The Voice of a Generation
I think that Occupy Wall Street has been losing steam over the past few weeks. I’m starting to see fewer articles and less media attention directed towards the various activist communities who call themselves the 99%, many of whom are part of Generation Y.
While I have very strong reservations about being associated with the movement, I find myself unable to deny that I am part of the same generation, and I can see potential in the movement if it fixes what is broken.
When Occupy Wall Street began, I did not see any real goal of the protests. As a whole they looked directionless and so I didn’t pay much attention. I had steady work at the time, but since OWS began, I’ve experienced firsthand the layoffs that are common in the Austin Technology industry. Since then, I’ve been a bit more willing to actually examine the movement to see what I think about it.
I’m not willing to identify with the movement, and one of the big reasons is I see it missing key elements that previous social movements required for their success.
I’ve spoken with several people about the movement this week and I’ve drawn a few conclusions about what is missing from Occupy Wall Street that would allow it to seize the opportunity to accomplish something with the momentum that is gathered.
Note: I’m not commenting on the spirit of the movement, nor am I denying the clear inequality present, the white-collar crimes that have been committed, or the government action that has permitted those crimes.
That is a different discussion entirely, and I’ll leave that for another blog post.
Understanding what’s working and what’s not is a way to understand what you or I could do in order to make a movement successful, independent of its ideology.
Occupy Wall Street can be broken down into a basic model made up of simple, generalized, elements. Each element can then be applied elsewhere. This sort of deconstruction permits a valid comparison to other similar movements, and then we can separate how effective Occupy Wall Street is actually being from the fervor of its rallying cry, enabling stoic discussion of the topic at hand.
Elements of Occupy Wall Street Today:
- The Circumstances: Widespread unemployment, and perceived absence of opportunity.
- The Narrative: Small resemblance between real life, and the promise of good jobs awaiting all Americans with college degrees. Instead high unemployment and low wage jobs hardly justify the expense of a college education.
- The Victims: Middle and Lower Class Americans.
- The Villain: A group of elites operating criminally, and without consequence, to enrich themselves
- The Emotions: Deeply felt powerlessness, expressed as anger and fear.
- What is at Stake: Strongly held belief in the possibility of a brighter future. Our hope in the future is at stake.
- The Inspiration: Successful 19th and 20th Century Social Movements (Women’s Suffrage, Mexican and Black American Rights, etc).
Occupy Wall Street is: Masses of individuals following old models of social change with an unfocused desire to make a difference, and a shared belief that powerful forces conspire to prevent the good and the just from prevailing.
Here’s what is Missing:
- Goals and Objectives - Ask the question, “How will we know when Occupy Wall Street has been successful?” I don’t think that the movement can actually answer this question.
- Dialogue - A mob of people shouting does not count as a dialogue. Previous movements show that protest movements are powerful because they support a dialogue with the establishment. Absent this, the protests are a nuisance at best.
- Solutions – Previous social movements offered solutions to the social injustice they fought, and then they were willing to negotiate until they achieved them.
- Leadership - OWS has not found in its ranks a leader to represent the movement. No Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King, or Carrie Chapman Catt has stepped forward.
- Philosophy - OWS uses the terms Social Change and Consensus of the People. Those are big concepts that mean a lot of different things depending on who you ask. What those terms mean is not universal, singular, or intuitive, and Occupy Wall Street has to refine their philosophy before they will be able to employ those concepts effectively.
- One Voice - Depending on which site you visit, there are different lists of demands, and no sign of unifying their purpose or direction. The lack of focus will invite anarchy and chaos into our streets.
Seeing the Occupy Best Buy protest last night demonstrates the absence of those elements. That was a protest not supported by the rest of Occupy Wall Street, yet it used the Occupy Wall Street name to target middle class consumers, the Americans that it purports to represent. They didn’t realize who they were protesting.
All this is worth the time and effort to write, because I do believe there are problems, and I do think that something has to change. All evidence points to a depression if America can’t get its economy straightened out, not to mention the European Union.
Occupy Wall Street has the potential to achieve social change and reform a broken economy. And while I disagree with many of the core beliefs and the ideology of the movement, I think that it has the potential to evolve into the movement that our country clearly needs, and is obviously crying out for in many ways. What’s more, I think that many of the solutions that we will arrive at are less complicated than we realize.
I believe that an entire generation of young men and women, MY generation, has found itself in a tough situation and that we must be willing to offer solutions. We didn’t ask for the problem, but we can solve it.
