There’s a good bit more than I noted in my first post.
Consider, for example, these posts by Tom Beaudoin, who teaches theology at Fordham University (home to some of the Jesuit mentors of my youth). Here he speculates about the religious (or more properly, perhaps, “spiritual”) dimension of the protest:
Critics will no doubt condemn this protest as unfocused, thematically and strategically. But what has been so interesting over the past couple of weeks is the way that Occupy Wall Street is making itself such a symbolic movement of dissatisfaction with what theologian Harvey Cox has called “the market as God.” …I like it that there seems to be fairly wide latitude for people to find their way into the economic focus from many different political (and I would presume religious) commitments. (No doubt some are serving as chaplains or spiritual advisors, formally or informally, for this movement, and if so, I would be interested to hear from you.)…
Whether or not this action is immediately politically effective, such protests can have long-term spiritual and political effects, when they embody visions of a possible future that influence the larger social imagination, and when they sculpt the desires of the protestors themselves for the better. In these ways, resistance can become symbolic action, protests become like religious ritual — and in those ways, even more important.
Tellingly, perhaps, no one has responded by identifying himself or herself as a chaplain or spiritual advisor. But then there’s this post, which contains pictorial evidence of those who are bringing religion into this public square. Here’s his own gloss, surely true as far as it goes:
The movement is reaching a moment when a number of different organizations and individuals find, for their own reasons, that they share an overlapping set of urgent and fundamental concerns with others:
The market is not God! The economy is meant to serve the flourishing of human beings and all life!
I don’t disagree with the last statement, though there are a few “details” that need to be fleshed out. What, for example, do we mean by human flourishing? And, by the way, Aristotle–for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with religion–would also agree that moneymaking exists for the sake of the household, which has as its purpose the cultivation of virtue.
I have no doubt that a hypertrophied and apotheosized market is in some decisive ways unnatural and anti-natural, but I’m not sure that the Occupy Whatever movement is any less problematical in that connection. (Consider, for example, the parodic conception of “democracy” on display in the video linked here.)
But I digress (sort of). Let me return to a point he made in his first post:
[S]uch protests can have long-term spiritual and political effects, when they embody visions of a possible future that influence the larger social imagination, and when they sculpt the desires of the protestors themselves for the better. In these ways, resistance can become symbolic action, protests become like religious ritual — and in those ways, even more important.
For him, protests can ”become like religious ritual” because they “embody visions of a possible future that influence the larger social imagination” and can “sculpt the desires of the protestors…for the better.” When I worship (not as a Roman Catholic, but ”decently and in good order,” as a liturgically-minded Presbyterian), I’m certainly drawn away from my immediate worldly concerns and reminded of the dangers of idolatry. (Indeed, our pastor yesterday concluded a series on Habbakuk with precisely such a reminder and warning.) Crucial for our (I’m speaking of my particular congregation here) critique of idolatry is our faith in the one true God. From where I sit, however, it looks to me like the folks in the Occupy Whatever movement are replacing one idol with another.
Which ought to make those gatherings a fertile mission field, so to speak.
UPDATE: There are indeed protest chaplains. Consider this post:
This was the first time that I realized that being a follower of Jesus in this present time meant being an activist. When huge banks and corporations seek to devour the soul of America, highjack our political and economic systems and reduce democracy to a historical artifact, Christians must not lock themselves in their churches. We must follow Jesus out of our churches and into the streets to stand in solidarity with all who fight for justice, fairness and equality. Our faith never tells us to run and hide from evil, but to confront it head on with the knowledge that evil shall not prevail.
And this one:
[A]t its heart, the Occupy movement is about creating a democratic society in which everyone matters, there is dignity in working together across differences, and there is enough for everyone. Is this vision tantamount to socialism? No. Once upon a time, we called this “American.”
It also sounds pretty Christian to me. What the early Apostles called “The Way” was a vision for peaceful living that built on Christ’s teaching, life, death and resurrection. The Way repudiates the pursuit of individual wealth in favor of building communities that care for the marginalized, the desperate and the powerless. Jesus demonstrated this by healing lepers and dining with prostitutes and tax collectors….
