Thursday, October 20, 2011

Occupy Writers as Metaphor

Occupy Writers (http://www.occupywriters.com/) is a metaphor for aspects of America. The initiators, Kiera Feldman and Jeffrey Sharlet, recruited first the most successful or connected writers, who were rushed to the head of the pack. Several, like Francine Prose and Lemony Snicket, wrote original pieces for the site. The privileged always go first. Isn't this how society works?

Allowed next were credentialed folks, those with Approved credits that, if not exactly badges of full success, are adequate tokens of conformity to things-as-they-are.

Unwanted apparently are bottom level writers-- including actual literary radicals, those who've challenged the system, or written polemics outside the bounds of the domesticated "literary" art.

What we see in Occupy Writers is Feldman and Sharlet catering to Power. They've done the very thing the Occupy movements are protesting against.

1 comment:

JeffOYB said...

The old ULA woulda nabbed that domain first. We were on the case. We were occupying NYC already. We showed how it should be done. Those connected fatcats represent the 99%? Ha! We wouldn't've reacted to them -- we were there first. The foxes are back in the hen-house since we imploded. They wouldn't've DARED a few years back. They were watching their steps. We had the initiative. Things have been dull in Lit-land since.

(Heck, hopefully someday our faithful webmaster will rise up from the 99% to the 98% and be able to afford or wrest free the time to put our huge website back online. I think that even on its own it acted as a bit of a beacon and deterrent, proof that Lit once had life in the USA, keeping the vampires ever-so-slightly at bay.)