A recent cri de coeur by the indefatiguable Lynne got me to some serious thinking. The post was about the goals of OWS and whether or no the ‘movement’ would be ‘co-opted’. The Mahablog voices similar sentiments after reading Michael Lind writing at Salon.com
Lynne writes:
If I have any advice for the burgeoning Occupy movement – if I could make any appeal at all to them that would matter (and by them, I do mean us, since I will continue to do what I can to support it), it would be this: if you allow yourselves to be coopted and pressured to work on elections, driven by the necessarily short-term thinking of electoral activism, you will be distracted from your larger goal, and you will be disappointed, time and again.
My dilemna is this: ‘co-opted’, or co-optation, is a form of negotiation and, as such, may be the only form of brokerage available between a heterogenous crowd of protestors and an entrenched (basically homogenous) establishment. That is to say, outright, that ‘being co-opted’ may, in fact, be the goal… Other forms of negotiation aren’t germane here because of the diffuse nature of the protests: conflict can only increase the distance between the actors and cooperation isn’t possible because the protestors have (necessarily) removed themselves from the sphere of the ‘legitimate’ in order to highlight the inadequacy and failings of that sphere. Unless they wish to stay outside the sphere of the legitimate indefinitely they must negotiate re-entry into the systems and ‘being co-opted’ is the way to do that. Co-optation means that the establishment has to find the common ground on those things which agreement is possible and to demonstrate real movement on the remaining disagreements. If this cannot be accomplished then them protests continue. Eventually the establishment position comes to resemble the protests position to the extent that the protests will to exist outside of the sphere of the legitimate is sensibly diminished. How else do you think it will end?
If I may be so bold, I think that what Lynne, and Maha and Michael Lind amongst others, are really discussing is wholesale appropriation not co-optation. In the shorthand of our imperfectly literate society ‘co-opted’ has come to mean ‘taken over’: that is to say, appropriation. There is little doubt that the Tea Party was wholly appropriated by media-corporatist right and has been sintered into a pointy stick used to poke anybody insufficiently orthodox. This is NOT co-optation because there was no negotiation. While appropriation is always a danger, I think the nature of OWS and its goals makes appropriation extraordinarily difficult. The newly kindled fear of ‘being co-opted’ however, makes the process somewhat more fraught than it already is…
Consider the 1964 Civil Rights Act. LBJ ‘co-opted’ the language and the goals of the civil rights protestors to do what he (and they) wanted to do in the first place. There was an alignment and when the protestors no longer had legally sanctioned racism to protest they went back to their lives. The establishment had co-opted the protestors aims and ideals and acted accordingly and the world came to resemble more closely that which the protestors envisioned. So I say do not fear being co-opted. I think it’s the goal. I think it’s the only way to eventually declare victory. I think OWS should stay on top of it and manage it not run from or fear it…