The consistent message emerging from the protests against the concentration of wealth in the hands of 1% of Americans is this: We are the 99%, and we intend to chase the corrupt moneylenders out of a democracy created for the people. It’s a vision of inclusivity and participatory government that confuses pundits and politicians alike, because this movement is more about being for a way of living than it is against anybody or any group. It’s the thing Christianity talks about but often has a hard time doing. It’s a new politics fighting to restore the vision of equality laid out in the Declaration of Independence and enshrined in the checks and balances so brilliantly constructed in our Constitution….
For Christians, the Occupy movement amounts to an invitation from people outside of the church to join them in prophetic witness to the failure of a hyperindividualistic consumerist society. Will Christians find the humility to accept the welcome and join? Or will we fail to recognize The Way in what’s happening in this movement simply because it doesn’t speak Christianese? Could it be that open-hearted participation in this growing experiment in abundant life is exactly what the church needs to recover its own sense of vitality and mission? As Jesus said, “Come and see.”
As the Protest Chaplains say, there is room for a conversation. What I’d love to see, however, is a serious exchange about the worldliness of those who embrace the kind of community described (idealized?) here.
October 10th, 2011 | 4:33 pm
Oh Brother! Guess none of my kids are going to Fordham. Is this what passes for intelligent thought and serious theology these days?
These people are worshiping Their Wonderful Selves.
October 10th, 2011 | 4:55 pm
You left off the best part of the first post:
“Tonight, after the “Pro-Queer Life” Conference at Union Theological Seminary,…”
The fact that Fordham has this guy on the faculty makes me sad — Gail F is spot on.
October 10th, 2011 | 6:28 pm
“We are the 99%, and we intend to chase the corrupt moneylenders out of a democracy created for the people. It’s a vision of inclusivity…” <This is funny.
Not that I like our greedy and grubby top 1% overlords, but there seems to be a problem with his logic here.
October 10th, 2011 | 8:46 pm
Can someone explain how the corrupt moneylenders are to be “chased out”. Are they not too part of the democracy or is that to be reinvented. A whiff of the jacobin, no? That didn’t end well now did it. On the other hand didn’t Jesus dine with tax collectors on occasion, a class, which if memory serves, was not overly concerned with the “the marginalized, the desperate and the powerless”. You wouldn’t think that a Fordham professor, even of Theology, would encourage such infantile thinking.
October 11th, 2011 | 8:44 am
I tripped upon this as part of my google alerts for “Fordham” which I have set up to keep abreast of happenings in the Fordham community.
I can only say that these writings by Tom Beaudoin has only reinforced my understanding of the compassionate works and teachings of the Jesuits and the fact my daughter has made the right decision by attending this fine university. I have encouraged my daughter to go down to the protests and see what they are about.
I am not a Catholic but a member of the Evangelical Covenant Church and I think it is high time that we Christians focus on helping the poor and helping to eradicate the economic injustices of our society. The typical conservative axiom of “I’ve got mine, screw you” are so opposite of any Christian teachings that it makes me shake my head in disgust. When people cheered Ron Paul for suggesting a man should die because of a lack of health insurance, it made me realize how lost we have become.
I know many of you will criticize me roundly which I have no problem with. If you are Christians, however, I would ask you where you believe Christ would be if he were on the earth today. I know in my heart that he would be down with the 99% who are trying to find a fiscal and political structure that works for all of us.
October 11th, 2011 | 11:26 am
When did Ron Paul suggest a man should die because of lack of health insurance?
October 11th, 2011 | 11:50 am
Pentamom,
I carry no brief for Ron Paul, but he did nothing of the sort. At the GOP debate in Tampa Wolf Blitzer asked Representative Paul what we should do if a 30-year-old man who chose not to purchase health insurance suddenly found himself in need of six months of intensive care. Mr. Paul replied, “That’s what freedom is all about — taking your own risks.” A couple of the folks in the audience responded by shouting “Yeah!” and there was some applause… Blitzer pressed Paul again, asking whether “society should just let him die?” to which he responded “No”.
This exchange was then cited by (the odious) Paul Krugman as evidence that “Republicans want everyone to be free to die”…. and another lefty meme was born.
