filed under: it depends on the situation

Really fine read about a really interesting group that may or may not serve as inspiration for OWS.   link

I find myself fascinated by these guys... and I think fascination is something we are sorely missing in our political discourse.  (Less so in the social discourse, but approaching, even there...)

It is important sometimes to take yourself completely out of your frame of reference and look at things from an entirely new perspective.  Think outside the box, as we say in other places.  That means, when you hear something about some event or other, you don't automatically classify it and categorize it and side either with or against it based on how such things have always been settled in the past.  And don't just listen for how you can agree or disagree based on what the usual stereotypes dictate, either.  Instead, listen (or view) to see if there is something inside the message that is strange and unusual, unsettling.  More often than not, that's the part that means something.  The rest of it is just filler, just space to fill the broadcast.

I'll give you an example... a friend of mine posted this picture ( link ) of an installation by the street artist Banksy at the Occupy London protest.  Someone had commented in the thread that Banksy -- who is perhaps the most in-demand artist-activist alive at present -- seemed a bit hypocritical in siding with the protestors when he himself draws a pretty hefty coin.  And the comment immediately below that said the first commenter shoud not think OWS is against earning money, but merely against the wild extremities that occur with the rigged game resulting from blah blah blah derivatives blah blah blah bailout blah blah blah 1% blah.  He said the person should try to break out of the automatic switch on switch off, black/white, binary thinking that plagues society and political discourse.  And both had pretty good points, I think.  Is Michael Moore a hypocrite for asking Harvey Weinstein for just a little bit more than the 29 bajillion dollars (est.) he made on Fahrenheit 911, when he constantly criticizes corporate monsters for their greed?  Yes, probably.  But should we break out of this immediate finger-pointing and name-calling kill-the-messenger mode, and consider the real issues at hand in order to see whether there are areas of common ground on which we can stand?  Absolutely.

But here's another way to look at the work... It's not about who makes what and who is protesting whom...  Look at the actual art itself.  How did you learn to handle money?  From your parents?  Maybe.  But they were playing Monopoly with you when they were teaching you...  We just swallow that competitive, must-crush-all nature of money wholly from the time we are first allowed to sit at the table.  So the work is about the bankers holding out their hands, pretending poverty while they are dressed in tuxedos... yes.  But can it also be about something more?  The American Dream changing to accommodate something that is less about making money and scoring political points and more about, for example, living in the moment and laughing with your kids?  That's how we live our lives in the real world anyway, right?  But for some reason when we talk politics we all go back to that little kid sitting at the table, swallowing the quantity theory of money and being moved by the invisible hand.  Happily, we all want to be little millionaires.

But can money buy you love?  Then I don't care too much for it.

So now, maybe, hopefully, the work of Banksy and the OWS movement it is meant to support will not spark (only) an automatic response of "why do these damned robber barons still hold their hands out?!?!"... but, instead, they will make us ask ourselves: Why do we still pay credence to the idea that money is about proving our worth against others?  That idea is so destructive.

After all, didn't we also learn on Sunday morning after we played Monopoly with the family on Saturday afternoon... that the love of it is the root of evil?