In the spring of 2011, it was difficult to navigate the blogosphere without bumping into a post about the social media supplemented revolution spreading throughout the Middle East. Was social media really helping the cause? Would these revolutions have happened without social media? Would they have been as effective?
Regardless of how the bloggers answered all of those questions, one thing was pretty clear. There was palpable excitement in the air. Holy smokes – people – young people – were breaking through decades and/or centuries of programming and saying, “Nope, this isn’t cool.”
On the other hand, as we flash forward to September 2011, hardly anyone is blogging about the Occupy Wall Street movement, which is now spreading all across the nation. A few people have posted a picture of the “We are the 99%” statement, but that’s been it. And I’ve really looked. Beyond Huffington Post, there isn’t a whole lot going on in the blogging world about this massive social movment.
Why?
You would think this would be a golden child for people who have been proclaiming that social media is in fact behind these big movements. You would think that the folks who talk about the millennial generation would be all over this. You’d think business bloggers would be all over this.
Where are the posts?
Is it too early to write about what is going on? Do we have to know the ending before we write about it? I am just entirely perplexed. Maybe you can help me out.
image by Robert Linder. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/linder6580
First blush answer, no caffeine: it’s because those in this country automatically think that we already are “free.” We can vote (and many choose not to). We don’t have to wear a burka when we leave the house. Our concept of freedom is skewed. Financially oppression isn’t as sexy as a tangible, flesh-and-blood dictator that can be overthrown. It’s also easier and less risky to support a regime change on another shore as opposed to looking inward as a country and admitting that the financial system here is broken.
Those are pretty good answers, Molly. But still, you’d think that there would be some bloggers willing to delve into that darkness, especially because social media was used and then stopped being used because police were being alerted to what was going on. I mean, that’s a whole jar full of blog posts, isn’t it?
My first blush: too much caffeine :]
For one, there is no major dragon to untether from his head. There was clear enemy in the Spring Revolution. Democracy protects itself against a clear leader. Second, we (I was barely est’d at the beginning of this generation), have a lack of focus. ADHD finds its way into our qualms: death penalty, bailouts, student loans, health care….There are problems with all of these, but people at Wall St. aren’t given to think of ethical questions. It’s screaming at houses with no windows.
Like @mckra1 says, our views of freedom are skewed. We don’t stand by absolute truths–but we seem to think that Lockean ideas about “unalienable rights” are embedded into our hardware. But, unfortunately, even Locke cannot stand postmodernist thought (what Divine mandate gives the individual rights?). Kierkegaard said (prophetically), that we don’t pay attention to our internal rights: the right to choose our direction, the right to think whatever we want to think, the right to believe regardless of the dictates of the government, the right to dissent anything.
We are one of a tremendously unique people: the individualism in America is non pareil. For generations, people have lived in societies where they understood “DEBT” to be something corporate. My father’s-father’s-father’s debt was my own, ad I had to live within a legal structure that would pay my debt. There was this idea that “we’re all part of the debt, so lets work, together, to appease the gods (or God).”
My ethical thought, with Kierkegaard, is moving inward. My freedom and opportunity and well-being cannot be plugged into any system, or when the system fails, so does my well-being. I can make the small changes of “the positive deviant” (good one to google), or look around and despair. It’s about upgrading my internal software.
It also helps to have spent nearly five years abroad, and to have seen the outrageous disharmonies and inequities in most places. (And to have taught students from, for example, Egypt, during their revolution.)
:D,
M
That’s quite a reply, Mark! But is that more about the movement, or is that about why people are not blogging about it? To me, the fact that the US is seeing any kind of national movement that isn’t the Tea party is pretty interesting. This is a sort of counter-revolution, almost. Where are the political analysts in the blogging community? Surely there are some beyond HuffPo?
