Why Occupy Wall Street is More than Just a Protest - Forbes

[WillyT]

Why Occupy Wall Street is More than Just a Protest
E.D. Kain - Forbes
10/03/2011 @ 11:15AM


Occupy Wall Street protesters work on laptops in Zuccotti Park in New York October 1, 2011.

<snip>

As Occupy Wall Street enters its third week, some observers might argue that the movement remains feckless. Detractors, both sympathetic and otherwise, continue to argue that the movement lacks a coherent vision for change. Despite swelling crowds and alarming numbers of protesters arrested by NYPD officers, the protests have still failed to materialize into something with clear, precise aims.

Then again, perhaps clear aims and a coherent vision for change aren’t really the point. As Ned Resnikoff explains: http://resnikoff.wordpress.com/2011/10/03/occupywallstreet-is-not-a-protest-its-something-better/ sometimes simply claiming a space can be revolutionary. The Occupy Wall Street movement is “something entirely different and much more important” than merely a protest, Resnikoff writes. It is a “public, counter-establishment communal space.”

By a communal space, I mean a physical area where members of a community can interact with one another freely and fulfill some kind of common social aim. Examples include churches, union halls, and various kinds of social clubs. These spaces are the soil from which successful movements grow: not only do they mobilize people around a shared set of values, but they also make them available for action predicated on those values. That is why the support of black churches proved indispensable to the civil rights movement. It is also why Chicago’s radical left was able to so effectively organize in the late nineteenth century: socialists and anarchists constructed a vast network of communal spaces, from Socialist Sunday Schools to so-called red saloons. Sure, Chicago leftists organized speeches and protests; but they also organized informal social gatherings, and even dances.

Modern communal spaces have either been co-opted by establishment forces or decimated. Fewer workers in labor unions, to name one important example, means fewer workers talking to one another at the union hall. Plus, outside of the workplace, more and more Americans are bowling alone. Fewer of us attend religious services, and the core that do are more likely to be politically conservative. In place of the old communities these spaces held together, we have autonomous, atomistic individuals. Those needs that used to be met through communal activities — needs like entertainment and spiritual fulfillment — are now more often met through solitary rituals of consumption.

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More: http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/10/03/why-occupy-wall-street-is-more-than-just-a-protest/

:kick:

[WillyT]

1. Kick !!!

:kick:

[Leopolds Ghost]

2. Kick and reading list -- this thinking has important consequences for the Third Place movement.

In urban planning and the nonprofit I work at.

Reading Links:

Jane Jacobs -- The Death And Life of Great American Cities

Ray Oldenburg -- The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community

Robert Putnam -- Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community

All-Ages Movement Project -- In Every Town: A Manifesto for Autonomous Space

(for curious DUers)

[WillyT]

3. Thank You For That !!!

:bounce:

:hi:

:kick:

[Leopolds Ghost]

4. And this is from Forbes! Kicking so more people can see.

[Leopolds Ghost]

5. Kicking again. Shame more people haven't seen this.

[ItNerd4life]

6. Forbes? I'm surprised they have this insight. nt

[TBF]

8. Of course they have this insight -

we are threatening capital. Did you think they would ignore this? They take it very seriously.

[mdmc]

7. ..