How I Learned to Love Shrimp

James on Changed My Mind, talking about disruptive protests and social movements

• Amy Odene & James Ozden

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Today, we’re sharing a different kind of episode. Not an episode of How I Learned to Love Shrimp but an appearance that I, James, made on another podcast, Changed My Mind. It's all about what causes people to change their mind and this time, I talk about my experience with changing my view on disruptive protests and social movements. 

This podcast is run by Aidan and Thom from FarmKind, who some listeners may know about, as a great new charity working to raise funds for animal issues. 

You can listen to more of their podcast here on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. How I Learned To Live Shrimp will be back as normal next week. Enjoy!



If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - we would really appreciate it! Likewise, feel free to share it with anyone who you think might enjoy it. You can send us feedback and guest recommendations via Twitter or email us at hello@howilearnedtoloveshrimp.com. Enjoy!

James:

Today we're sharing a different kind of episode, so this is not an episode of how I Learned to Love Shrimp, but instead it's an appearance that I, James, made on another podcast.

James:

This podcast is run by Aidan and Tom from Farmkind, who some listeners may know about as a great new charity working to raise funds for animal issues, but their podcast actually won't be focused exclusively or even primarily on animal advocacy. Rather, it's focused on the interesting ways and reasons on why people change their mind and I'm not saying they still are opening question, but thankfully, I believe imitation is the highest form of flattery, so I'm excited they're doing what they're doing. Anyway, feel free to check out their podcast is called Change my Mind by the links below and in any of your podcast providers of choice. Hope you enjoy this conversation on how I changed my mind on the value of disruptive protest and some other assorted fun stories. We were at a protest and then I had bail conditions to not actually be in Westminster, but nonetheless I was there on this protest A because that was an unlawful bail condition and the judge later agreed with me. It was very nice.

James:

But when I was there on this protest A because that was an unlawful bail condition and the judge later agreed with me, which was very nice of him, but when I was walking through this, the bail condition means I'm not allowed to be there but then the same police officer I remember his name as well, inspector Ben Newman he recognized me even though I was wearing a silly hat and a COVID mask and he basically saw just my eyes and, I think, my nose, and just recognized me and said I heard him whisper into his walkie-talkie saying does James Lawson have bail conditions? And then the answer was quickly yes, and despite me trying to run through the crowd and escape, I could not and I was arrested. I feel like after some years I felt like an adrenaline junkie where we were just doing things just to get that thrill of doing something exciting and slightly law-breaking, rather than this is actually the most effective thing we could be doing.

Thom:

I'm Tom and I'm Aidan and you're listening to Change my Mind, where interesting people share their biggest changes of heart and take us along their journey from first doubts to completely new perspective. This episode we're speaking to James Osden. You might not have heard of James, but I bet you'll have heard of some of the organizations he's been a part of Extinction Rebellion and Animal Rising, groups famous for their disruptive protests and non-violent law-breaking in the name of climate justice and animal rights. As a committed activist, james was arrested 11 times protesting for action on climate change and against animal cruelty. But James left Animal Rising to pursue a different path. Today he works as director of philanthropy at Mobius, where he helps direct funding to projects with potential to change society for the better.

Thom:

He's also the co-host of the podcast how I Learned to Love Shrimp, exploring stories of change within the animal advocacy movement. In this episode, we explore what it's like to be part of direct action movements and why James changed his mind to focus on other ways of creating change. Okay, so, james, you are an active member of extinction rebellion and later animal rising. I think for many people it's hard to imagine what it'd be like to believe in something so much that you're prepared to go out there and do such kind of 20 people extreme things, get arrested 11 times. So I just wanted to start by asking what is it like and what did you believe that motivated you so strongly to to engage in this kind of radical activism?

James:

paint us a picture of your mindset at the time, I guess so this was around 2018, when I was getting involved with extinction rebellion, and that was towards the end of 2018, when already there getting involved with Extinction Rebellion, and that was towards the end of 2018, when already there had been quite large Fridays for Future school strikes in Germany and in the UK and there was already quite a lot of growing concern and disappointment at least amongst my friends in the UK public that I was exposed to, around the lack of action on climate change and there was various documentaries by people like David Attenborough and again raising attention, raising awareness, but not that much actual legislation or corporate change. And I guess many of us were concerned that we're heading straight into what's potentially devastating for the lives of many people probably not in the UK in the very near future, but definitely across the world people who are poor and more exposed but also did the least impact climate change. So I guess there was a sense of growing urgency and frustration with a lack of action and my friend invited me to join in an exile protest, a protest in around November 2018, when we blocked five bridges in central London, and I was also surprised that the atmosphere was so joyous Lots of people were dancing, they were singing and people were super friendly and I hadn't really attended any kind of protests or campaigns like that where it was so welcoming and friendly. Before that point, I'd only attended a pretty small handful of protests and some of them were as simple as handing out leaflets about the impact of factory farming on the environment and animals. I think that was blocking any roads.