Otherwise, we’re going to be left holding the bag at the end of the day.
The challenges we get to solve are immense, and for the moment I have faith that Occupy Wall Street can be more than just a tantrum thrown by a generation that didn’t realize how much power it could wield.
I believe that while we may not have found a voice to speak with, that we will soon.
Occupy Wall Street will begin to be worthwhile when it:
- Offers Real Solutions
- Starts a Dialogue with the Establishment
- Finds a Leader to Represent a Generation of Americans
I don’t believe that Wall Street is the place to look for answers. The problem is much bigger than that. My generation can solve the problems and develop solutions when we look past the obvious villain, and begin the work of creating systemic change and create a country we’re proud to offer to our children someday.
We can hand off a thriving economy and a strong country. We can be proud of the legacy that we leave. We can move beyond the nonsense on Wall Street.
We’ve got what it takes to focus our attention.
Hope this helps.
-Austin W. Gunter
About Austin Gunter
When the establishment and bureaucracy is the core issue (not one facet like policy, Jim Crow, or just a need for one amendment ie Women’s Suffrage) then dialogue with the establishment is at most for show.
The “establishment’s” very life force is rooted in maintaining the status quo.
My ultimate point being, this movement is something very different than previous movements. This is not just a social or cultural movement. It is challenging our core economic and political system…our way of life and all the structures that uphold and organize our lives.
History is not always an appropriate way to judge the present. This is one of those cases.
I couldn’t agree more that the economic and political system are broken and require an overhaul. The challenge is how to separate one from the other after a century of their ever-increasing entanglement. This is essential to begin the overhaul process, and we are responsible for it.
Naturally an organization, or a person’s, goal is to maintain their survival. That is the nature of things. That doesn’t mean that small upstarts don’t change things. They do it all the time, especially in business. They call it Creative Destruction. The Music Industry began to pass into the technological graveyard when the MP3 came along. The challenge is to seize the opportunity of the new paradigm, and the danger is that we remain focused on the old paradigm and find ourselves passing away into obscurity with it.
For reference, here’s how I define a Dialogue when I use it in a blog post:
A Dialogue is a mutual exchange of value between two parties. Both side offer benefit to the other and each party’s participation hinges on their ability to contribute their value.
I believe that a Dialogue is the process societies go through as they evolve and fix problems. This dialogue involves creative distraction, and there are many ways to participate in and collaborate with this process. This dialogue usually requires a new way of thinking, which is what I hear you saying we must find.
What I’m suggesting we need to develop, and what I still don’t see you offering, is a solution. A solution offers a new possibility of what can be. This is very different from simply saying what something is not. Trivial example:
A: “My car broke down. It needs to be totally rebuilt.”
B: “Oh yeah? What’s wrong with it?”
A: “It doesn’t work anymore. You need to fix it.”
B: “Can you tell me where I can start?”
A: “It’s broken.”
B: “….”
History will always offer much needed perspective on the present. We don’t need to judge the present based on the past, but we can evaluate our options based on what has and hasn’t worked for those who have gone before us. The establishment has always been entwined with inequality, and mass social change was required to arrive at the 19th Amendment, for example.
Thank you for your comment. I hope that the conversation will continue like this.
Austin, great article. I’m not a blogger or blog reader but I’ll have to check yours out more often. I agree with a lot of the things you mentioned above and want to add a few more bits of information. One misconception is that the Wall-Streeters are generation Y. The truth is, while generation y is the majority, everyone is part of the 99%.
-People with jobs and no pension.
-People with mortgages and sick children
-People who get taxed too high
- (insert millions of other reasons)
The occupy movement is also not a group movement in its conventional sense. The best way I’ve heard it described was “it’s simply a venue for people to discuss the issues troubling our economy, politics, or way of life.”
The movement, in a strange way, doesn’t really have a message, but the acts of police brutality, the arrests for peaceful protest and the human microphone ( 1rst amendment ) all spread the message and allow people to begin talking about what is wrong with the world. Before the occupy movement, anytime I wanted to talk about what was wrong in the world people would look down at me and tell me I just needed to try harder or world faster and cheaper. NOW, I talk about it almost on a daily basis and everyone joins in.
The occupy movement does not need a leader either; they are against it.
Perhaps I’m a bit apathetic and don’t see how we can move past this without all out anarchy… I’m sure its possible. But I am one those twenty-somethings that was sold a reality that no longer exists.
