Power Plant for the Revolution

Thanks to Occupy Wall Street (OWS), the verb “occupy” has become a catchword or hash tag on Twitter that stands for a new and unadulterated social movement. The American Dialect Society has selected “occupy” as its “Word of the Year” – just ahead of  FOMO, which is the abbreviation for “fear of missing out” on Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks.
The two words are actually antonyms in a certain sense: opposite terms that each present themselves as the solution to the problems caused by the other. An occupation cannot be virtual and must occur as a personal encounter. This means that OWS is the opposite of and simultaneously the possibility for overcoming interpersonal relationships through the digital media. Above all, the attraction of Zuccotti Park and other Occupy tent camps came from the close communality, the explicit physical nature, and the spontaneous experience of direct action that developed there. Anyone who sought out these temporary settlements did not come for the celebrations or speakers such as those of a music festival, political gathering, or religious service. The Occupy public did not want to witness a performance but to be it. And what the occupiers brought to the stage was a type of open political theater in which arguments, debates, complaints, suggestions, and insights were exchanged in an experimental way.
One activist let me know: “Revolution without lyricism is dead. We are not engaging in politics here but political theater.” At Occupy Wall Street (OWS), imagination triumphed over doctrine, gestures inspired by Brecht and Dada beat disciplined demonstration marches out of the field. Together with the conviction that “theater represents the political art form par excellence” (as another activist told me in reference to Hannah Arendt), this somewhat explains why the movement attracts so many actors and artists. The protesters have transformed the public space into a political spectacle and present their occupation actions as a social experiment. But instead of occurring in rural communes or occupied buildings, this takes place in front of the world’s eyes in the inhospitable bank quarters of American metropolises.

Freedom of Speech as a Dictate of Faith

Visitors were most strongly impressed by the egalitarian spirit of the Occupy villages. Whether shy or fervently agitating – every occupier or sympathizer had the feeling of being listened to and understood. Without any consideration of their status, participants and their statements were recorded, photographed, archived, and distributed on YouTube and live through an abundance of global Internet websites. This developed into the feeling of writing personal history. For once, those who do not use violence seem to have “inherited the earth” – or at least a little bit of it. Spontaneous gatherings began with appeals to allow priority to the “traditionally marginalized”: the shy, the awkward, the less educated, and the non-white minorities. Patience and attentiveness were the watchwords when people presented their ideas, vented their anger, or propagated great solutions for the problems of the world. Their reward for this was the loud echo of their words from the throats of the “people’s microphone.”
The unrestricted right to freedom of speech was a dictate of faith in the occupied zones. An experienced and articulate activist spoke about “the nausea” that overcame him when he realized that he dominated a work group: “People looked up to me and listened to me. As an anarchist, this made me feel ashamed. I have smothered the free exchange of ideas and collective creativity. This is why I stepped back. This gave other people with better ideas and different perspectives their chance. The spontaneity could flow freely once again.”
For this reason in particular, Occupy is opening a new chapter of modern American political activism because the movement is reflecting back to the foundations of democracy – free assembly and the direct exchange between citizens. Even though the occupations were triggered by the actions of Egyptians under a totalitarian regime, quite a few of the OWS activists mentioned the right to freedom of speech and assembly that is anchored in the American Constitution as their inspiration. At the same time, the Occupy model rejects traditional party politics with its strategies and calculations. The movement operates outside of the political arena in which there has traditionally been a struggle for power, influence, access, or the right to pass laws.

Loyalty to Principles

Celebrities found that they were met with mistrust instead of admiration when visiting Zuccotti Park. The activists were not interested in offering a stage to the stars. After all, they advocated the abolition of consumer culture and any types of hierarchies – and who ranked higher on the totem pole of the capitalist social order than the ultra-famous? The experience with Jay-Z strengthened the activists in their mistrust. After his visit at Zuccotti Park, the rapper put an Occupy Wall Street t-shirt on the market through his Rocawear Company. Representatives of OWS demanded that he immediately stop the sales. In addition, the activists were smart enough to reject any of the benefit concerts offered to them by other musicians. Even though they could have urgently used the money, the activists wanted to preserve their distance to commercial activities. On the other hand, artists and intellectuals like Joseph Stiglitz and Slavoj Žižek were greeted with open arms during their visits and held speeches or teach-ins. This loyalty to principles represents the strongest argument for OWS.
It is admirable that the core of the movement is determined to remain true to its principles. OWS can only continue to exist as a social alternative when the movement avoids contact with the mass culture that it wants to replace. The Occupy camps should open the eyes of society about the extent to which the capitalistic economic order has colonized its “consciousness” – a term that the activists use without hesitation. The act of the occupation itself – the chaotic, incalculable existence in a lively occupied space around the clock – has triggered these personal experiences of awakening. As a full-time activist explained to me, the essential experience in Zuccotti Park is found in “the living, pulsating quality of the awakening among others in this space, in laying down to sleep and knowing that the camping place will always exist like a type of power plant from which the allies from the outside can draw energy.”

