Comments on: Occupy New School: A Dissenting Opinion

By: Jeffrey Goldfarb

Jeffrey Goldfarb — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 21:41:00 +0000

This is the kind of intelligent student opinion that helped me move from ambivalence to critique of the New School Occupation.

By: Scott

Scott — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 18:18:00 +0000

This week’s New School Free Press illustrates very well all that was wrong with the New School occupation. Sure, study space was “liberated,” yet from whom? Other students? While the occupation of a space need not be justified to its literal owners, it does need to be justified to others which have the same right to the space as the occupiers. I am not at all against the principle of an “occupation,” and the current liberation of a foreclosed home in Brooklyn is a perfect example of the truly emancipatory potential of OWS. Yet this will happen so long as the movement remains inclusive, transparent and non-violent. I believe these are truly the principles of justice which we seek, and sadly the “small minority” were not dedicated to these.

And when the pursuit of an absolute good results in the absolute negation of the rights of others, this constitutes an absolute corruption of the spirit of resistance, Those high on their own self-righteousness begin to resemble those they most despise, and those that are purportedly to be the beneficiaries of social justice begin to demand, instead of social justice, social order. History provides plenty of examples to illustrate this. I encourage those that are in danger of treading down this unproductive path, to measure the supposed morality of their actions against the potential irony, and tragedy, of the consequences. Otherwise, the result will not be a brave new world, but rather a perpetuation of the cycle of injustice we wish to be freed from.

By: Guest5

Guest5 — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 06:12:00 +0000

One of the interesting things about the occupation was that it was for many of the participants, (save a handful who organized to divert the march on the 17th, and to prepare the space for occupation), entirely spontaneous. During a march from Union Square, word spread in the form of pamphlets and word of mouth amongst the marchers that a plan to occupy a space was afoot. I was one of those swept up in that initial drive (there were close to a hundred of us in the space on that first afternoon). The discussion of tactics for most of us only began on occupation. And, to their credit or discredit, the organizers did not attempt to exert any authorial control over that conversation. Of course, when you have nigh on a hundred people, many of whom are total strangers to each other politically and personally, the discussion of tactics can take some time. I think it was a real achievement that not only did this disparate group draft and approve by general assembly a press release regarding the occupation and its political positioning within the first hours, but also formed working groups which got to work straight away – the education working group, for example, very effectively organized teach-ins and discussion groups starting the next day.

It’s also worth noting that, over the course of the week, many people did express disagreement on a personal and collective level with behavior that they thought to be unduly aggressive or tactically foolish. Sometimes these approaches worked, or led to profitable discussions, and on some occasions they didn’t. Ultimately, it should also be remembered that many occupiers elected to leave 90 5th, not necessarily in response to or disavowal of other members of the community, but in exchange for a new assured space for political organization and education. Which, had the administration’s promise been honored, would have been a great asset to the movement and to the continuation of these discussions.

There were moments in 90 5th that were really uplifting, instances of solidarity that were totally unexpected, and it remains to my mind a strange and wonderful experiment, and yes, a memorable and effective political statement – it’s not every day that passers-by on fifth avenue are treated to an array of diverse, thought-provoking messages: banners ranging from the simple ‘we are the 99%’, to the poignant ‘education is life itself: live free’, to the creative flying eye with the words ‘the zuccotti virus has spread’, and the glowing tent suspended on the side of a building stenciled with the words ‘you cannot evict an idea whose time has come’.

By: Tim

Tim — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 17:16:00 +0000

Thanks for publishing this response. It has been lingering over the discussion about Andrew’s letter, without many of us knowing what Nancy Fraser actually said. I think this is important to finally get a dialogue between to dissenting opinions. I do not want to weight in if the occupation of a university space is a useful option or not. I think Andrew Arato wrote a thoughtful critique of the ‘occupy everywhere’ idea of public and quasi-public spaces in his last entry to the discussion. So people now can make up their own mind about where they stand.

But I do have an issue with the reduction of what happened to tactical mistakes. When do tactical mistakes become more than just tactical mistakes? I agree with Nancy Fraser to some extent. I think the choosing of the student center was a bad idea, because it from the outset evoked a strong, negative reaction by large parts of the student body (any other space at the university, probably would not have evoked this reaction), the communication about what is actually happening (not necessary goals) from the inside of the occupation has been all over the place and not necessary helpful to create larger inclusion, the dialogue with the larger student body has been left to our President and the Student Senate (except for some flyers, fragmented blogs, etc). The message expressed through banners and the much discussed “writings on the wall” has been provoking at best, the internal communication and dialogue has been (as I partly experienced and otherwise heard from discussions with other students who were more involved) not necessarily deliberate, but rather conflict driven. These are tactical mistakes, as I also think that the choice of words of “punishment, policing, exclusion” by Andrew Arato in the signed letter might be tactically a mistake. Ross Poole’s comment on this (even though he does not talk about tactical mistakes, but a rather normative critique) is helpful.

But again, when do tactical mistakes become more than that? When does failed communication, the rather dominant expression of messages by a faction, failed dialogue, perceived exclusion by some, become a normative problem? When does it become a real problem that one has to stand up to and how does one intervene and change course? How can one be part of something in which certain expressions and tactics diametrically oppose once own understanding of right or wrong? History is littered with tactical mistakes, some of them with very inhuman outcome.

We should not make it too easy for us, when we discuss the 90 5th Ave occupation. This is hard, because neither isolating it from the larger context of OWS and student action, but also neither diffusing this specific occupation within the larger will necessarily leads us to gain some helpful understanding beyond simple argumentation from opposing sites of a normative fence.