James:

I think that was illegal. So definitely some, some jitters and some nerves when we're all hiding in a costa coffee waiting for the signal at 9am, then we all rush onto the bridges. So I guess for me there's lots of excitement around that and I think maybe we'll talk about this later. But definitely I feel like after some years I felt like an adrenaline junkie where we were just doing things just because to get that thrill of doing something exciting and slightly law-breaking, rather than this is actually the most effective thing we could be doing that's fascinating, but I don't want it to sound like you are just.

Thom:

This is just like a social club. Your hobby is getting arrested on climate protest, like what presumably is underlying this is like some beliefs about the world and about, like, how to make change and the importance of making change. What is it that is ultimately motivating you, aside from kind of the social aspects of this?

James:

yeah. So I guess, like I mentioned before, there's a belief in the urgency of climate change, but also, yeah, there's definitely an element of this is a proven method of social change and Extinction. Rebellion X talked lots about things like the civil rights movement and the importance of Martin Luther King and the Freedom Riders and various groups like the youth groups involved in that, as well as, obviously, gandhi, and there's other examples from revolutions in Serbia, a group called OPPOR, so there's a long list of historical case studies of social movements that have achieved pretty meaningful social change through mass protests, direct action, predominantly non-violently, and ultimately. There's some research that underpinned lots of XR's thinking, by mainly an academic called Erica Chenoweth, who did this research into 300 social movements over the past 100 years, and I guess the most kind of simple core of our finding was that no social movement that mobilized more than 3.5% of the population. They never failed to succeed in achieving their goals.

James:

So that was really one of XR's core slogans and inspiring things for many of us, saying, oh, if we only just got 3.5% of the population out protesting with us or out on the streets with us, we're going to win, and in the uk I think that's that's roughly around two to three million people and, given how many people care about climate change, we thought that was very possible. Um, so, yeah, I guess this belief that basically this kind of mechanism, direct action, was tried and tested and we think we could achieve it in the uk as well. One of the critiques of xr was that people were saying is this is a hard and fast rule, which is obviously silly in retrospect, but it's clearly not that there's like some magical line and such that you get over that and you win. But in a way, I think people, at least people around me did hold on to that because it feels quite inspiring and also quite possible.

Aidan:

I just Googled it and I see that the Women's March in 2017 had about three to four million people, so that's 1%. So you're right, not not as many as 2.5. And then the Buckeyes Matter protests apparently had 26 million, so that's more on the kind of 8% range. So it seems like we have in the US alone, apparently.

Thom:

Oh wow. One of the things that I'm interested in is part of this psychology. I think, particularly today, the problems that we face in the world are so large and they're complex that I think we can often feel a loss of agency and a loss of ability to affect these things. And early on, when you talk about what it was like to get involved in these groups, you were saying that this is something I can do, this is something we can do. If we can just get to this 3.5 percent, we can actually make change. Do you think that part of the appeal of groups like this is a broader feeling that may be going on an ordinary protest that just marches through the street?

James:

these kinds of tools that we ordinarily have to affect the way our lives are run and our societies are run are just not working for people yeah, this feeling of empowerment and agency, I think definitely was a big thing for me and for many people because, like this example, I was getting around blocking these fire bridges in november. These kind of groups there's no real staff, there's not enough money to pay people, false salaries and in a way, no one really wants that because essentially you want a group that can grow exponentially quick and that only works via volunteers. So I remember very early on I wanted to volunteer and I asked to take on a task and they said you're charged me and someone else with building XR internationally in five countries in Eastern Europe. Essentially.

James:

And I was like oh boy, I'm charged with building five countries in Eastern Europe that I've never been to, never really engaged with deeply, but I guess there's a sense of ownership, of saying we trust you, james, you and one of the personal responsibles for doing this, and go essentially. So I think that kind of thing can be very motivating for people. So I think, yeah, I guess that feeling of agency is super important. Agency is super important. And to one of the other points, yeah, I think people do feel disillusioned with if you attend a traditional march, even though it's maybe very large, it might not be covered by the media because it's same old, it's not interesting, it's not new. Obviously the news wants something that's novel. Or even then there's a famous case of obviously like the march against the iraq war, huge turnout, millions of people, but again nothing happened. And I guess one of the hypotheses of XR was because there wasn't enough disruption. If you apply enough costs to the incumbent government, then only will you get change and just marching won't cut it anymore interesting.

Thom:

But of course you started off in your sort of activism journey working on XR and on the climate issue, but then over time you got more involved in a group called Animal Rising, which is a sort of offshoot of XR that focuses specifically on the way that we treat animals and actually farming and some of these kinds of issues. So how did you get involved in Animal Rising?

James:

Yeah, I guess prior to my involvement in XR, I had been involved in some animal rights activism and when XR was having its heyday in late 2018 or early 2019, I was talking to some friends and saying, oh, wouldn't it be great if there was an XR for animals?

James:

And then, yeah, originally actually, animal Rebellion, now called Animal Rising, was labeled XR Animal, but then XR didn't actually want to have it under their umbrella because they thought it was too controversial to have discussions about animal farming under the XR brand. So, yeah, I'd been involved with XR and then I was actually away working or volunteering with Sea Shepherd. So on board the boat and I heard from a friend I'd known previously that animal rebellion was starting up and they were looking for more people to to be involved for the first rebellion that we were going to be hosting in October 2019. Yeah, yeah, I guess I thought that's all I needed to know. So I came back from Mexico, where I was, and moved into a very cute and small three and a half foot house with seven or eight other people, and that was the start of my time, so that was around August 2019.

