学术界与“占领华尔街”

从九月17日开始的占领华尔街的群众自发运动到今天十月十七日已经整整一个月了。
最初有人预言，说这不过是一群不想干活的懒人混混在闹事，长不了的。可是事实是占领运动已经从华尔街扩散到了全美各地，成百上千的人们加入其中，占领波士顿，占领洛杉矶，等等，最大的一次集会甚至有上万名参加游行。参加者不少确实是下岗待业者，也有更多的人士仍在工作岗位上，但不满华尔街黑手操控金融经济乃至政治。尽管主要媒体不怎么报道占领消息，但“占领华尔街”的一举一动都牵动人们的注意力，全美60% 的受访者说他们每天都在关注“占领华尔街”消息。占领大军打出的标语是“我们是99%”，这是绝大多数人。这些人之中自然也包括了远近高校的学者们。这些学者们从哥伦比亚大学，普林斯顿大学，哈佛大学，杜克大学，伦敦大学过来，亲临现场，给予占领大军以理念及意识思想上的声援支持，并成为占领大军的一员。
这场“占领”运动的目标是针对华尔街的贪婪和腐败。人们意识到华尔街的不合理游戏规则需要改变，不应该是赚了钱他们自己中饱私囊，输了钱却要求大家平摊损失。

Intellectual Roots of Wall St. Protest Lie in Academe
By Dan Berrett
Academics have become frequent visitors to Zuccotti Park, the 33,000-square-foot pedestrian plaza in the heart of New York City's financial district that is now the site of a nearly monthlong protest, Occupy Wall Street.

Famous scholars like Cornel West, Slavoj Zizek, and Frances Fox Piven have spoken to the crowd, with their remarks dispersed, word-for-word, from one cluster of people to the next through a "human megaphone." Many others, such as Lawrence Lessig, have lent their support from farther away, as the demonstrations have spread to cities and college campuses nationwide.

The movement has repeatedly been described as too diffuse and decentralized to accomplish real change, and some observers have seen the appearances by academic luminaries as an attempt to lend the protest intellectual heft and direction. Certainly, its intellectual underpinnings and signature method of operating are easier to identify than its goals.

Economists whose recent works have decried income inequality have informed the movement's critiques of capitalism. Critical theorists like Michael Hardt, professor of literature at Duke University, and Antonio Negri, former professor of political science at the University of Padua, have anticipated some of the central issues raised by the protests. Most recently, they linked the actions in New York and other American cities to previous demonstrations in Spain, Cairo's Tahrir Square, and in Athens, among other places.
阅读全文：http://chronicle.com/article/Intellectual-Roots-of-Wall/129428/