Sunday, September 23, 2012
Counter Narrative
In The Beloved Community After the Disaster of Capitalism, Nicholas Mirzoeff discusses the importance of how one perceives humanity in how one responds to crisis. If one's philosophy is that people naturally try to help each other, but only through learning to be fearful are they manipulated into being misanthropic, then by rejecting official indoctrination and media propaganda that encourages fear, hate and revenge, we are building a beloved community. These lessons, in fact, were what came out of the Civil Rights Movement. The Students Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) proved through their work in the Mississippi Delta.
If #Occupy can emulate SNCC, then all bets are off. While media will always emphasize or fabricate social disruption as something that must be controlled or crushed by police violence, we can produce our own counter-narrative about political conflict. Indeed, as I've written elsewhere, that is already being done.
While neoliberals promote inhumanity as justification for their brutality, we have the power of moral sanction. All we need to do is use it.
If #Occupy can emulate SNCC, then all bets are off. While media will always emphasize or fabricate social disruption as something that must be controlled or crushed by police violence, we can produce our own counter-narrative about political conflict. Indeed, as I've written elsewhere, that is already being done.
While neoliberals promote inhumanity as justification for their brutality, we have the power of moral sanction. All we need to do is use it.
