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Edited on Sun Oct-09-11 11:04 AM by Jim Warren
The way I see it, those calls for a leader or leaders to emerge from the OWS movement is in large part a desire for someone else to take the lead and do the heavy lifting, placate the MSM and answer the braying of those made uncomfortable by not being able to fit it all into a nice tidy marketable package. IMO, it is not unlike The Wish for Kings, which is the title of a brilliant book written by Lewis Lapham, an fitting excerpt of which appears below. I do hope you read it:
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If democracy means anything at all, it means the freedom of mind and the perpetual expansion of the discovery that the world is not oneself. A democracy is about individuals who trust their own judgments, rely on their own strength, and speak in their own voices. Citizens, not courtiers. People who live for others and not the opinions of others, who believe that they can forge their energy and their intelligence into the shape of their own destiny and their own future. People who recognize in other people the worth of their variant theories, taste. customs, and opinions, who know, as did Justice Learned Hand, "the spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure it is right".
The general disillusionment then with the democratic premise follows from the failure to appreciate it's character as an improvisation. Democracy proceeds on the assumption that nobody knows enough, that nothing is final, that the faith in human reason offers neither comfort nor immortality. To the extent that democracy gives it's citizens the chance to come to their own conclusions and chase their own dreams, it gives them the chance not only of discovering their multiple glories and triumphs, but also of surviving their multiple follies and crimes. Too often we forget the proof of our courage. If we wish to live in a state of freedom, then we must accustom ourselves to the shadows on the walls and the wind in the trees. The climate of anxiety is the cost of doing business. Freedom of thought brings societies the unwelcome news that they are in trouble, but because all societies, like all individuals, are always in trouble of one kind or another, the news does not cause them to perish.
The wish for kings is the fear of freedom.
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