Margo Adler did a show on #occupywallstreet this morning on NPR's Morning Edition. She asked "What are the unifying themes here?" and opined "you are left wondering about specific goals." By now this is a familiar, if not particularly elucidating, critique of the movement. One man who is interviewed says, "I think eventually, I mean, there need to be specifics. I think the organizers here are probably just trying to build numbers by being as inclusive as possible." I was moved to respond to this because I have been very admiring of #occupywallstreet as it is and I'm not at all eager to see it shaped into a political movement, as much as I'd like to tax the rich, which was his apparent goal. What I admire about the movement is that it is so plural, so conscientiously democratic, and that there is so much thought and solidarity, instead of hierarchy and programmatic organization. It is about people being the end rather than a means, and I mean to argue sub-squiggle that it will suffer from being reduced to specific goals or actions.
First of all, I want to suggest that questions like, "What are the unifying themes here?" are not asked in good faith, but are more like classic concern-trollery. In her piece, Margo Adler seems to pass over a number of adequately unifying themes, such as being the 99%, or giving voice to the powerless, etc., which evidently aren't what she's looking for. She's clearly comforted by the table which is set up to give out contact information for Congress critters in order to demand higher taxes on the rich. Not that she's for such a tax, mind you, but she found what she was looking for, which is evidence of a dismissible class resentment. No that it is. It's sound economics to argue for progressive taxation. But how or why sound macroeconomics are "not on the table", and how or why we would be punished by the powerful for raising their taxes, and how or why the economy of the entire world is teetering relative to itself, is all for insiders to know and for the powerless 99% to not trouble themselves with.
#Occupywallsteet came up in conversation over dinner the other night. Our guests had retired from the financial industry. One downplayed the importance of the movement because 1) there were not enough people to make a difference, and 2) they didn't understand what was going on, because they don't know the finer parts of the industry, which I suppose has something to do with the fact that star MIT graduates, geniuses all, have complexified financial transactions to the point where regulators and critics are always wrong in ways that can't be easily explained. But think about it, does that really disqualify the movement? Is the lack of a specific, "relevant", and programmatic approach really a weakness, or is it its strength?
There was once an argument in philosophy, theory vs. praxis, or thought vs. action, and the argument was about which was more important, basically. The praxis types (think pragmatists) thought the theory types just get lost in all these masturbatory thought problems when action is what is called for, and the theory types thought that the call to action was to end thought or critique and the begin ideology, domination, and exploitation. I say there once was an argument, because the praxis people clearly prevailed as evidenced by the incessant and irresistible question, "So what is your plan?" This debate played out to some degree on the Obama Sux/Rocks fights here, but the Obama critics didn't say the point isn't to have a plan. Instead they said "primary him", or "vote third party", or "our leaders need to fight". The Obama supporters already had a plan, and part of that plan was to shut up the critics. Discord had been sown and everyone was un agent provocateur.
One of the unifying themes Margot Adler passed over was "All humans are effected negatively by corporate greed." That just didn't seem to do the trick. But I think its irreducible.
Here's from Adorno, in his book of lectures "The Problems of Moral Philosophy"...
"...no one can promise that the reflections that can be entertained in the realm of moral philosophy can be used to establish a canonical plan for the good life because life itself is so deformed and distorted that no one is able to live the good life in it or to fulfill his (/her) destiny as a human being. Indeed, I would almost go so far as to say that, given the way the world is organized, even the simplest demand for integrity and decency must necessarily lead almost everyone to protest.
parenthesis added
More from the same lecture (lecture 17)...
The only thing that can perhaps be said is that the good life today would consist in resistance to the forms of the bad life that have been seen through and critically dissected by the most progressive minds...I have in mind the determinate negation of everything that has been seen through, and thus the ability to focus upon the power of resistance to all things imposed on us, to everything the world has made of us, and intends to make of us to a vastly greater degree...
Here's more
If today we can at all say that subjectively there is something like a threshold, a distinction between a right life and a wrong one, we are likely to find it soonest in asking whether a person is just hitting about blindly at other people -- while claiming that the group to which he (/she) belongs is the only positive one, and other groups should be negated -- or whether by reflecting on our own limitations we can learn to do justice to those who are different, and to realize that true injustice is always to be found at the precise point where you put yourself in the right and other people in the wrong.
I include these quotations, because as rigorous a thinker as Adorno was, he seemed to be hemmed into a generality here that precludes practical guidance, as he was clearly on the theory side of the theory vs. praxis debate. So, it seems, are the organizers of #occupywallstreet, and with good reason.
Recall what prompted the pepper spray attack. What were those women doing that was so intolerable that they had to be brought to their knees in agony? They hadn't resisted arrest, they weren't shouting obscenities at the police. They weren't hurling Communist slogans into the melee. The one woman, dismayed at the rough treatment of protesters by the police, kept asking "What are you doing?", and that question is intolerably to the point, in a way no assertion of opinion or action could ever be. The police may have protocol, they may have decades of experience, they may be professional in many regards, they may be extraordinarily well-trained to handle protests, to the point where civilians may just as well admit their ignorance, but the question brought out the bad conscience of someone who never had the luxury to wonder what he was doing and was sure as hell not going to allow that luxury to anyone else.
What I like about the movement is the plurality. At the moment, it isn't the descent into moral relativism that is, say, social conservatives and fiscal conservatives co-mingling and putting aside their glaring contradictions. I think the unifying theme, "All humans are effected negatively by corporate greed", is adequate to unite people from all walks of life, as is "We are the 99%". Any list of stated goals is narrowed down and a hierarchy is asserted where there needn't be any, and the goals will inevitably become just more things in a world of things. Things powerless people are asking for from the powerful. We want jobs, we want assistance, we want debt relief, we want revenue, etc. etc. These are all "off the table." But the protesters aren't there to get a job. They are there to say they are human beings that are ends in themselves.
I would happily hold a sign that said "Tax the Rich", but I'm leaning toward "End the Hassle!"
Margot Adler and everyone else whose job it is to perpetuate the already existant are going to be looking for ways progressives can plug their compatible wiring into the great machine with a reasonable chance of success. But the more wealth disparity there is, the more the machine becomes a slot machine, the more the house wins, and the more you'll probably see people like Margot Adler walking around in a red jacket, dealing cards and looking for cheats.