{"id":4082,"date":"2011-12-08T16:21:50","date_gmt":"2011-12-08T21:21:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/?p=4082"},"modified":"2016-11-16T20:13:39","modified_gmt":"2016-11-17T01:13:39","slug":"taking-cheap-shots-at-occupy-harvard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/taking-cheap-shots-at-occupy-harvard\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking Cheap Shots at Occupy Harvard"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Monday, November 28, a group of 20 to 30 Occupy Harvard protesters attempted to disrupt a Goldman Sachs recruiting session being hosted by Harvard\u2019s Office of Career Services (not to be confused with the law school\u2019s office of the same name).\u00a0 The demonstration did not amount to much.\u00a0 The Crimson reported<\/a> that the protesters gathered outside OCS\u2019s On-Campus Interview Facility on Massachusetts Avenue, where the Goldman event was taking place, and attempted to gain entry.\u00a0 They were blocked by HUPD officers and OCS officials, who appear to have told the students that, among other things, they could not enter without resumes.\u00a0 The protest eventually disbursed, and Goldman\u2019s recruiting event concluded without incident.<\/p>\n

Three days later, the Crimson ran an editorial<\/a> reprimanding the protesters\u2019 behavior on two grounds, the first of which was that the Occupiers\u2019 choice of target reflected an underlying naivety:<\/p>\n

Occupy Harvard\u2019s targeting of a Goldman Sachs recruiting event presents a facile and trivializing interpretation of the root causes of the economic catastrophe and debases our national conversation on the issue. . . .\u00a0 Obviously, Goldman Sachs is not without blame in the financial crisis. . . .\u00a0 However, to single out Goldman Sachs as a single target of opprobrium for causing the financial crisis is myopic and unoriginal . . . .<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If anything is unoriginal, it is the Crimson\u2019s fatherly rebuke.\u00a0 Indeed, there\u2019s something more than just a little familiar about the way the editorial scolds the protesters\u2019 alleged simplemindedness.\u00a0 The logic underlying the Crimson\u2019s argument is one we\u2019ve seen countless times, and one we\u2019ll continue to see in the months ahead: (1) The economic crisis is the result of a confluence of various factors.\u00a0 (2) Many if not most of the Occupy protesters don\u2019t seem to understand all of the aforesaid factors, for they tend to direct their indignation only at big-name targets like Goldman Sachs.\u00a0 (3) Therefore, many if not most of the Occupy protesters are uninformed.\u00a0 Q.E.D.<\/p>\n

The logic sketched above constitutes something of a cheap shot, for it is itself guilty of presenting a \u201cfacile and trivializing interpretation\u201d of the dynamics at work in a protest like Occupy Harvard.\u00a0 Any protest of a sufficiently large scale will organize itself around easily recognizable symbols, symbols that, by definition, will have the effect of simplifying and personifying debates about economic or social policy.\u00a0 To berate a protest movement for demonstrating against highly visible and emblematic targets\u2014or for having the effect of removing subtlety from the discourse\u2014is not unlike scolding a fish for living in water.\u00a0 Faced with the elementary question of how best to allocate scarce resources, nearly any protest movement that aims to attract attention will opt to target institutions that the public has come to associate, psychologically speaking, with the phenomena to which the movement is opposed.<\/p>\n

To protest a Goldman recruiting event is not to suggest that the firm is somehow \u201cthe evil enemy of the 99 percent,\u201d the conception of Goldman Sachs that the Crimson incorrectly ascribes to Occupy Harvard.\u00a0 It is highly unlikely that the protesters were aiming to \u201csingle out\u201d Goldman; nor, for that matter, did their strategic decision to target the firm necessarily express any sort of unwillingness to think carefully about the many determinants of our present (socio)economic state of affairs.\u00a0 There are principled ways to criticize both the form and substance of Occupy Harvard.\u00a0 But it is irresponsible to attack the protesters on the ground that they made the tactical choice to picket a firm that happens to have assumed a symbolic resonance in the popular imagination.<\/p>\n

The Crimson offered a second and equally underhanded criticism of the Goldman protest:<\/p>\n

More unsavory, the protest carried with it a strong sentiment against Harvard undergraduates seeking careers in the financial services industry.\u00a0 Perhaps it is not ideal that so many of us go on to Wall Street, but targeting individuals looking at career options in this way is hardly the appropriate remedy.\u00a0 Many students who enter these fields are not the scions of banking families but rather hard-working students looking for a challenging job that lets them experience a newfound financial prosperity. \u00a0To exhort students to consider their contribution to society when choosing a career is one thing but to target those who want to work for Goldman Sachs misses the point; whatever negative impact the company has on our economy is due to structural issues rather than questions of individual morality.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Note the cautious, euphemistic wording (\u201cnewfound financial prosperity\u201d?).\u00a0 Note also the second half of the last sentence, which makes the bizarre claim that \u201cindividual morality\u201d has nothing to do with the \u201cnegative impact\u201d of certain American corporations.\u00a0 More to the point, however, the Crimson attributes to the Occupiers \u201ca strong sentiment\u201d against Harvard students who hope to work in finance.\u00a0 It is by no means clear that the Goldman protest \u201ccarried with it\u201d any such sentiment.\u00a0 That the protesters meant to convey a general criticism of Goldman Sachs is a fact; that their criticism extended to students looking to work for the firm is a presumptuous inference.\u00a0 From the fact that the Occupiers marched on a Goldman recruiting event, it does not follow that they sought to pass judgment on Harvard students who aspire to join the firm.\u00a0\u00a0Again, there may be good reasons to take issue with the Goldman protest, but they\u2019re certainly not the ones the Crimson has provided.<\/p>\n

Now suppose, for the sake of argument, that the Occupiers did intend to sway students who aim to work in fields like finance and law.\u00a0 Why, exactly, does the Crimson think that it would be \u201cunsavory\u201d to do so?\u00a0 To put the question another way, what is wrong with one student challenging the career choices of another?\u00a0 The Crimson does not provide an answer.\u00a0 The paper notes, vaguely, that it\u2019s somehow not \u201cappropriate\u201d to critique students\u2019 career choices, but it doesn\u2019t explain why doing so is supposed to be wrong.\u00a0 Ultimately, the Crimson contents itself with the vacuous conclusion that challenging fellow students\u2019 career choices \u201cmisses the point.\u201d\u00a0 But what is that supposed to mean?\u00a0 And isn\u2019t the Crimson forgetting the obvious fact that there\u2019s something to be gained from pressuring students to account for the decisions they make in the job market?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s noteworthy that, instead of confronting the claims that Occupy Harvard has been putting forward, the Crimson felt the need to come to the preemptive defense of students who opt for corporate careers.\u00a0 The Crimson\u2019s position seems to be that, as a general matter, it is wrong for Harvard students to take issue with the career choices of their peers.\u00a0 Such a position is simply irresponsible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Monday, November 28, a group of 20 to 30 Occupy Harvard protesters attempted to disrupt a Goldman Sachs recruiting session being hosted by Harvard\u2019s Office of Career Services. Three days later, the Crimson ran an editorial reprimanding the protesters\u2019 behavior.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":4083,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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