Thom:

Wow, and I've heard stories of these animal rising houses. They sound like interesting places. So what kind of things were you doing and you were quite involved in in our rising? You weren't just another member, but you were quite involved in the heart of the organization. So what was that like?

James:

yeah, so initially I guess for the first rebellion I was. I guess the name was the logistics coordinator, which sounds a bit boring, but there's a lot of logistics. Actually it turns out with trying to get a thousand people to occupy a meat market, for the name was Logistics Coordinator, which sounds a bit boring, but there's a lot of logistics. Actually it turns out with trying to get a thousand people to occupy a meat market, for Originally it was two weeks, in the end it was one day. But then we joined XR and occupied other bits of London.

James:

Others were giving nonviolent direct action training, so NBDA trainings, on how to peacefully and respectfully take part in nonviolent direct action.

James:

So in ways that you wouldn't want to lash out against anyone else and if you were being dragged by the police you wouldn't respond physically and basically how to be okay with and also like the principles behind this, based on teachings from martin luther king and you know his principles of non-violence.

James:

But then, yeah, just lots of random stuff. Like how do we block prints, a thousand flags, how do we get all the required things to basically transform smithfield meat market in the middle of london into a fruit vegetable market? You know, we ordered like thousands of pounds of fruit, vegetables and I had to get all these market tables delivered and then we had to get all these stuff and transport it around london several times and lots of random things that it's hard to put in a job description. But at the same time, also trying to onboard volunteers, because I I started logistics around London several times so lots of random things that it's hard to put in a job description. But at the same time, I'm also trying to onboard volunteers, because I started logistics team and then my function was to get someone to handle transport, someone to handle food, someone to handle accommodation and then build the team as well as we go.

Aidan:

So you went on a journey of deeper and deeper engagement with the world of disruptive protests and I'm curious if you could kind of like paint me a picture of what peak activist James looked like and if there was any kind of, you know, like quote, unquote, like rock bottom moment where you were like maybe I've gone too far here, what was the?

James:

yeah, what was?

Aidan:

the peak.

James:

Yeah, when I'd known I'd gone too deep was well, we went down to G7 in, I believe, 2021, to protest again. That was animal rebellion, and exile was also there, and a bunch of it got arrested for it sounds stupid, but we were driving a, a beetle painted as a mcdonald's car, which may or may not have been used in a blockade of mcdonald's several weeks before that. Anyway, we got arrested on the way to the beach, literally just in. I had no shoes, in my towel and my shorts, and got arrested. And this is an ordeal and I and I say this because a few weeks later we were at a protest and then I had bail conditions to not actually be in Westminster. Nonetheless, I was there on this protest A because that was an unlawful bail condition and the judge later agreed with me.

James:

But when I was walking through this bail condition, I'm not allowed to be there. But then the same police officer. I remember his name as well, inspector Ben Newman. He recognized me even though I was wearing a silly hat and a COVID mask and he basically saw just my eyes and, I think, my nose and just recognized me even though I was wearing a silly hat and a COVID mask and he basically saw just my eyes and, I think, my nose and just recognized me and said I heard him whisper into his walkie-talkie saying does James Lawson have bail conditions? And then the answer was quickly yes, and despite me trying to run through the crowd and escape, I could not and I was arrested. So I guess, being facially profiled, basically having a police officer remember my full name and my face, was pretty disconcerting. I think that I had a good think about what I should do next in my life.

Thom:

Obviously, I think we've painted a picture here of you're very into this movement, this direct action. You're helping to start up organizations in Eastern European countries. You're then running helping to run Animal organizations in eastern european countries. You're then running helping to run animal rising and disrupts. There were all this meat market, I think, in the uk with that and turning into a fruit and veg stall. So a lot of amazing stuff going on. But at some point you started to think again about whether this was the right way to go about things and I'd just like to start with like when was the first moment when you started thinking on? Maybe this isn't quite bringing the change that I thought it might yeah, to be honest, I don't remember a distinct moment.

James:

I think it's quite common actually in an activist movement like external animal rebellion that people often don't stay involved very long, probably because it's just very intense. Yeah, like I said, people often living together and you talk about work all the time and you know people often leave their jobs and that they're doing far more than a nine to five and we're paid. No one's really has salaries, so their own volunteer expenses below minimum wage. So all in all it's a very kind of draining and kind of an intense period. So often I'll say that, but the life expectancy of someone in one of these groups averages would be around a year, so not very long at all. All right, so I've been involved for two years, so I've been feeling some of these kind of veteran pressures.

James:

Yeah, I mean. Well, when I left I was the only one who was at the rebellion two years ago. So the base basically a full 100% turnover in 15 like more or less full-time personal organization. So, yeah, people don't last very long. So I guess I've been feeling some of these pressures around. I've been arrested 11 times and court costs are adding up and I and now, the more you get arrested, the the greater the sentencing costs are on you. You'll, especially now have community service or even a custodial sentence, so that kind of starts playing into your mind. So there was some like personally, almost like selfish reasons why I was like maybe I should take a break.