Is it anyone’s fault? Nah. Just life. Things change. The pendulum swings back and forth to center again.
My question is how can we have fruitful dialogue when the change that one side desires must be implemented within the system and methods of the other side = establishment? … A two party system that is really a shadow for corporate rule and the globalization of economic power while continually funneled into the hands of a very few.
The agenda is clear. And as long as we are lining up at stores for three days to get a good deal from, as I’ve heard it called, the American distribution arm for all Asian goods = Walmart…How can we ever move forward?
True protest has not yet begun.
Call me when we unplug from and create alternatives to the inherently skewed and imbalanced money market system = debt system.
I’ll continue to focus my efforts where I know it counts. And that is another conversation entirely.
Thank you for your insight!
Dayna,
Thanks again for the comments. I think you and I have more in common with what we believe to be true and human, and what is really possible to achieve.
I would wager a guess that we differ only in our methods. That’s why the conversation is so important. When your ideas and my ideas may meet, they will be changed, and something new will be created. It’s innovation.
I have faith in the Human Spirit to create a new solution to an impossible problem by changing the established rules. It’s not necessarily anarchy, but it may feel that way at first.
I’d love to hear where it’s counting for you these days.
Fascinating article, Austin! I’ve kept myself relatively insulated by going nearly the longest educational route possible – medical school. Still, there is health care reform looming and I have family that figured they would get a college degree and suddenly fall into a great career, like many of our parents did when America’s was the only worthwhile economy in the world.
I absolutely agree with your points. I believe that it’s the leader that is needed first (or at least some sort of council of members). Once the voice is established, then the rest follows: clear goals, someone to negotiate with, etc.
Dayna’s comments about the problem being the system itself remind me of the Revolutionary War; though the colonists made points around, for instance, taxation, their beef was really with the whole idea of being a colony at all. That’s a bit like we’ve got here, with people feeling underrepresented. Still, somebody got together and wrote pamphlets, declarations, and constitutions. Resisting the current system isn’t the same thing as resisting all systems altogether. However, I too have a big problem with the “two-party” system and Walmart, and health care (having been just rejected from two insurers as “uninsurable” at mid-twenties and fantastic health).
So my big question, Austin, is where do you think we should begin? I think that may be where OWS is stumbling; there is so much they want changed that it’s hard to know where to start. Any ideas on a good first goal? I frankly have no idea.
Anyway, great read! Do you remember that bookmark you made me when you first moved away from LA? I found it in a box of old school things, and so I’m using it again
Insightful analysis. I’m heading down the avenue of “root cause analysis.” The dynamic of the United States will always mean that we as a People will disagree on the direction we should take. That’s wonderful and should lead to fruitful dialog. The problems we currently face IMHO are that the decision making process itself has been corrupted and is flawed. OWS hasn’t formulated a clear solution to the root cause (probably doesn’t see the root cause clearly). It remains in “shotgun” mode. And it pretends there are no leaders. This is something I saw myself firsthand during the Vietnam war era protests – where the desire for egalitarianism led to the idiocratic denial of reality, that there WERE leaders of the movement. Leadership does not mean tyranny, dictatorship, or despotism. It can also mean guidance, vision, and focus, which OWS desparately needs.
Austin,
Good article. I would add a couple of other problems:
1. Optics: OWS is, rightly or wrongly, viewed as a counter-culture movement apart from, if not hostile to, the mainstream of American Society. I cannot think of a successful social movement in this country that did not try to insert itself into the mainstream (and before anyone says the hippies look at who got elected in 1968.) While it may not be fair, if what most people see when they look at OWS are a bunch of folks who look homeless or hipster it is hard to see their position as one to associate with. OWS needs to get smarter on communications and optics.
2. Being co-opted by the establishment left: OWS lost much of its potential once establishment leftist players (such as unions) became involved. What could have been a non-partisan effort at reform can now be seen as a “liberal tea party”, which means nobody in the center-right trusts or likes them.
A good example of the problem is that there is no real call from OWS for a primary challenger to Obama, even though he received a lot of money from Wall Street in 2008 and supported the bail out. I understand if OWS thinks he may be better than a GOP guy, but if you are not going to try and challenge him people will have trouble thinking of the movement as anything other than a tool of the establishment.
These are two issue that are keeping OWS from being seen as a viable main stream movement.