in language and in action, they were aiming at persuasion, which seeks to make clear what the relevant moral principles are and appeals to both a common humanity and a common acceptance of those moral principles. This is not to say that protests against long-standing evils such as slavery are easy. By no means. Many, perhaps most, slave-owners saw the protest marches as intolerable uppity behaviour by those whom God had made to be their slaves. As long as the marchers refused to turn their protest into rebellion, they kept the moral high ground and underlined the principle of a common humanity, something the slave owners had consistently denied. 

            I indicated earlier that I was a descendant of Mennonites, first known as Anabaptists, who refused to bear arms and developed a strong code of pacifism. Other groups like the Quakers have also chosen non-violence. That does not rule out protest. To speak up against unfairness and injustice, even oppression, is a moral obligation, especially if the speaking up is not for oneself but for those who cannot speak up.

But the way of peace refuses violence in all its forms, and seeks reconciliation. That is the ideal. I cannot speak for Quakers but I know that Mennonites have not always avoided violence, either on the national stage or in their own families. The teaching remains, though, challenging us to seek actively to make peace.

 I confess that I am congenitally disposed to avoid even legitimate protest. I will write letters to my elected representatives (not very often), but I do not march or carry signs. My preference is to “guard each man’s dignity and save each man’s pride,” to quote from a 1970’s Christian worship song.  Other cultures value the “saving of face” which is simply a different metaphor for the kind of agreement that allows for gracious exits from the conflict.

            Is that always possible? I don’t know. Some situations do present themselves as inherently impossible, yet I have read many inspiring stories of people who have suffered much rather than use violence and have ultimately brought about lasting change. Stephan A. Schwartz argues that social changes attempted through revolution and violence generally do not last as long as those social changes created through non-violent means. He lists several examples, including universal education, abolition of slavery in countries such as Britain, universal health care. Remember the old saying, “a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still”?

As Stephen Berg wrote in “Deer in the Mist,” “insisting on angels drives angels away.” Or as I heard in a sermon many decades ago, the way of spiritual grace is always a matter of “gift,” not “grasp.”

Everything real, happens first,
out of sight, in the far away furnaces of courage
which are fueled, not by passion, but love. (Stephen Berg)