Reflect on how the people involved in the OWS are framed and then consider this lecture by Allan Watts.
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6 comments
November 16, 2011 at 9:43 am
tildeb
Complete the following sentence, please:
“I will voluntarily leave these public spaces when…
Until this sentence can be answered in a coherent and achievable way that makes good sense, the people in this ‘movement’ are nothing more than squatters abusing public spaces in order to maximize their nuisance factor upon everyone else.
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November 16, 2011 at 10:52 am
Vern R. Kaine
To your comment, excluding the 1% of OWS that specifically targets illegality, this is how I “frame” 99% of it:
1) People who are jealous of those in the upper class.
2) People who feel mostly helpless and hopeless to ever join them.
3) People with an overwhelming sense of entitlement, wanting what isn’t theirs.
4) People who prefer to “take” rather than “think” their way to a better way of life.
To Watt’s comment, in the opening of the speech his quote states that “the meaning of life is just to be alive.” If one’s an amoeba, perhaps. I don’t know how he can say that about human beings when it applies to every living organism on the planet except human beings.
Everything else can just be “alive”, i.e. exist in its natural physical state within nature. We can’t. On the physical level we need things like food, clothing, and shelter that while originating from nature must be adapted by us to be useful in sustaining our lives. Has Watts somehow developed fur, fangs, an ability to eat raw meat and grasses in order to change this?
That’s regarding the physical aspect of our existence. As for the mental, he continues: “And yet, everyone rushes around in a great panic as though it was necessary to achieve something greater than themselves.” I disagree.
Panic is defined as a “sudden uncontrollable fear or anxiety, often causing wildly unthinking behavior”. I would argue that this rush that Watts refers to isn’t “wildly unthinking behavior” at all. In fact, I would say it’s just the opposite. I believe it is controlled, thinking behavior that not only allows us to exist, but also allows us to exist with meaning – a purpose to achieve something greater than ourselves which provides not just contentment, but fulfillment.
We’re the only animals who 1) need to think to exist, and 2) are designed to gain fulfillment from doing so. We have to be feeling like we’re achieving something greater than ourselves – whether that’s through planting a flower garden, raising kids, constructing a world wonder, or building a business – in order to for us to feel alive. And since without the ability to do those things many of us simply wouldn’t want to live, I would say the ability (freedom) to do those things is an essential part of our existence. Simply put, we need thinking to be “alive”. Cogito ergo sum?
Occupy doesn’t want to “think” in my opinion, they just want to “exist” and deny themselves the tools given to them by nature to exist as something beyond an animal. They reject the challenge that they’re supposed to think smarter, faster, or further ahead, and prefer instead to just latch on to those who already are and force them to be responsible for not just the host, but the parasite as well. Nowhere in nature does a parasite get such sympathy or the greater respect.
I also believe Watt’s view of the “non-joiners” is false. We don’t “attacK” these people out of insecurity, because we somehow can’t sell them something or because they somehow don’t conform. That’s the left’s ongoing love of victimhood. If this were true, we’d attack one of the biggest non-joiners on the planet – Mark Zuckerberg. He is a “non-joiner” in that he has the ability to buy more jeans, cars, and lawn fertilizer than anybody, yet he buys relatively the least and in fact rejects much of the spoils of his income level. No huge mansion, no twenty cars, but do we attack him for it? We don’t. Do we attack the Amish or the Hutterites? Nope.
I can’t speak for the other 53% or the 1%, but for me I “attack” (criticize) the non-joiners because going back to my original argument, it starts with the fact that more the Occupiers “non-join” the more they have to rely on people like me to exist (“to be alive”) instead of relying on themselves. Even that would actually be relatively ok in my mind if it weren’t for they take it to: that I now be forced to take care of them. If someone chooses to be a non-joiner – whether it be someone in the back woods living off the land, or someone who simply wants to live frugally – no one I know in business has any problem with that and I think anyone who knows anyone in business would be hard-pressed to find anyone who does.
We call Occupiers smelly because they smell. Poor sanitation for 3 months and anyone would. We call them bums because they panhandle the passersby for money, and we call them leeches because they demand free food. We call them thugs because when they don’t get that free food they they willfully damage other peoples’ property, throwing temper tantrums and even feces in response.
I call them useless because they reject any form of leadership, and I call them hypocrites because even the people within Occupy who are peaceful and say they’re there “for the 99%” do nothing afterwards to actually help those businesses and people who have been harmed prior in their name. I have yet to see one Occupier help clean the graffiti off anyone’s storefront that was damaged.
Watts is wrong – it’s got nothing to do with insecurity and it’s got nothing to do with Occupiers being victims, because they aren’t. They have the same choices and options that the rest of us do – they just choose to not make the sacrifices that the rest of us make in order to get ahead. They want an easier ride – based simply on the fact that they “exist” in a more non-Descartes, amoeba-like kind of way – and I for one don’t think I should be again – forced to provide one to them.
Btw, does Watts get haircuts, wear nice clothes, and drive a nice car? ;)
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November 16, 2011 at 10:54 am
Vern R. Kaine
*”weren’t for they take it to” should be “weren’t for the level they take it to.” Sorry!
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November 16, 2011 at 11:55 am
Vern R. Kaine
I agree. I believe the movement can be more, but these people are making conscious choices about where they stay (vs going home and returning) and what tactics they choose for awareness, therefore the criticism is fair and deserved.
To your question posed, I might be giving them too much credit but I’d say some likely, semi-sane responses would be that they’d leave:
1) “when the wage disparity in this country goes from 100:1 to 20:1”, which I mostly agree with, but forcing this I don’t agree with at all and I think would create more problems than it attempts to solve.
2) “when the rich are taxed fairly.” OK, but right now what’s defined as “rich” isn’t rich at all, and no one can actually say what “fair” is.
3) “when everyone in this country has health care.” You mean, when every company has to pay for health care? Then why’s the government handing out all those exemptions to rich unions and rich corporations?
They might as well be saying “We’ll leave the park when there’s world peace” because in each of the three cases above they’re waiting for a utopia that, as long as there’s scarcity, will never exist.
For the rest, they’re hoping on regulation that they already asked for and received through their elected officials. The Affordable Care Act and Dodd-Frank’s Financial Reform bill, in particular. Do the people at Occupy even know what’s in those bills? If they did, they’d be arguing for changes to it but they’re not even doing that right now best I can tell.
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November 16, 2011 at 1:00 pm
tildeb
I suspect from everything I’ve heard and read over the last few months that there is nothing more than a vague sense of ‘we want favourable change’ kind of statements. In the meantime, they’re just squatters and a public nuisance. Move the tents to a public freeway and see how long it lasts.
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November 16, 2011 at 1:49 pm
Vern R. Kaine
“Move the tents to a public freeway and see how long it lasts.”
Haha! True! They’d become instant speedbumps in my world, and not very good ones, either. ;)
Best “explanation” I think I’ve read on OWS is from Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone magazine, however Matt Taibbi is far more representative of the benefits of the system rather than its drawbacks. http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11/11-7
Yet even on just the basis that it’s a decently-written article, he’s still saying “all I know is II’m mad”. Too generalist and vague for my liking and besides, I refuse to glorify squatters and panhandlers.
Uh oh – I may have some “blocks” (arm crosses), “points of order” (triangle with thumbs and index fingers), and some “disapproves” (downward twinkly-fingers) coming my way for saying that! Haha! (Still laughing over that Stephen Colbert piece) with Jessie and “Ketchup”. Nice kids, but seriously?
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