Impassioned protestors are usually strongly "anti-"something in the hopes that being so will quickly change what they are against; in actuality, being anti-anything too forcefully and for too long tends to reinforce what it is being rallied against, slowing and sometimes even reversing the change being sought. The contemporary list is long and well-known, as the media seems to favor the anti, whose simplistic slogans often make good soundbites: anti-globalization, anti-tax, anti-war, anti-communist, and so on. But what would happen if, suddenly, every anti became a concomitant pro?
In an example from today's news, protestors in Moldova who are questioning the victory of the first post-Soviet Communist Party in national elections have been labeled anti-communist and so anti-this-government. Inasmuch, neighboring states and the international community seems to have tolerated their vandalism and lauded their use of Twitter in organizing. But as soon as "pro-Romanian" signs and slogans began to appear, affirming the linguistic, cultural and historical links between the countries which used to be united, then Russia issued a warning. Indeed, it can be much more threatening to be for something than against, because negating is all too conveniently ambiguous for each side.
The “anti” position always becomes untenable in the end because if its target does not inevitably change over time (willingly or not, due to internal or external forces), then its surrounding conditions do. The founders of the US were not only strongly anti-British, they were also strongly pro-sovereignty in their own quite novel ways, without which the successful American Revolution would have fizzled into the beer over which they were so fond of conspiring. By holding up the opposing position as static, those who are purely anti are blinded to the pragmatic changes their antagonist are often more willing to embrace in the efforts to thwart their disruptive activities before they become catalytic.
Being anti-war can be a noble and sometimes controversial position, and activism based upon it has been effective in turning tides of public opinion. However, in the eyes of policymakers who can end a war, the anti-war position always appears half baked: thanks for telling us to stop breaking eggs, but how do we cook an omelet with those we have already? Chicago's Jane Addams is a paragon for those seeking to straddle both anti-war and pro-peace. Anti-tax and anti-globalization, which rarely go hand in hand, share the shortcoming of not taking their targets as indifferent instruments that can be used to improve the world depending on local participants and conditions.
If every anti became its concomitant pro, current events would be transformed as if into a global orchard in which past arboreal abortions are replaced with abundant trees the fruits of which, conceptually and pragmatically, create a future in which no needs go unmet and no peaceable hope unfulfilled.
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