James:

But I guess, in addition to that, definitely with Animal Rising, I guess we had never achieved the same kind of success that XR did. I think XR, by all means, was extremely successful. The UK declared climate emergency. Uk public opinion on climate change changed very significantly. Lots of councils declared a climate emergency and it was a kind of global phenomenon. But Animal Rising never had the same breakthrough success, even though we did some very cool campaigns and, I think, got lots of I think, relevant media coverage. But there was some element of okay, we've been going at this for a couple of years and there had been the kind of the breakthrough that I was hoping for. So I guess, with that and then thinking about, okay, what are other ways to change the world? And I guess I was curious to explore some of those avenues.

Aidan:

I like that the kind of standards you hold yourself to are so high that thinking that you don't want to get arrested for a 12th time and face massive jail time is selfish.

Thom:

I think it's an abnormal way of thinking about things. Okay, so you're starting to rethink. You're starting to think, okay, maybe it's not working like we hoped and the stakes are getting higher personally for you. How does that thought that's sort of starting to think about these things translate then into eventually leaving? Was that quite quick. You just said, okay, I need to move out quite quickly? Or did you have quite a long process of changing your mind before you actually took any action around this?

James:

yeah, I guess I I was interested in trying other things and I didn't know quite what. So I think I was just like reading more broadly or I guess throughout this whole period I was reading quite a lot of books on social change and lots of them on protest. I was definitely deep in that world. But also on other things, things.

James:

I think I'm basically applying for a few jobs and in the end I got accepted to the Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program, which is essentially a two months course on launching a charity to do good, and one of the topics in that cohort was animal welfare, something I care about. So it made sense for me to do that and I thought two months was a good test. Two months was a good test. I told the people in Animal Rebellion that I was going to do this and I may or may not come back, and for me it was very much a test. I was quite lucky that I was in the perfect off-ramp in some ways and throughout that period even though Joey the founder says you shouldn't do anything else at the side I was still organizing Animal Rebellion stuff on the side and I remember actually distinctly we had an amazing 72-hour blockade of McDonald's only burger factory in Scunthorpe and I remember doing some extremely sleep-deprived calls with other incubatees and being not very helpful.

Aidan:

I feel like this might seem a small step, but it seems to me that if you felt strongly enough that disruptive protest was the right thing for you to do, that, you were willing to be arrested 11 times for it. Considering doing something else at all is like a quite significant thing to start considering, and I wonder I assume you you personally and animal rising extinction rebellion were like faced quite a bit of criticism from outsiders about your approach and I wonder what role, if any, those criticisms had in you starting to rethink whether it was the right path yeah, yeah, it's a good question, I think definitely xr got lots of criticism and some of that relates to the 3.5 number I mentioned earlier in terms of actually you know this research was done on social movements, predominantly in the global south, actually focus on regime change, so actually overthrowing dictators and song democracy.

James:

So lots of very valid criticism actually that this is the wrong reference class. Actually, what we're trying to do in the UK is essentially change government policy in a democracy, which is very different to overthrowing a dictator, and essentially these aren't apples for apples. And there's other criticisms on using this 3.5% as a hard and fast rule rule and who should be the target of disruption, as you're talking about.

James:

So I think, that definitely needs to be weighing on my mind. And towards the end of my time in XR and Animal Rebellion, we were definitely focusing a lot more on not the public but actual the bad guys, so to speak. So going to oil refineries, mcdonald's distribution centers and being much more targeted in our approach. So essentially we took on board the criticism and did something a bit different. The success we saw was media coverage and again, no change in policy. And looking back, I think it's quite naive for me to expect that there's going to be national level policy change very quickly on an issue. So I think definitely the criticism played a role, but in some ways the criticism it was also easy sometimes to ignore because there was never a tangible solution offered. But people, xr is bad, and then we would say, okay, what do you want to do then? And then there wouldn't be anything tangible. It would just be almost like armchair critic.

Aidan:

It wasn't like there was a beautiful second way that they were offering of how we could improve the world you mentioned before, kind of how, how fun and joyous it was to participate in these protests, um, and how meaningful it must have felt, and I wondered to what extent these factors influenced how clearly you were able to look at both the efficacy and the ethics of participating in these, in these protests. Yeah, it's a good question. To this day, some of my closest friends are people I met through xr, my partner. I met at both the efficacy and the ethics of participating in these protests?

James:

Yeah, it's a good question. To this day, some of my closest friends are people I met through XR. My partner I met through XR. So definitely there is some in-group thinking that do I want to? If I leave the group would I ostracize myself from my friends? So there's definitely some kind of social costs to either leaving or being very critical. So I think that definitely there are some of that clouding your judgment okay.

Thom:

So thinking about that, like that tension between okay, I'm starting to question intellectually how this works, but emotionally so much of my relationships, and then the effort I've been putting in over the last few years is on the other side. How do you personally go about negotiating this kind of tension? Because I feel like for most of us, most of the time the heart tends to win out, even if we like think otherwise. But it sounds like in your case maybe you were. You found the intellectual arguments compelling enough to overwhelm, if you like, the sort of the emotional worries about changing.