October 11th, 2011 | 12:03 pm
btw,
Just in case someone wants to make the case that the audience was clapping for Blitzer’s premise (‘just let him die’) as opposed to Paul’s statement about freedom there was a slightly later exchange in which Paul (a physician in former days) said “we never turned anybody away from the hospital”… He also suggested that communities and churches had a (proper to his mind) role in picking up the slack before healthcare and government became so entangled.
But don’t take my word for it. Watch it on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4Am2bWQRNw&feature=player_embedded
October 11th, 2011 | 12:26 pm
David C — I know he didn’t. That’s why I asked John about it. In the age of YouTube repeating such “telephonic” misrepresentations is really inexcusable.
October 11th, 2011 | 12:27 pm
And BTW, I carry no brief for Ron Paul, either. I like some of his ideas more, others less — and I think he’d be incapable of governing if elected, not entirely through his own fault.
October 11th, 2011 | 12:58 pm
“I think he’d be incapable of governing…”
Careful Pentamom,
The Paulists like the Palinistas will brook no ill words about their chosen one.
I too like some of the things he says but was long ago convinced that it is very hard to square movement Libertarianism (if you will) with either Christian faith or mainstream conservatism…
October 11th, 2011 | 1:19 pm
Before we enlist Jesus into the ranks of the 99 percent and chase out ol Doc Paul, don’t you think we should know a little more about the fiscal and political structure that will work just fine for all of us? The ninety nine percent that is. I assume that this fiscal and political structure will have room for all to afford the cost of a Fordham education which now exceeds $55,000 per year.
October 11th, 2011 | 2:19 pm
I don’t care for the company of rich people, I don’t like the baffling casino royale that Wall Street has become, and I understand that a lot of people are hurting because they’ve lost their jobs. But — what on earth can anyone mean, when they insist that the rich should pay their “fair share”? What fair share is that? One way to look at it would be to say that they ought to pay more, in absolute dollars, than the rest of us do. Well, they do that. Another way to look at it would be to say that they should pay a somewhat higher percentage of their income in federal taxes than the rest of us do. Well, they do that also.
What “fairness” here means is simply this: “You have money, I don’t, so you’d better give me some of what you have.” There’s no thought beyond that, from what I can see. People want to be forgiven their upside-down mortgage debt. Well, there’s a way to weasel out of such a mortgage. It’s called declaring bankruptcy. It ruins your credit for years, but then, if you’re not forced to declare bankruptcy, you ought to have your credit ruined for years, because what you’re essentially doing is welshing off all of those who have stuck with their mortgages, upside down or no. (As my family and I did, for several years, till I sold the house — at a loss.)
The demonstrators seem to have a magical notion of where wealth comes from. They think they can declare “debt forgiveness”, as if waving a magic wand, and it won’t wipe out the savings of innocent and unsuspecting people. They seem also to believe that the wealth they are protesting against is not already taxed.
Then there is the offensiveness of preaching, to people who have become wealthy by dint of hard work in a small business, that they “owe” more to their society because the society provided them the conditions of their success. True, the government builds roads and educates (or pretends to educate) children — but the businessman already pays taxes for those things. I am thinking of a man now who has built a long-standing business near us, a first-rate diner that serves great food, and a lot of it, for reasonable prices. Before that man pays a single dime in taxes, he has already contributed mightily to the common good, and in a way that the rest of us, who don’t run businesses, can hardly imagine. He has put his assets at risk of losing everything — most small business do not last more than a few years. He has worked ninety or a hundred hours a week — because the business rests upon his shoulders alone. He can’t easily zip off on vacations. He has hired about a dozen people as waiters and busboys and extra cooks. And he has provided for the public an excellent accommodation. He deserves our thanks, and not our preachy contempt.
As I said, I have no love for high finance — but businesses that actually provide something of value deserve a tip of the hat — they already “give back” to the society.
October 11th, 2011 | 3:22 pm
Did Paul Krugman actually say “Republicans want everyone to be free to die”?
I wasn’t aware we had a choice.