Public Space as a Component

The occupation of public spaces has almost coincidentally become an essential philosophical principle of the movement in this process. When the first protesters spread out their sleeping bags in Zuccotti Park, they were not expecting a longer stay and reckoned at best with being noticed by the police or other activists. The public’s extraordinarily large echo in response to the movement has practically overwhelmed them. And so the extent of their achievements only truly become clear two months later when they were driven out of the political Garden of Eden into which they had transformed Zuccotti Park and other places with their camps.
Afterward, activists said that they were thrown into “the diaspora.” They turned into members of a free-floating society of politically displaced persons. Their confiscated tents became the symbol of their solidarity with all of those who had lost their houses in the real estate crisis, in addition to the disposed of all countries. As romantic and rhetorical this analogy may be, a certain moral power is inherent to it. Many activists ultimately had to endure police batons and pepper spray or were incarcerated due to their presence in the occupation villages.
The activists subsequently staged immediate “flash occupations” in which they took over public spaces for hours or a day and then dispersed again. Occupy had metaphorical characteristics from the start such as “Occupy the Minds,” “Occupy Religions, and “Occupy the Imagination” – but the movement needed a permanently occupied zone in the reality, a camping place, and headquarters in order to give meaning to these metaphors. And this had to be visibly located within the center of city life. Antonio Villaraigosa – the mayor of Los Angeles and an Occupy sympathizer as a former president of the American Civil Liberties Union – offered the protesters an empty bookstore in a shopping center that belonged to the city as new quarters. But the activists refused: “No one becomes a member of Occupy in order to land in an office,” according to one of the organizers.

From Politics to Spirituality

Occupy has not presented politics as a position on factual issues but as a lifestyle. The movement offered participants redemption from their subjectivity. Their appearances at the public forums encouraged the actors and stimulated critical thinking – exactly as intended by the American Constitution. The possibility of mutual experience offered the movement a decisive instrument in gaining new followers. An organizer told me: “People are coming together. They talk, they argue, and they evaluate the actual state of affairs and reflect on shaping the future. They come to an understanding of the world – together. In unmistakable terms, the occupation declares to our politics and the government that they do not represent us. This is why we have taken possession of this place: as a space that represents us.”
It was quite self-evident for OWS members to find spiritual concepts for their actions and speak of a “movement of the soul” or a “transformative movement.” A protester at Zuccotti Park quoted a passage from the Gospel of St. John: “And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” and explained to me that the literal translation of “dwelled” actually means “resided” or “camped.” Then he pointed to the tents in the park and said: “He has dwelled among us.”
Reverend Michael Ellick of the Judson Memorial Church in New York compared the occupied spaces with places in early Christianity in which “all kinds of people could come together. Who a person was before they arrived – a prostitute, beggar, merchant, or craftsman – no longer played a role. In the name of the spirit, they were all made equal to each other. This was about faith and questions of everyday existence, and not about religion itself as an entity detached from corporeality.” Each generation should newly determine what comprises justice. This is part of a process that should lead to the clarification of an individual’s own personality. Ellick continued: “Perhaps we have always lived in one form or another of the Roman Empire. Then movements like Occupy with their return to the question of what is the right life would be essential for civilization.”
So OWS has primarily appeared up to now as a cultural movement that wants to transcend customary politics, at least in the public perception. There are worlds between the political and the cultural effect: Debates about laws and measures here, reflection upon existential issues there. The occupation of public spaces seeks answers to our spiritual and economic needs and asks about our ideals as a nation in the form of political theater. No matter whether this seems laughable or glorious at this point: Occupy ultimately wants to be the incubator of a new society.●

Michael Greenberg is well-known as an essayist, critic, and book author far beyond his native New York. He writes a column in the British Times Literary Supplement and also received recognition with his Hurry Down Sunshine book in Germany. Greenberg has intensively accompanied the Occupy movement for the New York Review of Books.