James:

Yeah, I think ultimately, the things that weighed on me most strongly were that we've been doing this for several years and achieved some success. But also I think I knew the time and this is only one way you change the world and I guess I was relatively young and experienced I wanted to know what are the other ways you can actually change the world and make things better and don't involve disruptive mass protests. So I think it was just a curiosity more than anything to be like okay, I understand this part of the world. What else is there to learn and understand? So I think that was, I guess, a big factor in driving me away. And I guess also, even when I was moving on to do more research and, I guess, to do more traditional charitable work, I was still also involved some of these groups and both socially and still attending protests and doing various campaigning. So it also it wasn't ever like a clean break. It was more gradual okay, yeah.

Thom:

So speaking of um the kind of next step for you after you did this, um incubation programs of two months sabbatical, if you like, from, uh, from ar blockading donald's yeah, from blockading was to set up an organization called social change lab which works to understand how we can make change and how movements like xr and ar and these kinds of direct action theories work whether they work. So I'm interested in what you've learned to you work on Social Change Lab and how that's further informed your view of these processes.

James:

Yeah, as context, social Change Lab is a relatively small about three people kind of nonprofit research organization focused on understanding the impacts of particularly protests, particularly disruptive protests, on social change, as well as what factors make some social movements more successful than others. I was involved with that, or ran that group for about two years and there's many findings we could talk about. But I guess some of the key things that stick out to me in terms of some of the early research was we actually essentially reviewed the academic literature on the impacts of protests, looking at how it impacted things like public opinion and policy change and media coverage and salience and also voting behavior. If you look at academic evidence, there is pretty good evidence for things like mass protest having a positive impact on public opinion, policy, voting behavior, all these things from disparate movements, I think, on the voting side, certainly on civil rights and Black Lives Matter, and on the environmental side, definitely on public opinion and somewhat on policy. So I think it was definitely like a confirmation of some of my beliefs that, ok, at least in some cases it's essentially we're just looking at the evidence that exists and in some ways academics tend to focus on the most notable and the most obvious examples of change.

James:

Right, they want to. They do research on things that you think they'll find findings on, because the things that they haven't found have never been published. So there is some definitely like complication bias happening. But we found at least in some cases it can be quite meaningful. So that was in some ways reassuring and not very surprising, which was good. And then some other research we did at the beginning was trying to understand what factors actually make some movements more effective than others. Specifically looking at protests, and again there's some obvious ones are. Actually non-violence is a key one, but actually this was very contested back in xr because lots of people unlike I would say that the far left would critique xr for being, you know, too kind to the police and too lenient and basically saying actually violence is a reasonable way to defend yourself and we shouldn't rule out violence and that's a privileged position to hold.

James:

And what's a privileged position to hold non-violence okay yeah, because there's a whole book by some anarchists called peace regal to lose. Actually it's called how non-violence protects the state, saying actually, but by being non-violent you're letting racism and sexism and whatever fester, and you're saying the police are the only people justified to use violence. So yeah, anyway, that's a whole.

Aidan:

That's a whole different thing, we have to explore I have to say, I feel like one body having a monopoly on violence seems to be the driving force behind there being so much less violence in modern society than the majority of history. And of course, if that one group has no checks and balances, then that can lead to really bad outcomes. But yeah, decentralizing violence doesn't sound that great to me.

James:

Yeah, you wouldn't fit in in these spaces I wouldn't have lasted one day in extinction of alien yeah, the three top things we found non-violence is a key one, size of the protest, like I said, it's a key one and a third one which I guess maybe I didn't appreciate the time, but it's going to weigh to me more is actually just the importance of context, which sounds very obvious, but, like the importance of sociopolitical context, how much salience does the issue already have?

James:

Or do you have elite allies like people in the media or politicians on your side who can champion your work on the inside? So the importance of context was something that came up and I guess that kind of weighed on me more and more because, even though there was definitely lots of good examples of direct action and protest leading to significant social change, the question was now what are the right conditions and when is it good to use this strategy versus something else? And I think I guess that's the thing, maybe that my views evolved on the most over the past few years okay, so when is it appropriate to use these kinds of techniques?

James:

yeah, like I said, I think one thing I've learned is there's no hard and fast rules. Uh, the world is complicated, science is complicated. This is very hard to know definitively anything. But when I was involved in XR, I had more of a belief that mass protest works almost like full stop and the more you apply it, the more results you get. And it's simple and there's almost like no diminishing returns, whereas I think now I have a bit more of a nuance to actually it works.

James:

Sometimes the conditions that need to be right for it is actually. You have a good percentage of the population who are willing to risk arrest and are highly committed to an issue and also frustrated with lack of attention, which was the case with XR and lots of people in the environmental movement. You definitely, definitely. I think it's good that there has to have been a lull beforehand, because I think in a case where now in the UK there's been quite persistent sort of activism for a few years, the public's fed up of it and the courts are fed up of it, which means there's higher sentencing for activists and also you just get more and more hate, which is quite hard to tolerate if you're if you an activist.

James:

So I think that's why there's often this idea that social movements have cycles or seasons such that there's a period of quite intense was that high drama activism, like maybe it wasn't 2019, 2020. The public almost has a rest from what you were saying, aidan. There's all the disruption and all the annoyance, all the hate, and if you don't leave that time to pass, then you just get people hating your issue or hating the groups more and more, which I think ultimately isn't very helpful.