October 11th, 2011 | 6:42 pm
I don’t understand the antipathy to “high finance”. The small business owner invests a portion of his profits in order to secure his future. High financial types work to ensure that his investment dollars remain intact and, by dint of their acumen, return a profit. For that they earn fees. That some of these investments are in swaps, straddles and the like hardly means that your investing with Rick’s American Cafe. Don’t the people who service the business owners, the 401k crowd, the unions and the pension funds provide something of value and deserve a tip of the Hatlo hat.
October 11th, 2011 | 7:57 pm
“Another way to look at it would be to say that they should pay a somewhat higher percentage of their income in federal taxes than the rest of us do. Well, they do that also.”
No, they’re not. Capital gains are taxed at a significantly lower rate than regular income. And, for the very wealthiest, their income is dwarfed by their capital gains.
October 11th, 2011 | 8:07 pm
“I am thinking of a man now who has built a long-standing business near us, a first-rate diner that serves great food, and a lot of it, for reasonable prices.”
What you’re doing is falling for somebody’s propaganda. And the work that propaganda is doing is hiding all of the wealthy behind a guise of small business ownership.
But that’s not, in fact, the case. In fact, almost by definition, a small business owner precisely is extremely unlikely to have a very high income.
The small business owners who do have very high incomes are, conversely, almost nothing like the propaganda of a restaurant owner. They’re primarily owners of investment funds, which don’t usually employ many people or create any physical goods. It’s not clear how much value they’re creating for the community.
October 11th, 2011 | 10:05 pm
@Tony and Rob: No, they don’t deserve a tip of the hat. Not on Wall Street. To use ROB’s example of 401k funds, these financial devices drastically underperform the market average. That means you have a significant percentage of your earnings going to financial analysts, when you could be paying a lower percentage on your earnings and earn more overall through an index fund. Financial firms add nothing of value in this case and only increase the cost. They are inefficient, but they exist given federal laws governing finance and 401ks that they take advantage of for their benefit.
On taxes, the wealthy earn most of their incomes through capital gains, which is taxed at much lower rates; furthermore, they pay no payroll tax after a certain point above $100,000.
And yet they pay most of the taxes. Why? Well from 1947 to 1979, productivity of the average worker raised 119% and average hourly compensation for production and non-supervisory workers (about 82% of the workforce) raised 100%. From 1980 to present day, productivity has increased by 80% and average hourly compensation by only 8%. They aren’t paying the average worker nearly as much and keeping more. That’s why the majority of Americans pay less in taxes than they do.
The reactions by the author of this post (e.g., “Occupy Whatever”) and hostile commentators is a visceral reaction against the protesters that privileges and protects the financial elites who nearly collapsed the American economy and got away with it, having their losses socialized and their profits remain private. That this massive injustice is glossed over here in order to engage in caviling of the protesters is really shameful.
October 12th, 2011 | 11:03 am
What I think we have here is the exposure of the contradiction at the heart of Liberalism.
The Liberal believes in the separation of the public sphere of state activity and the private sphere of civil society. The state provided a legally codified order within which social customs, economic competition, religious beliefs, and so on, could be pursued without interference.
But, when the social consensus on which the distinction rested breaks down, liberalism has no way of defining or defending the boundaries of this sphere; everything becomes potentially political.
The Occupy Wall Street protest is an inarticulate demand that the sphere of (material) production be denied in its autonomy and subordinated to political logic.
As Slavoj Zizek says “This identification of the part of society with no properly defined place within it (or resisting the allocated subordinated place within it) with the Whole is the elementary gesture of politicization, discernible in all great democratic events from the French Revolution (in which le troisième état proclaimed itself identical to the Nation as such, against aristocracy and clergy) to the demise of the East European Socialism (in which dissident “forums” proclaimed themselves representative of the entire society against the Party nomenklatura). In this precise sense, politics and democracy are synonymous: the basic aim of antidemocratic politics always and by definition is and was depoliticization, the demand that “things should return to normal,” with each individual sticking to his or her particular job.”
