<nettime> Peter Marcuse: Occupy Sandy and the Occupy Movement]

["Patrice Riemens" <patrice@xs4all.nl>]

bwo INURA list


Friends,

At Zuccotti Park, there was always a bit of social service involved in
the occupation:-- homeless people sheltered, the hungry fed -- but it
was ancillary to Occupy's main objectives, which dealt with societal,
structural problems. But the reaction to hurricane Sandy, and the
formation of Occupy Sandy, brought out a different aspect of the Occupy
movement, not directed at Wall Street or big systemic issues, but
directly providing help to those in need.What kind of role is that for
Occupy? How does it fit in with Occupy Wall Street's basic thrust?

Look at my earlier blogs at pmarcuse.wordpress.com, #21 (dealing with
social justice issues in the distribution of public resources after
Sandy), #22 (commandeering vacant housing for those displaced) , Blog
#23 (treating Occupy Sandy work as prefigurative, rather than as model
), and Blog #24, which deals with the relations between helper and those
helped, between giver and recipient and the institutions involved..

Is the "Occupy" in Occupy Sandy a misnomer for a commendable but
ordinary charitable endeavor, fundamentally unconnected to Occupy Wall
Street?

No. Blog #23 argues that it has the same ultimate aim as other Occupy
movements: achieving fundamental improvements in societal structures
through transformative activities. But rather than pursue that task
through words and slogans and demonstrations, Occupy Sandy uses its
efforts to prefigure what could be done in an alternative society. It
shows what simple human concern for others can achieve, how solidarity
can motivate actions even where both markets and government fall short.
In the process, it prefigures what changed human relationships can be.

Unlike efforts to model what an alternative society might look like,
from utopian communities to communes to the organization of fully
democratic encampments in public spaces of the last year, Occupy Sandy
does not seek to separate itself from the surrounding society, to make
itself a demonstrative model of something different. Instead, Occupy
Sandy simply reveals what is already present in the basic nature of men
and women, but not allowed its full scope in an alienated society where
the motor of progress is seen in competition and success is judged in
private profit terms. Its actions prefigure elements of a model society:
solidarity and caring and selflessness,already present, almost at an
instinctual level, in all individuals in the present society. It is a
different route to social change, prefiguring rather than modeling.

Blog #24 then illustrates the way in which Occupy Sandy has affected the
relationships among the occupiers involved, those they are helping,
others making use of the existence of needs for help for ulterior
purposes, how different helpers are seen by those they are helping, and
how relations between occupiers and institutions, from churches to the
police and FEMA employees, have developed.

Details of the blogs are spelled out at http://pmarcuse.wordpress.com.

Comments, particularly but not only from occupiers, are welcome, either
on the blog or by email.

-- 
Peter Marcuse
Professor Emeritus of Urban Planning
School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation
Columbia University
New York, N.Y. 10027
212 -- 854 3322

Home: 140 Greenwood Avenue
Waterbury, CT 06704
203 753 1140


#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime>  is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org