The Right to Disrupt

As you might imagine, I do not usually hang around with the Occupy Wall Street crowd. But last week I made an exception. At the request of a student, I attended a panel at KSU’s Suburban Conference on social issues. He wanted me to serve as a counter-weight to what he knew would be an ideologically skewed presentation.

Subsequently, for more than an hour I sat quietly, if not patiently, as a series of activists celebrated their adventures in disruptive behavior. They boasted about how they entered parks with permits, then refused to leave. They likewise gloated about how they “saved” people from eviction by physically interceding on their behalf.

What rankled the most, however, was the glee in their eyes as they described how they shut down foreclosure auctions by singing as loudly as they could. As one of the presenters put it, “It was a beautiful thing.”

Shortly after this, I could contain myself no longer. Consequently, I raised my hand to assert, rather energetically, that this was one of the most “ignorant” and shortsighted displays I had witnessed in recent memory.

Naturally, this was not perceived as constructive criticism. Quiet the contrary, my use of the word ignorant was decried as an unprofessional epithet. Nonetheless, the accuracy of this descriptor was shortly confirmed by the reaction to another of my comments.

In trying to explain why the Occupy tactics would make things worse, I alluded to the Great Depression as a cautionary precedent. To this the reply was that precedents did not matter; that they were irrelevant.

When I further inquired about whether I got my facts wrong, I was told that the current situation was unique and therefore what happened in the past need not be considered. Indeed, it was plain that at least one of the presenters had no knowledge about the financial policies of the Roosevelt administration, nor of their impact.

But what really set the fur to flying was when I asserted that the Occupy people were not protesters, but provocateurs. This was not appreciated. The presenters did not perceive interfering with what others were lawfully doing as a provocation. They were merely seeking much needed publicity for a good cause.

From their point of view, I was the provocateur. It was I who was interfering with their ability to make their case. Meanwhile, it was their duty to be as unruly as the situation merited. After all, they were only protecting the rights of others.

Obviously, people had a “right” to housing—irrespective of whether they could afford it. They also had a “right” not to pay back their loans. It was the banks that were at fault. It was they that forced people to take out loans they could not afford and therefore they that should bear the burden of the defaults.

When an older, more experienced member of the audience objected that buyers had a responsibility to take on obligations they could manage, this was airily dismissed. Nor did the presenters acknowledge that shutting down the nation’s financial system would have dire economic consequences.

Smug and self-satisfied, they directed their ire toward me. Amazingly these activists who prided themselves on their lack of public civility lectured me on the need to be civil. They were merely making an intellectual case, whereas I was violating the canons of academic etiquette by being vociferous in my objections.

Indeed, they complained about my behavior to the conference organizers. Even though they identified themselves as dissenters, they were not prepared to tolerate dissent directed their way.

They were especially unhappy that my critique was so voluble. While they routinely shout down others, they demanded rights they deny their adversaries. Clearly, their idea of fairness is rather one-sided. Evidently, they reside on a more rarified moral plane than ordinary mortals.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University