The points made by mckra1g and Mark ring true but I think there is also something to be said for state-sponsored terrorism. As harsh as it may sound, the US has invested billions in dollars and man-hours to develop institutions that bludgeon free-thinking radicals and make the indignant think twice and eventually succumb to the Mausher principle. The logic being, why should I make matters much worse for me than they already are. At least today I don’t have the CIA at my doorstep or worse yet, been branded by the ‘T’ word. I don’t believe Americans are cowards. We’ve already seen what the people could do when the government finally had to pull out of its senseless occupation of Vietnam. Is it any surprise that the next targets were the ‘hippies’ even if all America spoke against the war. The hippies were finally squashed more or less but now is it any surprise that the media are projecting these brave few as a hippie ‘collection of people’. Look at the rhetoric in American mainstream media. Can there be any doubt as to who’s surreptitiously rewriting the media reports?
Perhaps you are right there, but I still come back to why no one is blogging about this. Obviously there is a large undercurrent of feeling as these comments are revealing. Are people just afraid to voice their opinions?
In a word, yes.
I had some opinions this morning and someone on the Left started lambasting me for being stupid, on the FOX News payroll and on the lunatic fringe of the teabaggers. All because I did not support 100% of this http://nycga.cc/2011/09/30/declaration-of-the-occupation-of-new-york-city/ Weird.. Who the heck needs that crap? I understand the right-wing crazies who attack me, I get that. What this does not need is the left attacking someone who agrees with the ideals of the movement, but maybe not the method or the affiliations.
Perhaps people are just waiting to see what actually comes of this. I have no idea WHEN social media started helping ‘Arab Spring’ movements gain momentum, but it wouldn’t surprise me if SM really started rolling once people started seeing the offline movement get traction and then it all began to spiral in unison. Let’s give the Wall St deal some time to percolate…for it to potentially grow……for evidence of some type of change……for believability to set in.
you could be right, Joel. I guess it took awhile for people to start blogging about the spring revolution. It just seems odd that the blogosphere isn’t going nuts about any facet of this. Maybe that’s just me though 🙂
Margie, you know I love you, however this time we will have to agree to disagree. These two issues are vastly different. In one case it was people seeking freedom. In another it is people using their freedom, although at times perhaps in ways we do not like.
Now before everyone jumps on me, I am proud to say that I am a tree hugging capitalist. Years ago I gave up shopping at the big chain that starts with W to protest the source of their goods. I recycle religiously, and try to buy organic. I also like making money – ethically.
However (and this is huge) if you do any of the following you are indirectly as responsible for Wall Street as the people ON Wall Street. (Because Wall Street wouldn’t exist if…)
* You own any stocks or invest in any mutual funds (think 401 K, IRA, etc)
* You purchase anything made in a third world country that has no labor laws (hello China)
* You voted Republican OR Democrat in the last election (check the record both sides take huge $ from corporations)
* You shop at any big chain or big box store versus the local mom and pop (because its cheaper of course!).
* The list goes on and one, however I think you see my point.
We all vote with our dollars, I would challenge everyone reading or responding to this to honestly assess where you spend yours. I’ve lived in third world countries and we don’t *need* all the things we think we need to survive.
In closing, I have worked as an Investment Banker, and categorically reject that just because someone works on Wall Street or for a large corporation they’ve sold their soul to the devil.
Hi Nicole,
Like we discussed on Twitter, this is more an evaluation of the movement itself (although you are right in that I may have missed the mark in even beginning to compare this with the spring revolution). My point simply is that bloggers were all over the events in Egypt and Syria and Libya, but in the US, there is very little in the blogging world about this domestic movement. I find that very strange. As is evident in your comment and in the comments above, there are hugely strong feelings about this movement, either for it or against it or somewhere in between. Why are these thoughts not getting written up?
Because the issue is not important enough (yet). If things go downhill in a big way and we have full-scale Depression, THEN we’ll see more comment on all of this, not mention blood in the streets to go along with the tweets.
I truly hope we don’t get to that point. Right now, this feels more like too small a group to have impact.
I didn’t see the same scarcity of posts that you did. I still read for hours about it all. ?