October 12th, 2011 | 11:24 am
The reaction to the posts is not, on my part at least, a desire to ” protect the financial elites”. The OWS crowd struts a self righteous infantilism that is just annoying. The enlistment of Jesus into domestic tax policy debates is offensive. We know you don’t like current policy but what would your program look like in the concrete and what would be it’s consequences for the national economy. These are serious political questions and all the arm waving about the unfairness, not to say the immorality, of capital gains rates does not answer the question. Or do we wish to simply castigate the hedge fund folks so we all feel warm and fuzzy. Remember the debate here should include some real provision for making sure the costs of a Fordham education are available to the hundreds of millions of Americans not so fortunate as to afford tutelage by the prophetic, whatever that means, and compassionate Jesuits and their Rock music theologians.
October 12th, 2011 | 12:52 pm
Hmmmm,
Is it now “shameful” to point out that attendees of elite universities demanding “education loan forgiveness” and defecating on police cars may not exactly have the internal coherence or lack of self interest to deserve our respect or support?
Is it really the case that what has all the marks of an inchoate mob must be praised and supported else one be accused of “privileg[ing] and protect[ing] the financial elites”? No thanks, mr. false choice.
October 12th, 2011 | 3:15 pm
@ROB and david c: How many of these people are students “defecating on police cars?” How are they all self-righteous and infantile? Are all Tea Party members racist because a hand full of them brought racist signs to rallies? These protesters–from both groups–are a mosaic, not a monolith. You are attributing the deeds of the few to the many in order to deligitize them. So, yes, it is shameful.
And ROB, it is not that I do not like our current policy–and it is more than about policy, but that this country is increasingly a plutocracy with a small wealthy elite rigging the game for their benefit by use of government–it is that this is all UNJUST. This is not about preference, and that is why Christianity has something to say, including Catholic social justice with its emphasis on the wide distribution of wealth and subsidiary as requisite to a just economy. Even through ideological lenses these problems should be scandalous. For right-liberals (i.e. conservatives), they should be incensed by the continued and substantial interference in the market to benefit a tiny minority. For left-liberals, they will be concerned with the neglect to the poor and the exploitation of the middle clas that these policies involve.
So don’t turn this into a debate about tax rates. That is an attempt to redefine the debate to deligitimize my arguments, which are about a lot more. Look at my examples: the way that 401k’s are rigged, the bailing out of Wall Street, and that wages have not tracked productivity growth, effectively remaining stagnant for decades.
Finally, the demand for specifics on the part of normal people who are not policy analysts is unreasonable. Did the Tea Party have specific proposals within their first week? These things don’t materialize within a few days. Further, you won’t get a specific plan that all of them endorse, but a number of them given the diversity of their views, which includes even more than a small number of libertarians and distributists among them.
So I will repeat my point, the willingness to put aside legitimate calls for justice due to the unsavory character of some of the protesters is to selectively choose examples in order to deligitimize them. It has more to do with psychology and attitude on the part of right-liberals than a rationally ideological response. The effect of all this is to direct all criticism toward them and away from Wall Street, despite their successful efforts to engineer the largest reallocation of capital in the history of the world to the benefit of a small elite. So that’s my charge: the reponses by author of this post and other commentators are highly skewed; and if anyone has turned it into an either-or choice, david c, it’s those like yourself who spare Wall Street criticism, or ROB who defends them as if they were small and local businesses with high tax rates, and instead cavil the protesters.
As long as they do not become violent or revolutionary, I’ll stand with the protesters, even if some of them are unsavory, because they have just grievances against a financial elite that nearly destroyed this country’s economy, got away with it and had their losses covered by the public at the cost of trillions of dollars to the federal government and the federal reserve, and continue to make use of government to set rules and laws that benefit them at the expense of the average American. This is the greater outrage.
October 12th, 2011 | 8:13 pm
Whatever you say Chief. The Ayatollahs and Quds Force are behind you. Good luck with that.
October 12th, 2011 | 10:36 pm
So, in other words, you don’t like my arguments so you just dismiss them by resort to a VERY WEAK guilt by association. Not only is that fallacious, it is a transparently ridiculous argument–and it says more about your own ideological posturing and inability to reexamine your views than any real inadequacy on my part.
October 13th, 2011 | 10:59 am
JA, my take would be that it’s unwise and counter-productive to associate yourself with a movement that recognizes the right problems, but offers bad, unworkable, or equally unjust solutions, and whose public behavior gives you little other reason to accord them respect.
