One of the defining characteristics of the Occupy movement, as I mentioned in my last article, is that the demonstrators and organizers do not as a group suffer from the obscene economic inequality they rage against, nor do they seem terribly bothered to appeal to the people who do suffer chronically from this inequality. Ultimately, Occupy believes that its self-contained activist communities and the various ritualistic processes thereof are the revolution, and that the masses need only embrace “mic checks” and “twinkling” to claim their redemption from ignorance and distress.
That a socio-economic revolution can be won, or even attempted, without the support of the millions of Americans who can’t afford Apple products, who are wary of or hostile to the trappings of the activist lifestyle, is a fantasy born of privilege. Case in point, Leah Hunt-Hendrix, a young heiress and Occupier who, we are told, wants “to radicalize the world of the wealthy.”
… For Rosa [Luxemburg], the revolution couldn’t happen without the re-formation of the whole society… And the way to get re-formed is by participating in a collective movement, collective resistance. Through that process, the whole public is transformed, little by little. Their consciousness is reshaped, and they become agents of change. I think that’s also what is happening with Occupy Wall Street. Everyone who participates is becoming re-formed a little and their character is being reshaped. And their consciousness is definitely being reshaped. That’s how change will have to happen in America.
These are terms of religious conversion, purely and simply. (We find out that Miss H-H went to evangelical summer camp and “loved it,” though she “didn’t agree with it politically.” Her involvement in Occupy Faith “has been partly figuring out how to reclaim that upbringing, but in line now with my politics.”) The assumption is, first, that the public wants a “re-formation of the whole society.” It does not. (In late 18th century France and early 20th century Russia, it did.) So what happens if the “whole public” continues to decline (thanks, but no thanks) having its consciousness reshaped to fit Occupy’s radical gospel? Or is it just a matter of time before we are unable to resist the enlightenment?
That Miss H-H agreed to be interviewed at all is telling. (Might she have suggested someone who had struggled somehow, accomplished something? A teacher, perhaps, or a nurse, or an electrician, or a cab driver?) That she was sought out for an interview is not at all surprising, however, as the author is clearly, achingly smitten with the young woman, who is quite pretty in her photo: head on hand, ruminative (she “can quote Hegel and Voltaire,” “can recite pieces of Arabic poetry”!) yet totally approachable. Next to her, a cup of espresso sits neatly on a saucer (the revolution need not be unsophisticated). Our interviewer says, “There is something tremendously appealing about the heiress who decides to ignore the conventions of the life opulent and commit to the ideas and struggles of the underclass.” Indeed.
I don’t doubt that Miss H-H’s heart is in the right place, and that she has an integrity worthy of respect. She could, after all, be dedicating her time and money to Rick Santorum, or, less objectionably, Satan. But is our heiress really committed to the ideas and struggles of the poor and unemployed, the working poor, the working middle class, all of whom would rather have just a shot at the present and future financial security Miss H-H inherited instead of a tumultuous “re-formation of society” whose ultimate appearance and workings have yet to be explained. (What, for instance, would happen to my middling 403(b) account in a non-capitalistic society? Would I still have to pay for gas? Can I keep my books? What about my laptop? Do I have to let Occupiers camp in my apartment because my apartment is now a public space? If so, is there any way at all I can get around this?)
“There are parts of our identity that we might have to be willing to give up,” says Miss H-H, “to live in the kind of world that we want to live in…” Yes, but what parts of her identity has she given up? And has she really ignored or cast off the conventions of wealth? Does she have a job, for instance? Does she pay for rent and health insurance? Is she putting herself through graduate school (her Ph.D. is on “the genealogy of solidarity”)? Who paid for her to spend six months in Egypt to intern at the Gerhart Center for Philanthropy and Civic Engagement, to improve her Arabic in Syria, to “[examine]… the impact of international aid” in the West Bank, to attend the “life changing” 2011 World Social Forum in Senegal? The interviewer answers none of these questions. What he does tell us, in the midst of a lengthy article about his and America’s obsession with privilege, is that Americans “are not very good at talking about privilege.”
The interviewer and Miss H-H both believe she has been cured of “the ultimate privilege,” which is the “ignorance of her level of privilege.” But this is only another fantasy born of privilege. She says of her parents: “they were not at all materialistic, and had no intention of giving me money to buy new things at Barney’s every week,” but “that didn’t mean that we didn’t have a yacht on the Hudson and things like that [italics mine].”
Well-meaning privilege comes with its own problems, unfortunately; namely, the belief that “shedding light on the root causes of oppression, not only in America, but also globally,” will somehow, without political action or the spontaneous uprising of the victimized, relieve that oppression. Well-meaning privilege wants to do the work for the oppressed, wants to transform the consciousness of the oppressed to look more like the consciousness of well-meaning privilege. It seems not to matter whether the oppressed want to be transformed, or whether calling them “the oppressed” all the time might insult the dignity of discrete human beings who struggle but who are not helpless, and who might not think their lives are so terrible as to need saving from (see Kony 2012, for example).
Occupy expects the people to come to Occupy, when Occupy should be going to the people. That is the arrogance, though I don’t think it’s willful in the case of Hunt-Hendrix, of well-meaning privilege. I suspect the more astute minds involved in the movement—not the true believers, in other words—have known this for quite some time.
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