November 2nd, 2011
Two items:
(1) Hot Air features a video of an interview of a woman from one of the OWS working groups. She seems to be some sort of spokesperson. I don’t know who she is, but someone should hire her, now, because she’s better than about 70 percent of the people who do media relations duties professionally. She has a firm grasp of the subject, aside from her hippie affect, she speaks very clearly and concisely. She’s candid and calm. And it all has the effect of conveying OWS’s most serious complaint against the NYPD and Mike Bloomberg–which is that they have either (a) let the camp become a no-go zone or are (b) actively encouraging problems at the camp. She’s kind of awesome.
(2) Megan McArdle’s essay this morning on the real socio-economic schism of OWS is, for my money, the single most incisive thing written about the protest to date. I won’t quote it, because you should read it in full..
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What I think she’s getting at is a problem of having more elite aspirants than available elite positions, as I discuss here: http://thefredherring.com/?p=71
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How is it good media relations when you assent to the question, “Is the environment now unsafe for women?”
That’d only be an effective line if she sincerely wanted deeper policing of Zuccotti (as if there aren’t already NYPD payrollers interlarded with the white college kids.) Bloomberg sized them up from the beginning: have your fun, don’t spread disease, and help our tourism industry.
The highlight of the video was her reference to “the ghetto part of the park.” Utopia we hardly knew ye.
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Can someone point me to Piggy’s blog?
Gabriel November 2, 2011 at 1:14 pm
As I’ve remarked elsewhere, the McMegan/Anderson take on this is a great argument as to why the ideological balance of the social sciences is a problem, and not a problem for the right but a problem for the social sciences themselves. The analysis is directly out of Bourdieu’s Distinction and thus should be the first thing any competent sociologist thinks of on seeing OWS. To the contrary though, what social science analysis I’ve seen that addresses the new class issue with regards to OWS mostly tries to explain away the observation. I’m thinking the issue is that it’s more exciting to cheer lead for a movement of the class that we ourselves are members of and observing that it’s an intra-elite status competition undermines the claims that it represents the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. (In fairness, my colleagues have produced a lot of good analysis of tactical repertoires and organizational structures, jazz hands and all that).
I’m thinking that a more ideologically diverse social science academia would have more people whose instincts led them to be cynically analytical about OWS and thus produce the kinds of unflattering analysis that we in fact are producing about Tea Parties. As we all know from the completely sincere Bakke and Grutter opinions, the reason diversity is important is because it benefits the institution and any benefits to those recruited to provide it is incidental.