Thom:

Yeah. So I'm interested in just touching on that a little bit more. I feel from the outside it feels like there's a sort of backlash effect. So if we think in the UK, one of the consequences of Extinction, rebellion and Just Stop Oil, which is another similar protest organization, has been new laws that create new criminal sentences, I think called locking on, which is a direct offense of attaching yourself to a piece of public property and creating extra and making too much noise, and these have become criminal offenses in the UK as a direct result of the work being done by these organizations. And then I think, if we look in the US and one of the consequences it seems to me of Black Lives Matter and some of these protest movements is also particularly on the right and increasing skepticism of some of the kind of previously fairly uncontroversial views that people had around around race and diversity and things like this, I guess like, do you think that the benefits that the movement wins while it's in its ascendancy period outweigh the potential backlash that comes after?

James:

yeah, I think that's a tough question because definitely that people have blamed xR and Joseph Boyle, who have been, like you said, named directly in legislation that actually gives the police and the courts additional powers to whether stop and search or higher sentences and longer social sentences.

James:

But I think that can be quite a harsh critique because essentially these are people who, in my view, rightly, feel extremely frustrated at lack of government action on an issue and that they're taking to the streets to do something and ultimately they're trying to express their kind of democratic right to protest. Obviously, some will say it's more than democratic, it's actually illegal, but fundamentally I think these are nonviolent protesters almost in all cases and giving them five-year custodial sentences, in my opinion, is overly harsh. Yeah, I think that is a consequence, but I guess that's something you have to be willing to trade off and I think in the case of XR it seemed to be. The gains XR had, in my view, was very positive, just up oil. I think it's less clear because there have been much more repressive laws brought in as a case of them. But also the uk government has said they're going to be doing normal oil and gas licensing and drilling in the north sea, one of just the world's main demands.

Aidan:

So basically it is very hard to calculate positive impacts on climate and worst impacts on democracy, so it is hard to balance those things we've heard a bit about how your view evolved, from thinking that disruptive protest just works full stop and should be applied quite broadly, to thinking that it very much depends, and maybe it's not the best way for you personally to be making change. But I also think that your views on some of the underlying causes that you're working on have changed over time, those being animal welfare and climate change. Is that right?

James:

yeah, I would say over time I've being animal welfare and climate change. Is that right? Yeah, I would say. Over time I've probably thought of factory farming or weapons of animals as more important, and then I guess climate as an issue of deprioritized in relation to that.

Thom:

That's interesting. I think for many people that would be quite surprising. I think the general perception is that climate change is one of the most important issues that we face as a world right now. So what kind of brought you to this kind of prioritization, if you like?

James:

yeah, I think for climate, I definitely think the where we're currently at, which is roughly 1.1 1.2 degrees of global warming relative to pre-industrial levels, is obviously bad and an orange trend to keep going up. But I guess some reasons why I think other things might be more important for me to work on. One is because it's so popularly understood that it's an important issue. It could be very bad for many people and as such, you know, almost every country in the world has some sort of binding commitments to reduce carbon emissions. You know all major institutions, whether it's banks, businesses and cultures and so forth, are either covering this issue, working on it and accept it's a problem. So I think there's just like the.

James:

I guess the inertia of society is trending positively, which for me is inspiring, and there's so many great people working on it, whereas when I look at the fight to end factory farming or reduce suffering of farmed animals, this very much isn't the case. Factory farming is by far the mainstream, for maybe in the UK, 90% of farmed animals and globally it's probably even more than that Many people don't accept it as an important issue. Almost no companies actually or government accepts to change it. So I just think by all means we're going in the wrong direction, so I think for me that feels meaningful.

Aidan:

That reasoning makes a lot of sense, but I could imagine you reasoning in the exact opposite way, which is to say that there is momentum on this climate issue. Now is the time that marginal resources going behind it can actually affect change, whereas perhaps in the animal space it's so outside of the Overton window that it's not its moment. How do you decide whether to interpret the different momentum for these two causes in the one way versus the other?

James:

yeah, I guess I think of in terms of where is, where is my energy and time best place, and for climate. I thought there's so many amazing people working on it and the momentum is in the right direction. I feel like, relatively, like my contribution ultimately isn't that big, or like it isn't that significant, whereas in animal, the animal advocacy case, there is literally a small number of a few thousand people working on this issue. So every person is actually extremely meaningful and I guess maybe I'm just stubborn and I like working on difficult things, but I feel like it's very challenging, but that's why it's very important to work on Having spent a few years now studying disruptive protests, are there any tactics that you think are less promising than you did before?

James:

guess one thing I'm more worried about now for protests was, I guess, the impacts of polarization on how that influenced essentially policy and public opinion. There are some academics and some kind of social movement, uh theorists um mark and paul engler, who actually think polarization is good. They call it productive polarization. Actually you need to juxtapose good and bad and if you're not for climate action, you're against it and you're some evil person. So that kind of almost promotes polarization as a useful tool, which I think in some way is reasonable. But I guess some of our research on just-up oil, we also did find polarization actually happening in the data in front of us, such that people who are already supportive of climate action became more supportive. People who weren't supportive became even more resistant and negative.

