Hecklers are vandals

A lifelong political activist whose ideas I've read and whose mind I respect is angry that the Bernie Sanders campaign has figured out how to deal with hecklers. When Sanders is giving a speech and hecklers start chanting, "Black Lives Matter," Sanders backers are instructed to overwhelm the hecklers by chanting, "We Stand Together."

"Maddening," says our activist on Facebook. "All hecklers want is a voice and the issues prioritized. Shouting down is making them voiceless. That is the real message."

I have a bias for protest, for civil disobedience, for disruption. But I've also devoted my limited intellect to communication. So naturally, it hurts my heart when someone is attempting to get an idea across, and someone else blots the first communication out and renders the entire communication event a nullity.

Not long ago a friend of mine, the principal of a charter school, addressed an angry crowd on Chicago's desperately poor and forever-neglected West Side. My 11-year-old daughter Scout was there, and was aghast when the principal was shouted down in the middle of her passionate speech—she was asking for the use, by her school, of a public school building emptied by controversial mayoral closings—by a man in the front row, shouting, "No charter schools! No charter schools!"

Scout's jaw fell. "That is so rude!" she whispered to me, round-eyed. Driving home, I carefully explained to her that this is a community where people feel that things are being done to them not for them, that they don't have any influence and that people in power don't listen to them. So why should they sit quietly and listen to people in power tell them how it's going to be?

I have no answer, except to say that I don't think hecklers generally achieve much, except to make the people they heckle even less likely to bother attempting to communicate directly with them. I don't think hecklers really get much of a "voice," because all heckling sounds the same, and might as well be an air horn.

And I don't think heckling reprioritizes the issues. At best, it may alert some people to the idea that there are people who think, for instance, that George W. Bush or Barack Obama is a baby killer. But if you didn't know in the first place that people felt that way, you're probably not inclined to read further, because you never were a big reader in the first place.

Mostly, heckling just makes everyone embarrassed and sad, that people feel desperate or disrespectful enough to vandalize a community gathering, and destroy an attempt at communication.

And as for a heckler objecting to being shouted down—to being heckled back—well, I'm just not sure that argument even holds together in the breeze.

I'll send this in response to the activist's Facebook post and she if she takes up the argument. And I will not heckle her if she does.

Comments

[Zoe Nicholson]

I am pleased that you quoted me and perfectly too. I am a real fan of heckling, personally I began it with George Wallace in regards to civil rights and the Vietnam war. My teacher is Alice Paul, who learned it from Emmeline Pankhurst.

To really understand the organic effect of heckling you have to have the mission of pointing out to those in power that they need to prioritize the issues. For example, Senator Sanders was talking about the distribution of wealth and the hecklers wanted him to update his position on Black Lives Matter. It was not, 1)that he is a racist, 2) that his work in the 60's was ignored or 3)redistribution of wealth is not important. And, the fact is - within 2 days his campaign did put out a NEW set of positions on the issues of the day. No matter how it appears - the fact is that it works.

I heckled POTUS on the repeal of DADT. I was chanted down and escorted out by the Secret Service. BUT President Obama prioritized and set a committee in place to investigate the effects on the armed forces should they allow LGB to openly serve. Obviously it was repealed.

It is the work of the militants to break convention. Heckling is a tried and true tool But if you measure it on how the moderates react - it looks like rude immature shouting. However, the approval of the moderates is not the goal, in fact, Mrs Catt wrote many apologies to President Wilson over the actions of Alice Paul and the National Woman's Party.

I am sorry that Scout was the one interrupted. However, Scout was an actor on the stage of change. I bet it will inform her life forever.

[Zoe Nicholson]

BTW - I just read that "Bernie rally tonight in LA opened with a woman giving a speech about BlackLivesMatter. The cheers from the crowd were insane."
well done!

[David Murray]

Thanks, Zoe. An educational exchange. Even if I don't necessarily buy your implied direct connection between your heckling and the repeal of DADT, points all well taken. I'm going to post a version of this exchange tomorrow at Vital Speeches of the Day website, and see if perhaps some professional speechwriters will further the conversation. But I sure appreciate your response, in fact and quality. (One caveat: Young Scout wasn't interrupted. She was in attendance when the school principal was interrupted, and she was merely upset, forcing me to explain the hecklers to her--a good exercise for both of us.)

[John Rosbolt]

That is a truly eye-opening explanation for the motives and goals of heckling. If your only goal is to move someone's position forward, I can see now how that would be extremely useful. It does, however, bring to mind the question of immediate vs. long-term influence trade-off. To use Sanders as the example again, was the update on his stance worth it to a group struggling to gain public support that has now vilified themselves to the moderate majority and the senator that best supports their cause? I would think good PR would be absolutely precious to a struggling grassroots organization. How do you balance these kind of negative effects to your long-term standing against the immediate goals of advancing the discussion?

[Zoe Nicholson]

I an disappointed that you inserted this youtube on comics being heckled in this conversation about political heckling. Political issue-driven heckling has nothing to do with competitive joking, maybe alcohol involved, disapproval, showing off.

[David Murray]

Five people sent it to me. It's just a lighthearted post-scripted accent to the piece, nothing more. Did not attach it to Vital Speeches treatment.

[David Murray]

(And you're right, Zoe. I've removed it.) Do you not feel inspired to answer John Rosbolt's question (which seems honest to me)?