New Clear Vision

Exploring the Impact and Legacy of the Occupy Movement

by John L. Murphy

At the outset, I asked myself: “Why a subtitled ‘apocalypse’?” It derives from “the lifting of a veil,” so when a fresh revelation appears it transforms the past as well as the present; then there’s no going back, only forward. Fresh from finishing a study of attempts to verify the divine presence, God in Proof (2012), Nathan Schneider, jittery and curious, reports “notes” from the revelations emanating from Occupy Wall Street in the late summer of 2011. Thank You, Anarchy: Notes from the Occupy Apocalypse (University of California Press, 2013) investigates an energy more tangible than most theology — yet sharing the spirited, mass appeal of what may elude those less fervent.

Idealistic enough to cheer on the Occupy protests, realistic enough to catalogue their failures, Schneider brings the same alert witness and affable analysis that his book on belief featured. As with any cabal of devotees, Occupy began with commitment by a spellbound few. Zuccotti Park, rechristened by the encampment with its pre-corporate name as Liberty Square, “was a place especially conducive to those of us with obsessive tendencies, who like to be consumed in a given interest or project to the exclusion of all else. There, the god of ordinary life was dead, resurrected in the business of self-reliance.” (more…)

Occupying Spirituality, Evolving Dharma

by John L. Murphy

Two books appearing this autumn connect “sacred activism” with principled, peaceful opposition to the dominant political and economic — as well as religious — system. Two years after Occupy Wall Street and hundreds of encampments and a few strikes, while the American prominence of the movement has faded, worldwide if scattered resistance continues. Focusing on domestic possibility, Matthew Fox and Adam Bucko in conversation relate their stories and create an agenda in Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation (Berkeley: North Atlantic, Sept. 3, 2013). Jay Michaelson shares their ideal, if from an arguably more specific perspective, as his title Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Enlightenment (Berkeley: North Atlantic, Oct. 15, 2013) indicates. This review explores their intersections, and summarizes their visionary themes, beginning with the Occupy book. (more…)