And a Point for Haidt

I have been critical of Jonathan Haidt for his comments on the Tea Party. Let me say, though that his criticisms of Occupy Wall Street are spot-on.

Occupy Wall Street began with an economic issue that many people could identify with -- anger at the bank bailouts. The Tea Party began with that issue, too. Both movements were angry over the bailouts because they violated their sense of justice. The Tea Party's response to the bailouts was to call for an end to our social safety net on the theory that if we couldn't punish the banks, we should at least punish the unemployed so somebody suffered for their bad decisions. Occupy Wall Street, by contrast, is angry that the banks ruined the economy with their mistakes, got bailed out, and now are doing just fine while the rest of us continue to suffer.* Maybe this is liberal bias here, but I am inclined to think that the message that the banks got bailed out and now should give us something in return has more resonance that the message that the bank bailouts are too late to stop, so we should cut off money to the unemployed instead.

What does not resonate is people camping in parks day after day, throwing trash around, attracting the homeless and some criminals, insisting on marching place where they do not have a permit in order to provoke the police to overreact. "Why can't you do what we did, obey the law and just march where you have a permit?" Tea Party members asked. It was a very good question. Haidt would say, because respect for authority is not a high liberal value. But taking disregard for authority to mean disregard for law ultimately means disregard for the inconvenience you cause to people who do follow the law. And that does violate the liberal value of harm avoidance. (The liberal counterpart of "Don't Tread on Me" is "Don't Tread on Others.")

Occupy Wall Street also showed no regard for what other people held sacred or found culturally offensive. Quite the contrary, they regarded pushing the envelope as a point of pride. Well guess what, guys? If you want to start a mass movement, you are just going to have to limit your counter-cultural tendencies to the privacy of your home and your friends' homes. In public, try behaving like ordinary people and in ways that ordinary people can relate to. Humor is fine. Humor can deflect hostility and convince people you really aren't threatening. But please, refrain from mocking what other people hold in reverence.

But above all else,OWS's utter rejection of authority has done it in. When nothing can get done unless there is a universal consensus on it, then nothing gets done. OWS did not even have enough structure or authority to keep out violent, disruptive, dangerous elements that ended up going on a rampage and destroying the movement altogether. What's the use of that?**

________________________________
*Haidt argues that general complaints about inequality of outcome will get nowhere, but complaints that the 1% made their money dishonestly might. Given what we know about the behavior of banks during the housing bubble, that looks like a message that will resonate. It requires defining the 1% as banks and excluding people who made their money producing physical goods. That is not accurate, but then again, people have hated banks for a long time, largely because they don't produce anything tangible, which makes people suspect they are not producers, but cheats.
**And, yes, as this post may suggest, I am angry and resentful that a movement that might have had something constructive to offer has lost the opportunity by its self-indulgent, self-destructive behavior.