Friday, March 16, 2012

Occupy Davos

After visiting an Occupy camp outside of the World Economic forum in Davos, I can safely say that the Occupy movement’s biggest strength will eventually develop to be it’s biggest hindrance. The quality that I’m referring to is the movement’s leaderless structure. It’s important to mention that the absence of leadership worked extremely well in the early stages of the Occupy movement. When dealing with concerns that encompass such a broad scope of government and society, any attempts of centralization would have been somewhat detrimental to the movement’s progress. The lack of a central, solidified leader or objective allows the movements goals and ambitions to be molded specifically for an individuals own specific qualms and concerns—so long as it is somewhat related to the overall theme of the Occupy movement. This allows the Occupy movement to not only have access to a significantly larger support base but also speeds up the growth of the movement as well. So in terms of garnering public attention, the first and arguably most difficult step of a movement, this trait has worked incredibly well. However, the movement is now at a point where the attention gathering stage is over; the entire world has taken notice and the question is now, what are they to do with this attention? Every movement’s sole purpose is to evoke some kind of change, and unfortunately for the Occupy movement, their lack of leadership is hindering their ability to do just that. How are they to efficiently use their unique following for change when the movement’s goals are so broad and undefined? On that note, how are they to even communicate such needs to the public without an experienced and knowledgeable representative? These concerns were all but blatantly apparent at the World Economic Forum. During a seminar that was specifically dedicated to the attempt of patching up the inherent flaws of capitalism, a special seat was reserved for one representative of the Occupy movement. This fact alone does a perfect job of emphasizing just how well their current leaderless structure has served them in regards to public attention. Watching the seminar play out, however, displayed just how detrimental this structure is to their ability to garner change. Instead of using the seat to engage in productive and meaningful discussion, they used that privilege to destroy the order and efficiency of the forum. Interruptions and distractions were abundant throughout the audience, as the many occupy protestors attending the conference couldn’t resist the urge to disrupt the discussion to proclaim their own personal dissatisfactions. To make matters worse, there wasn’t one protestor present that was able to contribute any productive input towards the forum’s discussion. When presented with an opportunity, Occupy Davos was unable to step beyond the stages of protest and produce anything of value. In fact, the only thing they accomplished was to leave the audience and guest speakers with the impression that the Occupy movement is full of retards—unfortunately, without a known centralized leader or representative of the movement, we were left with little other choice.

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