Occupy Wall Street Comment
I was prompted by reading Eugene Robinson's column from October 10 to share the column on Truthdig and make these comments.
The need for a course correction to the established economic injustice we are drowning in, cannot be denied by anybody with a modicum of honesty and information. And only those who cannot separate ideas from their context will be unable to see that being against economic injustice does not mean you area against economic freedom.
Of course this tendency -- to identify some trend with its traditional (or reputed) friends -- is not new. In fact it is traditional. We identify communism with atheism, we identify capitalism and freedom, we identify anarchy with violence, and so on and so forth.
But these identifications are a problem. They are also a function of tribal thinking, of the loss of thoughtful individuality. Why? Because fear is constantly looking for labels, in order to identify dangers and thereby preserve the self and tribe from harm. But in a more patient analysis, excepting situations in which the danger is immediate, shows that the fear always robs the fearful. While they might escape some pain, they have lost their humanity, their ability to explore and invent.
And so to friends of mine who see the occupy wall street as socialism or communism or stupid or pathetic, I say, look again, this time without giving into the urge to label. Then you can see, you can hear. Yes, it is hard - we have been trained by virtually all of our context to label without listening. But it is possible.
And I think that listening and seeing are in dangerously short supply, that efforts aimed at increasing their supply is a pretty high priority right now.