James:

And I guess I do worry about that somewhat because I think probably many people would agree that polarization isn't great for society. It creates bigger rifts and there's more likelihood of like tension and flashpoints. But also I think, especially I don't think it's ideal for any issue to be too wedded to a political party, such that maybe the left wing people are pro climate and the conservatives or the right wing groups are against it, and I think ultimately you have some kind of gridlock where you don't actually get meaningful policy passed or, like we're seeing in the US, such that Biden does some good climate legislation and Trump comes in and pulls out the Paris Agreement and ultimately that's not very good for long term success. So the question for me is how do you minimize people you push away and maximize people you bring on side? I think that's just a very hard question.

Aidan:

Yeah, I find it a surprising perspective that polarization would be productive in this way, because it seems like most major change and most lasting political change requires finding common ground between people whose interests don't entirely align. And painting the world as a battle between good and good and evil people seems not only inaccurate because I, like, stand by the phrase that the line between good and evil cuts through the heart of every man and it seems unhelpful for reaching common ground so at social change lab you are working sometimes with organizations doing direct action to help them understand how impactful their work was being.

Thom:

I wonder, how did they respond to the research and the findings that you had, particularly when they were maybe a little bit challenging for their approaches?

James:

in my time in social change lab we were doing research on. I guess we're both doing kind of summarizing evidence on previous social movements, but also we're collecting data and running public opinion polls on existing groups in the uk for example, on just the oil on animal rising, and essentially doing public opinion polls before and after their their campaigns. And I guess one thing I got became a disillusioned with was also how activists interpret data and evidence. In some cases we would have our findings either from our own studies or from previous ones that other people had done and we'd present them to activist groups and say this is the data on what you're doing and this is maybe how you'll fare. And in cases when it was positive, it says you know their campaign is going well. They'd be like thank you so much, james. This is amazing. I can't wait to share this with the media and all of our funders and all this kind of stuff. I'm like great, we're working. This is great.

James:

And then in cases when our feedback or the evidence was a bit more critical and maybe they were having little impact or even a negative impact in the case of polarization but then the questions would be like oh james, but maybe your study's a bit wrong or actually you're studying the wrong thing or, for whatever reason, are things more sophisticated than you understand. So actually what you're giving to us is more or less irrelevant, and I guess I became a bit disillusioned with how at least some activist groups would almost perceive information and like the confirmation bias, like the motivated reasoning where it makes sense, if you're at so much risk getting arrested and spending time literally in jail for months or even years, that when someone says to you maybe what you're doing is actually making things worse, that's a very hard thing to confront and I guess a few times I experienced that people weren't willing to engage without discussion enough and it was easy to take the good things at face value and kind of ignore or diminish the bad things, for whatever reason.

Thom:

It's funny because I completely agree with you. That's how people's brains work, but you would think that it would work the other way around. If I'm gonna put myself at risk of going to jail for five years.

Thom:

I better bloody believe this is gonna be worth doing and if someone's going, actually that's not gonna to do anything. But I want to know that before, before I go to jail. But but yeah, we where we think that the evidence might contradict our our story about how things are going to work, we often do become willfully blind to it well.

Aidan:

I think it's funny about this is what you observed here about, um, how the community the community that is taking the action on disruptive protest interprets evidence. It doesn't say anything about whether disruptive protests are good or bad, but nonetheless, if the people in the movement that are doing a thing are unwilling to change their minds in light of evidence, that's a sign that they're not going to have a lot of success at doing that thing well. And so you know, even if your research is finding that, on the whole, disruptive protests are great if the people doing it are unwilling to listen. So even if your research is finding that, on the whole, disruptive protests are great, if the people doing it are unwilling to listen to which ones work and which ones don't, you might in practice not really think that it's something to back.

James:

Yeah, in essence, that was a big thing.

James:

For me was a lot of our research towards the end was what different tactics can be effective and ultimately, if people aren't willing to take them on board and pivot when required, and what's the point of research?

James:

And exactly what you said is how can you trust, maybe give lots of my time and my liberty in some cases to these groups when maybe they're just doing things not based on evidence for reason, but just irrational beliefs or vibes vibes essentially and I think this is a really good, insightful comment by someone called lewis bollard from open philanthropy, where someone asked him a question on if you look at this social movement and they, they use this kind of activism.

James:

Therefore, don't you think this activism works? And his response was I looked at the same social movement and I had the complete opposite conclusion and what he finds actually people can look at almost any case study and get their own beliefs confirmed, just because often social movements have many different phases and many different groups involved. So maybe I think the main reason civil rights movement one was protest, but actually someone says it was community organizing, someone else said it was legal challenges and they're all right in some ways, but we just pick and choose what we think is most convenient for our own beliefs, which is, yeah, makes this whole enterprise of using research quite challenging how do you, how does this leave you feeling about our prospects of actually figuring out what works?

