LOST, THEN FOUND

Autocritiquing Occupy Wall Street: On Incoherence & its Virtues

ows-autocritique:

When the mainstream media finally started covering the Wall Street protests several weeks into the sit-in, transitioning overnight, as Jon Stewart put it, from blackout to circus mode, they dwelled heavily on the apparent incoherence of the demonstrators’ message. Cable news producers dashed around Liberty Square to find out what the protesters wanted and could not discern a clear line. Many of their pundit colleagues discussed these findings with a hint of derision. Though the charge of incoherence wasn’t entirely off — the signs on hand in Liberty square did (and do) address a wide array of grievances — the focus on it came from a cynical angle. But so goes our horse-race school of political journalism: it compels reporters to view electoral success as legitimation and judge activist movements not by the validity of their grievances but by their ability to compete in the existing political marketplace. Of course such coverage favors well-funded — and, accordingly, well-organized — movements like the Tea Party over genuine grassroots protests like Occupy Wall Street. Mainstream reporters are used to astroturf and, for reasons of convenience, many of them prefer it. 

Of course, the Tea Party also arrived on the scene with a muddle of grievances and messages. But their corporate backers and national leadership overrode them, and lent them a sense of coherence by clearly defining the president as the opponent. Our target is more opaque. The banks and the finance system may be vastly unpopular amongst Americans, but very few of us understand their structures or can articulate a wide-reaching critique of their practices or conduct. Based on my conversations in Zuccotti Park this is also true of many of the protestors. Unlike the handful of libertarians I encountered, most self-identified leftists on site lack a concrete ideological basis. This is a further reason for the movement’s incoherence: they can list social problems brought about by unbridled capitalism, but lack the framework to criticize its inherent downsides, instead defining themselves by niche areas of activism. This rootlessness and fragmentation, characteristic of the American left, is one of the legacies of cold war red-baiting. 

 OWS is at once a reflection of this problem and an opportunity to change it. With all their niche grievances assembled in large fonts, and activists on site to discuss them, participants in this movement may be able to gain a more general perspective on what is plaguing this country. Ideally, I think, our uprising should be as much about internal discussion as it is about public outreach. Indeed, I think it is safe to say that the success of that outreach depends to a large part on the quality of our collective self-education.

-LDB

(via dische)