Occupy Wall Street: a New Culture War?

By Andrew Hartman
The Chronicle

American punditry, it seems, needs to make sense of Occupy Wall Street in familiar terms. Highlighting the differences between the movement that started in New York City in September and the Tea Party that has engrossed the nation since 2009, The New York Times recently proclaimed, “It’s a culture war, young versus old, left versus right, communal food tables versus ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ flags.” Rush Limbaugh’s mean-spirited labels for the Wall Street demonstrators—”pure, genuine parasites,” “bored trust-fund kids”—however off the mark, resonate because he, too, is speaking the language of the culture wars.

For those of us who support the protesters (I count myself an unmitigated enthusiast), refracting the movement through the lens of the culture wars is a vile misrepresentation. By focusing on caricatures of pot-smoking, drumbeating hippies, instead of on the economic messages related to the “We are the 99 percent” meme, some in the media appear to be redirecting the national debate away from what unites us and toward what divides us.

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