Thoughts on the Occupy Wall Street Movement

Now, honestly, I don't feel terrible that I'm not present in New York right now.

The video feed from Democracy Now looks emboldening. I have seen footage and notes by other bloggers and individuals in the media industry. I watched people hold up their iPads and document the instance of the young, blond women who were maced on Wall Street. I also observed footage:

If you read the comments on the video, it becomes unclear whether the individuals are affiliated with the banking industry or if they are individuals at a restaurant. The contrast is the fashion of today's documentation on one level. The above scene brings to mind a selection from Benjamin as taken from Ba1,2.

Benjamin wrote, "the collective dream energy of a society has taken refuge with redoubled vehemence in the mute impenetrable nebula of fashion, where the understanding cannot follow."

The need for segregation of space in the video above (the street versus the restaurant) maintains the distance between the perceived ruling and subordinate classes. I find it interesting that the technology is present as a recording device on both levels. There is the level of the street with the media and individual lens as well as the level of the balcony with the personal computing device.

The preoccupation of the subordinate classes with the fashion is obscuring the message. As the message becomes, obscure, I am afraid that nothing will happen from this movement. The school is not the refuge for manifest social change, instead, it serves as a class-regulating institution without the financial aid to address the entire body. The institution is class-regulating in the sense that it reinforces social constructions of value, assigns these a monetary value, and rewards or punishes accordingly. I hope that from this venture the educational system will receive more funding that it can provide more of its students with need-based financial aid.

Now, me, I am not a banker or philosopher. I would not enforce monetary standards on an individual to assign them value, nor would I deign myself well-learned enough to apply gradients of intellect to the individual.

I do not know what is best for the country.

It would be difficult and perplexing for one to express outrage in a way that is not attuned to the sensibilities of the audience. I have been told that is not polite to question the mechanisms of modern society. I can consider a revolution, an ideological change, or the upheaval that makes a nation question its entire basis. The educational system is the most important systemic organization. I am in favor of anyone who has ever wanted to be treated equally, I don't find it entertaining, and I hope the schools become involved in this debate.

Do I find it immaterial?

I don't know.