On The Meaning Of "Occupy Wall Street"

I want to make it clear that those occupying Wall Street have my full support, sympathy and admiration. Glenn Greenwald describes the ridicule these protesters have received in What's behind the scorn for the Wall Street protests? This paragraph summarizes my own view.

Personally, I think there's substantial value even in those protests that lack "exit goals" and "messaging strategies" and the rest of the platitudes from Power Point presentations by mid-level functionaries at corporate conferences.  Some injustices simply need anger and dissent expressed for its own sake, to make clear that there are citizens who are aware of [the status quo] and do not accept it. 

This is a large part of what DOTE is all about, to make it abundantly clear that there are citizens—citizens, not consumers—who are fully aware that America sucks and do not accept it. Doing something about it is a different story, as I shall explain below.

Now, I could ramble on about how the mainstream media has largely ignored the protests, how NPR was dragged reluctantly into reporting on them. (They finally relented.) I could mention that the Comedy Channel has had only one, short segment on the protests. It was on the Colbert Report, back on September 21st, and that humorous "report" was extraordinarily lame.

What's wrong, Stephen? Cat got your tongue? How about it, Jon? You control the editorial content. Do young people occupying Wall Street make you nervous? It's not like taking easy swipes at mean & stupid people on Fox News or in the Congress, is it? This isn't an easy partisan issue inside the box, is it? That's your specialty. Your advertisers would become completely unhinged if you took those young people seriously, wouldn't they?

And I could ramble on about how your right to freedom of assembly hardly exists anymore. I could talk about the Police Riot we've seen lately in lower Manhattan, how the people who went there to say loudly to anyone who would listen "America Sucks! Sucks Big Time!" were kettled, maced, beaten over the head and otherwise abused. (At least I learned a new word, and it wasn't "maced".) I could show you lots videos of this Police Riot. I could ramble on about Fascism.

Instead, I want to focus on what I see as the most important meaning of occupying Wall Street. Here it is:

These Protests Will Accomplish Nothing Tangible, But That Doesn't Matter

I am not going to belabor the point that nothing tangible will be accomplished. Eventually these protests will wither away, and our elite-ruled society will not have changed one iota. This is simply obvious, so there's no need to defend this view. Here at DOTE I refer to this kind of thing as Reality. Don't get confused about what is possible and what is not.

Then why do I say, agreeing with Salon's Glenn Greenwald, that personally, I think there's substantial value in these protests? Well, it's a lot like the difference between breathing and not breathing. The Wall Street protesters are alive, whereas most Americans are not. Most Americans I've known or met dwell among the Walking Dead. They sleepwalk through their miserable daily routine, clinging to this illusion or that, watching Fox News or The Daily Show, vaguely hoping tomorrow will be a better day. Shoulda, woulda, coulda. Every two years, about half of them vote for Tweedle Dee or Tweedle Dum. I don't call that living. I call that incarceration. In Thoreau's famous phrase, these people endure lives of quiet desperation.

And what about the "successful" ones who presumably don't have miserable daily routines? The ones who benefit from the status quo? Those in the elite, or those who got prosperous serving them? Watch the money pile grow in the morning, hit the links at two, a dry martini with filet mignon in the clubhouse, and then off for some blow and Dom Perignon on Buffy's boat. Well, these assholes are in jail too, only they don't know it. They, too, are asleep. Deeply asleep.

In fact, the more "successful" a person is in this corrupt, unjust society, the more hopeless they are in my eyes. I do not say this out of some sort of pathetic envy for their social success or riches. I say this from a position of absolute contempt. So, you're a Big Winner in Dante's Inferno (above, left), you're the hottest guy in Hell! Congratulations! How many people did you step on to get to that exalted position?

If I'm going to talk with somebody, I'll choose an occupy Wall Street protester every time. Screw these so-called "successful" people, their casual immorality, their tedious conventional thinking, their self-serving or corn-pone opinions. They don't know anything important, and never will. They do not represent an ideal others should shoot for. Wisdom is born out of suffering. Success gets you nowhere. There is no other path to wisdom.

Protesting an absurdly corrupt, unjust society is not the only way of taking life seriously, of acheiving a critical passion for living that goes far beyond merely breathing or achieving conventional success. But it's one way, and a good way too if it's done consciously. I would certainly hope that those occupying Wall Street are not delusional, that they already know (or will soon learn) that such protests are futile as far as getting anything accomplished is concerned. The Empire is in Decline. The relentless March of History is not on their side (or ours).

However, practical results are not the only things that matter in life. Abandoning the stifling status quo makes psychological breakthroughs possible, and might (ultimately) give birth to a sense of humor (albeit dark humor) about the Human Predicament. This engenders some healthy contemplation of the meaning of life itself. Getting outside the box is liberating. I'm talking about aiming toward The Good Life, where you make your own choices and don't take shit from anyone, at least not if you can help it.

I do realize that it's hard to maintain a healthy perspective and an expansive sense of humor about the Human Condition when you're being kettled, pepper-sprayed and beaten over the head with clubs. But getting your ass kicked in lower Manhattan because you had the audacity to hit the streets and say "American Sucks!" certainly does make you think hard about what's really going on out here, doesn't it?

So it is not actually very important if the protests have a single overriding message or not—you know, a really, really simple message so really, really dense people can understand what the protests are all about—or an "exit strategy" as Glenn Greenwald put it. It's not actually important that any concrete political or economic goal be accomplished. We're circling the drain, and nothing is going to change that.

It's all about sticking it to The Man. The bank may own your house or your student loan, but it doesn't own your soul. Somebody needs to tell the bank how this works. You don't own me. I don't belong to you. These protests are all about being awake, about seeing this American Reality for what it is, this grim situation that's been right here in front of you all along. It's about becoming conscious, because that's what becoming conscious really means.

Ultimately, for the participants, these protests are about becoming truly alive. I can only applaud that.

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