I
have been increasingly interested and involved in the Occupy Wall
Street movement that sprung up in New York about a month ago and in a
short time began to spread to the far corners of the United States
and the world. I haven't been able to properly “Occupy” Zucotti
park as I work full time, but I have made it to most of the larger
actions; the march halfway across the Brooklyn bridge (followed by
the paddy wagon ride to One Police Plaza), the huge labor solidarity
march the following week and the convergence on Times Square this
past weekend. It seems that the usual dismissive criticisms and
back-handed compliments from supposed allies have failed to
overshadow tangible victories, like the one that occurred last Friday
when thousands converged in the dawn hours to prevent the police from
emptying the park. With each victory the movement draws more
sympathizers into the fold, but simultaneously rankles the very
powerful interests and institutions that are threatened by this type
of nascent mass-movement. I'm surprised and heartened by the
movement's success. In the end, however, if either tangible reforms
or revolutionary change are going to be affected by the Occupy
movement it is important that we not only preach to the liberal left/
choir, but win enough converts to our general point of view to either
pressure the political establishment to enact legislative change, or
circumvent the existing structures and organize around some other
socioeconomic structure. So far, I fear that what the Occupy movement
has achieved so far is unifying and activating the roughly half of
the nation's population that shares a generally progressive view. And
this is important in itself. What of the other half? Those who have a
profoundly different view of what constitutes “justice” or
“fairness”. The ones who shout at us as we march down the streets
of Manhattan to “Stop protesting, and get off your asses!”
When
I saw a piece by George Lakoff in Truthout this week
(http://www.truth-out.org/how-frame-yourself-framing-memo-occupy-wall-street/1319031142),
billed as his advice to Occupy Wall Street on how to present itself
to the world at large, I was interested. I was familiar his ideas
about how political ideas exist within cognitive frames. He describes
how the political world views of most individuals are not based on
rational inquiry but on an emotional response based on a cognitive
framework. The framework is a set of arbitrary moral judgments.
Lakoff's work in this field has always seemed generally valid to me.
The left sees individuals as irrevocably part of a larger society.
The right sees the individual as autonomous and ultimately
responsible for his own actions. The left sees a need for nurturing
and collective decision making, while the right looks only for the
individual's right to act freely, responsibly and in self-interest.
In identifying these important root differences in point of view I
feel that Lakoff has been particularly astute. I've always been
frustrated by the fact that no amount of economic statistics on
income inequality or social mobility can cut through the typical
conservative's ironclad belief that it is the individual's personal
responsibility to find work, to the extent that if there were five
jobs available to the twenty six million un- and underemployed in
America, it would be the individual's responsibility to be one of the
five most educated, hard-working and diligent applicants, and if they
weren't, there would be no right to complain or petition government
to help them in their situation. Lakoff in his short essay proposes
to have some insight into how we can circumvent the conservative
framework and become a more truly mass-movement. In my opinion
though, he seems to ignore the basis of his own ideas when
formulating his advice.
Lakoff
goes on to claim that what the Occupy movement needs to do in order
to win hearts and minds is to cram its own goals and principles into
a superficially conservative framework and then expect conservatives
to be bamboozled into agreeing. It seems to me that this is doomed to
failure and shouldn't be seriously considered by anyone involved. He
claims that Occupy Wall street should declare itself a “moral”
movement and go on to explain to its detractors that it is society's
moral duty to nurture the individual. He himself, however, has
already clearly explained why this is next to impossible. A
conservative's morality is based on a framework where free-will
decisions are either punished with destitution or rewarded with
wealth. For the society to “nurture” the individual in hope of
insuring her success is doomed to failure and at any rate, rife with
moral hazard. I would like to propose a different tack in trying to
reach out to those who don't already agree with the general
left-leaning point of view of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Simply
by coming into existence, Occupy Wall Street has begun to challenge
the overall conservative ideological framework, not by attempting to
work within it, but by loudly and clearly presenting the opposite
framework. It has shown with the thousands that have shown up at
Liberty Square and marched and rallied for more specific causes
(Labor rights, a legally-enforced living wage, foreclosure relief and
affordable housing, environmental concerns about hydro-fracking and
the nuclear industry) that the conservative framework's deficiencies
left-unchallenged have produced suffering in the 99% that will no
longer be met with apathy. It has always seemed to me not that the
vast majority of Americans are conservative in their world view, but
that those who are are louder, more consistent and supported by most
of the powerful institutions of the media. Now, with the Internet
technology as a world-straddling megaphone and a multiple physical
spaces delineated as breeding grounds for activism,
consciousness-raising and civil disobedience, our side just might
have the power to push back and win a significant number of converts.
I fear that following Mr. Lakoff's advice would simply dampen this
energy and if anything, reinforce conservative's belief that their
framework is so superior to ours that we must adopt it even as we try
to fight it.
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