October 24, 2011
Zachary Fillingham
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Monday, 24 October 2011
The Ones Who Progress Left Behind
Globalization’s chickens are coming home to roost on Wall Street.
There is no faster way to dissect our current sociological climate than to go out and ask as many people as you possible what they think about the Occupy movement and what they think it wants to achieve. The answers will surprise. Some of them will follow a predictable socioeconomic track and others will de-rail into hitherto uncharted territory of anger or sympathy. Keep asking and the results will eventually coalesce into two loose groupings- those who have no idea why people are protesting and those who have no idea why everyone isn’t protesting.
This article surmises that what divides these groups is not any combination of ad hoc issues such as corporate bailouts, environmental protection, or the immediate goals of organized labour. What separates them literally and figuratively is the modernist narrative of economic and democratic progress. It is a narrative that a generation of Westerners have been raised on at the very same time that it was paradoxically being made obsolete by the triumph of globalization.
Put the question of whether or not they are better off than their parents to both sides. The detractor is far more likely to answer in the affirmative. Generally speaking, they tend to be more economically secure than their disgruntled counterparts. They have worked hard, gotten a job, and are living the life they were meant to, that they expectedto lead. It is their personal success and the human tendency of assuming what is true in one case is infinitely duplicable that fuels the incredulity they feel towards the Occupy movement.
Afterwards, go and ask an Occupy supporter whether or not things are getting better. You will more than likely get a resounding ‘no’ in response, and they may even elaborate further, explaining how it’s not just an immediate economic disadvantage relative to what their parents enjoyed, but a hollowed out and bankrupt welfare state presiding over an increasingly spent natural environment as well. Their answer usually betrays the gap that exists between the theoretical progress they were raised on and the actual austerity that they have to look forward to.
To read the entire article, please visit: http://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/opinion-the-ones-who-progress-left-behind-4510/
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