Allying yourself with and thereby transmitting credibility to anybody and everybody who recognizes the same problems you do has had some very bad outcomes, historically.
October 13th, 2011 | 6:59 pm
JA,
So much of public discourse these days seems to consist of umbrage taking and blame casting. I refuse to participate in your binary nonsense. My rejection of the rabble that comprises OWS does not necessitate my embracing Wall Streeter’s “injustice”. I reject your Manichean reductionism. Categorically. Peddle your “justice narrative’ and shame based jeremiads somewhere else. I have had a bellyful.
October 14th, 2011 | 12:49 am
@Pentamom: You offer a perfectly reasonable critique with which I largely agree, but with two caveats: (1) The group is not monolithic, as I stated earlier. Some of them are punks, but then that is what one gets from a demonstration that crosses demographic boundaries. As I pointed out earlier, one can find even distributists and libertarians in the mix, middle class families and veterans, and more. Not all of them are defecating college students. (2) I should clarify my earlier stance. When I wrote that I would stand with them, I meant it more as a moral endorsement, one predicated upon good conduct on their part. I’m quite aware that there is the possibility that this group could coalesce around poor solutions. If that occurs, then I would withdraw my support; but for now, and especially given the heterogeneity of the group, I see no reason to.
Beyond all that, I want to thank you, pentamom. You seem to be the only one thus far willing to engage me without resorting to straw men and guilt by association.
@david c: Are you capable of any argument that does not resort to a transparently risible fallacy? Let’s take a good look at the chronological order of events in our conversation:
—My first post was a protest against the article and many of the comments for glibly dismissing the protesters. I pointed out that they had legitimate grievances, named many of them, and argued that to cavil them was not a proportionate or fair response. I did not call for an endorsement of the protests, but rather for balance and fairness in the treatment of them in discussion. In my view, I was the one truly protesting against “Manichean reductionism” and “binary nonsense.”
—You responded that I was endorsing the actions of college students defecating on cars. This was a gross and hostile response to a critique given in good faith. It is also a straw man and a blatant move to delegitimize my claims and shut me down. From your first response, you demonstrated that you could not carry on with me in good faith.
—I responded in proper order, spending most of my post protesting your straw man and ROB’s claim that the matter was only about tax policy. I then repeated my critique, which was, again, that the treatment here is very skewed and unfair. Finally, I offered a personal endorsement, but did not claim that everyone else should do likewise.
—You then feebly accused me of proffering a binary as if I had characterized the debate as one of either the endorsement of Wall Street’s practice or the endorsement of the protesters when I did nothing of the sort. Further, you demanded that I cease posting here and that I peddle “justice narratives” and “shame based jeremiads” elsewhere.
Both of your responses were willful mischaracterizations of my claims. This is so blatant as to be rhetorical bullying. Furthermore, you have not responded to a single substantial claim that I made, instead grousing, and quite lugubriously at that. Your dodges and reflexive responses only substantiate my original claim that this is more about attitudinal commitments on the American right than sound reasoning.
October 14th, 2011 | 1:04 am
Just for the sake of clarity, I am going to repeat my claim: the reflexive reaction to the protests is more attitudinal than rational. A posture of criticism that ignores a just claim grievances, especially one that fails to recognize the exploitive practices of the financial industry and keep that reality in view, is skewed and should be reevaluated. No, this does not mean that an endorsement of the protests is warranted. Rather, it’s a call to be consciously reflective upon how these matters are evaluated. My appeals have less to do with any ideological imperative on my part (disclosure: I am a former right-liberal who now finds himself not only hostile to ideology, but downright premodern in his views–I think we live in the dark ages), and are instead an exhortation to get over ideology, the shallow “umbrage and blame casting” that david c accuses me of and is in reality himself partaking in.
October 14th, 2011 | 8:53 am
JA
Upon sober and (I hope more) mature consideration, I let my temper get the best of me in this exchange. While I continue to disagree with the style and (a least some of the) substance of your comments, that does not excuse my pugnacity nor my incivility. I apologize and for what it’s worth in this semi- anonymous context, ask your forgiveness.
October 14th, 2011 | 5:35 pm
@david c: No problem. As for my style, I can be a bit overwrought and tendentious at times. No worries.
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