This blog aims to be about culture in the anthropological sense (if not the academic kind), instead of the high Culture that people tend to blend with the Arts. Observations about how people behave, how we live in this place and time, and the stories we tell all the time and to each other, as opposed to how they sound through scripts and screens. I did this a lot in Mojourner Truth, my original blog, where the word "culture" looms largest in the keyword cloud. I included a grab bag of eclecticisms there, and I suppose here there may be less politics and economics.
But I was going to write about percentages. Our culture is obsessed with them. Fantasy leagues and political polls are driven by them. When we are told to look into the eyes of science, the irises are pie charts. Americans habitually answer the necessarily imprecise question of "How sure are you?" with a percentage. This month, popular frustration with the oligarchs has sprung a new term into the media and popular culture: "The 99%"
I've generally been most interested in the cultures of the 99%, and occasionally rant about archaeologists and writers who dote on the other 1%. Yeah, I had a great time mapping a chiefly compound in Kona, but it does not hold my sustained interest the way humble homes and taro patches do. In the here and now, it's the same.
"I am the 99%" and "Occupy Your Town" fit handily on signs, buttons, and bumper stickers, not to mention newscast and web graphics. I know that locally there is some objection to the Occupy label. Military forces occupy, often unjustly, and there are native people who are sick of occupation. But, the logo files are out there, and it's hard to re-brand a groundswell already in motion. Still, Olympia has been occupied by regular people for a long time, and compared to the rest of the country, big corporations occupy ground a bit more nervously and surreptitiously, and I'd rather call myself a 99-er than an Occupier.
But last night, after dark but not late, I visited Occupy Olympia on their first day. They're in Sylvester Park instead of the Capitol grounds, which is cool because it's more a part of our city, and besides it resonates with the historical capitol, in a time when democracy operated closer to the ground.
The percentage out there was less than 0.5% of the general population, but much higher of Evergreen College. The largest percentage of people were dancing, and another large contingent was gathered around receiving instruction and handouts on how to deal with police (who were nearby in numbers approaching 1.5% of the Sylvester population, and were neither dancing nor arresting). A significant percentage of the crowd was engaged in milling about, and all the signs I saw were on the ground leaning against something. About 1% was engaged in fretting that the small but unknown percentage smoking pot would delegitimize the serious political message of the movement, while 0.5% did an amazing hula-hoop demonstration that I am sure no corporate executive will ever match. Maybe 3-4% were occupied at the first aid and kitchen areas, and 0.0% were at a table with pamphlets. I was in the <5% who were older than 30, and among those in the <50% not decked out in activist wear. I'm guessing that somewhere north of 50% of the Occupiers figured I was an untalented undercover cop.
What percent of the crowd I saw stayed all night? Brisk and dewy beats cold and rainy, but I'm guessing that the last bus back to Evergreen may have been operating at a higher percentage of filled seats than usual. On the national level, will "The 99%" become another hollow label, or will we stop the bus and replace the driver, change the route, insist on a culture that treats us all more fairly?
That's probably a topic for the political blog I have yet to start. For this one, I'll drop by Sylvester now and then to see where evolution takes the tribe in the square, and chime in now and then with whatever other cultural things strike my fancy. (But not too fancy,...I wanna remain in the 99%)
