To reinvestigate the word “Ethos”, I wanted to examine the spirit of the people at this ever so critical moment in time. The ideas, attitudes and beliefs of this group, the self-declared 99%, are under intense scrutiny by the public eye and are painting a valuable portrait of our nation for posterity.
Through ongoing and in-depth media coverage, a phenomenon has been revealed; socio-economic division is a natural condition in a large-scale, agricultural society. While this won’t be novel to some of you, the 99% is protesting for a undivided, egalitarian nation. Well 99%, your equality defined society just won’t work if you want your grains and corn withal. In any large "society", as they have christened themselves, division occurs. To support a society like ours, class divisions exist in a natural, almost symbiotic state. Similarly, the protest encampments have been severing off varying groups with distinct group identities, often economically bound. This is making the very inequality they are protesting a little too resemblant.
A possible antecedent for this is the charmingly patchwork groups coming together to protest, from the socio-economic layers that make up the 99%. Laughably, this is one of the most inspiring things about the protest, the myriad types of people speaking up from all sides of the country and from all classes, not just the Wall Street (or L.A. or Silicon Valley) 1%. Can we even say there is a 99%? Perhaps without criticism. Even through the strength of their argument, natural divisions exist in both the outlook and expectations of the protest as well as the background of the protesters. In actuality, 99% of the population is still going to have financial inequality even without all that wealth. There are the legitimately disadvantaged that are protesting for that visceral feeling of struggle, hardship and joblessness. There are the so-called yuppie faction who are protesting for a variety of reasons; to support the other percentage of the 99%, to make a personal statement or a public one, to appease expectations (Berkeley anyone?) or to be part of something meaningful, exciting and legendary. Keep in mind what class these are in. There are the peacekeepers that see money as the enemy and there are the politicos who are often well educated, empowered and have had more luck than the truly disadvantaged. Clearly the groups further divide past that but for brevity, this paints a pretty clear picture.
This stratigraphy of sorts is the very environment that cultured the 99/1% divide of wealth. Now I can't say with any validity that the encampments in New York, Berkeley and Los Angeles are divided so severely as to mimic our nation’s hyperbolic material culture, however it would surely take the foggiest participant to overlook the irony that is screamingly apparent. They ask for a classless society. They see equality and egalitarianism as realistic goals for our nation. What they don't see is the lessening equality within their own group and the disconnects between the attitudes of the group in the drum circle and the group in the iPad circle. This microcosmic formation is uncanny in its ability to undermine the argument argued for, to weaken the solidarity, and therefore power, of the group and to take meaning away from the 99%.
