Who is Arthur Brisbane?

A couple of months ago, I wrote about the nascent Occupy Wall Street movement citing The New York Times coverage of the protest that almost didn't happen. Since then I have read much, spoken with occupiers and people whom I call “Occupy who not occupy” (of which I am one). I have engaged many in conversation about what the point of the movement is, what is isn't, and  why we should care.

I just read Arthur Brisbane's article Who is Occupy Wall Street? and have had my crucial conjecture confirmed: Occupy does not conform to the conventional framework of modern journalism and will continue to defy the ability of the press to speak coherently about it.

Fortunately, answering my title question is easy as Mr. Brisbane has already done it for me. According to his trade biography, he acts in the role of editorial ombudsman at The New York Times and his credentials and work are formidable. Unfortunately, he has fallen into the trap of attempting to coerce the story into a traditional narrative and in his professional role so guide the work of other journalists. To continue this course does a disservice to the movement and to journalism and I hope to show Mr. Brisbane that there is a more useful way to proceed.

Brisbane thinks that perhaps by getting a bead on the origination of the idea some insight can be obtained. In his cited article he's already gotten as far as that will take him. The Occupy movement in its current form was, as he notes, little more than a concept written up in Adbusters Magazine which has invented and promulgated various ideas over the past couple of decades, some of which have achieved some success (e.g. Buy Nothing Day) and others which didn't and therefore I've forgotten what they were. Adbusters itself was founded by Kalle Lasn who wrote the 1999 book "Culture Jam: how to reverse America's suicidal consumer binge - and why we must" which received critical acclaim, had some readers, but like most ideas drifted into relative obscurity.

Here lies Brisbane's first error: he thinks it is worthwhile to plumb Adbusters in the hope of increasing his understanding. It won't. I don't know if Lasn is associated with the organization any longer but it doesn't matter. In the same way we consider argumentum ad hominem to be fallacious because the merit of a claim should not depend upon the character of the person advancing the statement; the converse is also a fallacy. That is, an idea is valid or invalid on its own merits and the originator is immaterial. And Lasn's ideas were also not new with him. I recently became aware of the remarkable Doris "Granny D" Haddock who had spent half her 100 years as a political activist most notably concerned with campaign finance reform and its necessity to the proper function of our democratic republic. Ironically, one of her last public statements was regarding the Supreme Court's "Citizens United" decision which had the disastrous effect of giving corporations unfettered ability to lavish money on political campaigns. This corruption of government is perhaps the central concept of Occupy, so Ms. Haddock is Occupy, as much as is Mr. Lasn, as much as am I.

So if asking Who is Occupy isn't useful, what is? Occupy is an idea, or a collection of ideas and therefore is as easy to cast into a narrative as to nail a soap bubble to a wall. Journalism has too long relied on the "Who, What, Where, Why, How" formula to construct its stories. But since Occupy is an idea and the formula accommodates events, Brisbane and colleagues are asking precisely the wrong questions.

So what, then, is the idea? It is that the US government has become a corporocracy and has had to disenfranchise its nominal constituency Of The People in favor of its new masters, the so-called 1%. There have been claims that the movement had been just a bunch of kids who don't know what they want or want patently silly things like total student-loan amnesty. It is true that there have been people at the occupations who have said such things, but they're kids. What we can expect from young adults is that they have an excess of sensitivity over wisdom but that is not a fault.  If it were a fault, it is one that they have no control over except through the fullness of time at which point their awareness will be transformed into conservative preference for the status quo. This is why society needs its young idealists, and I am glad we have them. 

The members of Occupy sense that something is wrong and are petitioning anyone who will listen for redress of grievance. The press has asked repeatedly why not petition the government then? There are two reasons: the first is the disenfranchisement noted above, the second is that our national leaders have have demonstrated abject inability to fix the current crisis. Unfortunately, even the experts don't know how to fix things. For example, even non-partisan economists have no idea if TARP and similar stimulus packages have helped, hurt, or had no effect. Why assume that because people have noticed that something is wrong with our fair republic that a solution must or can accompany the complaint?

So of what use is Occupy? It has rekindled a necessary national discourse about the current state of the union and its future. Global economic circumstance has shown us that we can no longer count on our industrialization to keep us the world's pre-eminent power. We may not like that realization, but wishing doesn't make it go away. So we do have to figure out what sort of future that we want to construct for ourselves. Such a dialog has been the continuing habit of our nation since its founding, indeed it is the hallmark of democracy. 

The US was founded by a group of elites who had the Enlightenment to build a nation not to benefit just their own kind, but one which would allow for the best possible governance for all its people. Its first 150 years have already demonstrated that a democratic republic can work extremely well. The corrupting corporate influences have displaced the plurality that had historically been our greatest strength. The system does require a good dusting off from time to time, fortunately, we can accomplish that with dialog and not the blood of patriots.

So, what is Occupy? It is the collection of ordinary citizens who Keep The Conversation Going. That is a definition that is true, complete, useful, accurate, and can fit on a bumper sticker.

This essay is copyright 2011 by matt wartell, permission is granted to republish it under the terms of the creative commons by-nc-nd license. As a response to Mr. Brisbane, more expansive rights have been granted The New York Times and their assigns so please don't get feisty at them if they use them.