James:

yeah, I mean, uh, it's tough, I think, if you try to be extremely like, hard-nosed and empirical and follow the data. I think this is academic trope, right. It's more research is needed, and I think that's right, because ultimately, the world is just so messy and to predict things is very challenging. But I think there are some kind of rules of thumbs and heuristics that you can gain, and what I've come around to more is actually, you know, identifying dilemmas for groups and painting the pros and cons on each side. For example, should a group focus on targeting elites or should they focus on targeting the public, and what are the pros and cons of each side? For example, should a group focus on targeting elites or should they focus on targeting the public, and what are the pros and cons of the various things? And leaving it to the groups to decide based on historical evidence. And I find that to be the cleanest way, without being too prescriptive and too simplistic.

Aidan:

As a final question, I'm curious. You've spoken in this conversation about a number of specific ways in which you've changed your mind, but I'm curious whether you think of these as a bunch of independent situations where you looked at the evidence and swayed you one way or the other, or whether these are all symptoms of a more underlying change in your worldview.

James:

Yeah, that's a good question in your worldview.

James:

Yeah, that's a good question. I think definitely over time I've become more open-minded, or just open-minded full stop, in terms of how change happens. I think early on I had a very like narrow and nuanced view that pure power is all that matters and you apply enough direct kind of pressure and you can show your force and that's how you win. But I guess over time I've become much more sympathetic that actually some of the things we would like you know deride for being futile, which most charitable campaigning or NGO work I actually think is quite important. So I think overall I just become maybe a bit more humble that I and a small band of others haven't figured out the right way to improve the world and actually there's many ways to do so and supportive in that we should, I guess, be supportive and respectful of each other because ultimately those who are working on issue all want the same thing and criticizing and chastising each other I think ultimately isn't helpful. So I guess, yeah, some element of humility and open mindedness I think is the underlying thrust.

Thom:

Well, that sounds like a great note to end on. Thank you, James, for joining us today and exploring these fascinating topics and how you change your mind. Thanks for having me in these fascinating topics and how you change your mind. Thanks for having me. Hi again, it's Tom, and I'm here with just Aidan this time, and we thought we'd share a few of our thoughts following our chat with James Austin. So, aidan, I guess let's start with what struck you most about that conversation.

Aidan:

Yeah, I suppose for me, the takeaway was that protests clearly have the potential to make massive change, if you think about the civil rights movement and the suffragettes and examples like this, but most of the time, clearly, protests don't cause any change at all and we're figuring out some things about what works better and worse, but it's very hard to study and for now, we're still fairly in the dark. Basically, how about?

Thom:

yeah, I I mean sort of following from that. I was really impressed actually by how interested james was in this question of does it work? So he's obviously really emotionally committed. You know you have to be to get arrested several times, but that doesn't stop him from being really committed to taking a step back and asking like is this, is this working? Do I need to change the tactics a little bit? Um, should I be rethinking the the issues that I'm working on or my approach to those issues?

Thom:

I think that's a really hard thing to do with anything that you care about, and I found that really, really impressive yeah, I agree I did find that impressive.

Aidan:

But there was one thing that we kind of danced around in the conversation but never quite got to, which is whether disruptive protests are really a legitimate form of action within a democracy.

Thom:

Like, how do you think about that? Yeah, I think it's an issue that really gives me pause. So, particularly when it comes to breaking the law, I think in a democracy where we have the vote, we have certain ways that are created for us to express our views, to push our politicians to make changes, this kind of thing. I think breaking the law for me is probably a step too far and just simply outside of what we should be doing. I think breaking the law for me is probably a step too far and just simply outside of what we should be doing. I think I always come back to what would it be like if my political opponents, the people I disagree with, right protesters taking unlawful actions, as indeed some have in the UK recently? I certainly would be very quick to condemn those people and I think, by the same token, when people who are protesting on issues that I agree with them fundamentally on you know the need to address the climate or treat animals better but I don't think they should be allowed even to non-violently break the law.

Aidan:

This is the ex-lawyer in you.

Aidan:

I know that I personally, am maybe a bit less concerned about what's legal and more concerned about what's right, and, from that perspective, the main thing that concerns me is when it comes to disruptive protest, the people who are being disrupted, um, which you know don't seem to be really, you know, at the front of mind for for the people that are planning these sorts of protests. So when it comes to, you know, a protest that is blocking a freeway or disrupting an event, you know the the cost to the people that are being disrupted. I'll admit it's small. It might seem kind of trivial compared to the scale of the issue at hand if it's climate change, for example, but I think, at the scale that it's occurring at, these little costs add up and are worth thinking about, particularly if you, at the end of the day, don't really know whether this protest is doing anything at all. Right.

Thom:

Yeah, I mean that point is it doing something seems really crucial. Right, you don't want to be so nice to people and so undisruptive that they can just stop paying attention to you, but yeah, you also don't want to be egregiously disruptive at the same time.

Aidan:

Yeah, and it needs to be justified by it actually having an impact. So, yeah, I suppose that's what it all comes back to trying to get a better sense of whether these protests work at all.

Thom:

More research is needed, yeah exactly, and as every good research paper wraps up with that thought, I think we should wrap up here too. Sounds good.

Aidan:

Change my Mind is produced by Vip and SJ, with editing by Harrison Wood and support from French Press PR. As always, you can reach us by emailing hello at changedmymindpodcom. Thank you.