by Mark Greif
The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it….A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight. If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war or slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose….If the tax-gatherer, or any other public officer, asks me, as one has done, “But what shall I do?” my answer is, “If you really wish to do anything, resign your office.” When the subject has refused allegiance, and the officer has resigned his office, then the revolution is accomplished.
—
A couple of months ago, I went to the courthouse to see the trials of the last defenders who were arrested when the police came and emptied Zuccotti Park. They sat down and locked arms in the little kitchen where the community had prepared free meals for hundreds each day. Taken and arraigned in November, they finally were promised a day to speak their case in the public air of court, in June. The State’s prosecutor, in court, announced himself unprepared, and, without a word from the defendants, the judge happily adjourned the trials until autumn. A year after the 2011 eviction of Zuccotti Park, there is still no opportunity to learn if the arrests were legal, or against the Constitution, or to let the case be made, within the system of the State, against the unjust State.
But the discovery that shocked my bourgeois sensibilities had to do with the young men and women entering the courthouse for their trial. I was amazed to see they had not dressed for court. They did not wear suits, or proper dresses, or ties. But to win, I reflected, you have to behave in the way that people like this, the lawyers, the judges, will recognize. And with that thought, of course, I had gone off Thoreau’s path. From life, back to the rules of the dead in mind and soul. One young man, not more than twenty-one years old, wore a T-shirt that read, “I WILL NOT—BE SILENT.” A woman defendant in eyeglasses, a graduate student, had pinned a hand-lettered cloth advocating her student-debt campaign to the back of her denim jacket. I thought, thoughtlessly: “That won’t look to a judge like remorse.” And I was ashamed again. The voice that spoke inside me had the clamor of the wrong. It was the beat of feet on grooves of dirt worn bald by decades of obedience, not the light footfalls of the daimon on a path unique to me. I had to accept that these men and women would not change before the law. Their character was that of protesters, even here. They were refusing, in their being, an unjust order.
“Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.” Thoreau’s beloved quotation goes on: “If there is not a new man, how can the new clothes be made to fit?” The instant for philosophy is always now, and every day, because some of us need a lifetime for it. We are slow learners.
[2012]
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
“Against Exercise” was published in n+1 1, Fall 2004, and excerpted in Harper’s, September 2004 (as “The Fit and the Dead”). It was republished in The Best American Essays 2005, edited by Susan Orlean and Robert Atwan (Houghton Mifflin, 2005).
“Afternoon of the Sex Children” was published in n+1 4, Spring 2006, and excerpted in Harper’s, November 2006 (as “Children of the Revolution”). It was republished in The Best American Essays 2007, edited by David Foster Wallace and Robert Atwan (Houghton Mifflin, 2007).
“On Food” was published in n+1 7, Fall 2008.
“Octomom and the Market in Babies” was published in slightly different form in n+1 9, Spring 2010, as “Octomom, One Year Later.”
“The Concept of Experience” was published in n+1 2, Spring 2005.
“Radiohead, or the Philosophy of Pop” was published in n+1 3, Fall 2005.
“Punk: The Right Kind of Pain” integrates elements of “The Right Kind of Pain,” London Review of Books, March 22, 2007, a review of the book The Velvet Underground by Richard Witts, and of “What You’ve Done to My World,” published in Heavy Rotation: Twenty Writers on the Albums That Changed Their Lives, edited by Peter Terzian (HarperCollins, 2009).
“Learning to Rap” was previously unpublished in English. It was published in slightly different forms in Germany in the book Bluescreen (Suhrkamp, 2011), as a chapbook, Rappen Lernen (Suhrkamp, 2012), and as a radio essay for Bayern 2’s “Nachtstudio” (broadcast January 2012).
“Gut-Level Legislation, or, Redistribution” was published in n+1 4, Spring 2006.
“The Reality of Reality Television” was published in n+1 3, Fall 2005.
“WeTube” was published in Paper Monument 2, Fall 2008.
“What Was the Hipster?” was published in New York, November 1, 2010, as an excerpt and condensation of the essays “Positions” and “Epitaph for the White Hipster” in What Was the Hipster?: A Sociological Investigation, edited by Mark Greif, Kathleen Ross, and Dayna Tortorici (n+1 Foundation, 2010).
“Anaesthetic Ideology” was published in n+1 5, Fall 2006.
“Mogadishu, Baghdad, Troy, or Heroes Without War,” was published in n+1 1, Fall 2004.
“Seeing Through Police” was published in n+1 22, Spring 2015.
“Thoreau Trailer Park” was previously unpublished in English. It was published in Germany as a chapbook, Die Edition 4: Berliner Festspiele (2012).
The author expresses his gratitude to the original publications and their editors.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:
Alfred Music: Excerpt from “Exit Music (For a Film),” words and music by Thomas Yorke, Jonathan Greenwood, Philip Selway, Colin Greenwood, and Edward O’Brien. Copyright © 1997 by Warner Chappell Music Ltd. All rights in the U.S. and Canada administered by WB Music Corp. · Excerpt from “Karma Police,” words and music by Thomas Yorke, Jonathan Greenwood, Philip Selway, Colin Greenwood, and Edward O’Brien. Copyright © 1997 by Warner Chappell Music Ltd. All rights in the U.S. and Canada administered by WB Music Corp. · Excerpt from “No Surprises,” words and music by Colin Greenwood, Jonathan Greenwood, Edward O’Brien, Philip Selway, and Thomas Yorke. Copyright © 1997 by Warner Chappell Music Ltd. All rights in the U.S. and Canada administered by WB Music Corp. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Alfred Music.
Alfred Music and Hal Leonard Corporation: Excerpt from “Crack Music,” words and music by Willard Meeks and Kanye West. Copyright © 2005 by EMI Blackwood Music Inc., Please Gimme My Publishing, Unichappell Music Inc. and Nycom Music, Ltd. All rights on behalf of itself and Nycom Music, Ltd., administered by Unichappell Music Inc. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Reprinted by permission of Alfred Music and Hal Leonard Corporation.
Bridgeport Music Inc., Hal Leonard Corporation and Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC: Excerpt from “Niggaz 4 Life,” words and music by George Clinton, William Collins, Tracy Curry, Lorenzo Patterson, Bernard Worrell, and Andre Young. Copyright © 1978 by Bridgeport Music Inc. Copyright © 1991 by Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC & Publisher(s) Unknown. All rights on behalf of Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, 424 Church Street, Suite 1200, Nashville, TN 37219. Contains elements from “Flashlight,” written by George Clinton and Bernard Worrell. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Bridgeport Music Inc., Hal Leonard Corporation, and Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC.
Dischord Records: Excerpts from “Give Me the Cure” by Fugazi and “Out of Step” by Minor Threat. Reprinted by permission of Dischord Records, Fugazi, and Minor Threat.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC: Excerpts from “High Windows” from The Complete Poems of Philip Larkin by Philip Larkin, edited by Archie Burnett. Copyright © 2012 by The Estate of Philip Larkin. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.
Hal Leonard Corporation: Excerpt from “Fight the Power” from Do the Right Thing, words and music by Eric Sadler, Keith Boxley, James Boxley III, and Carlton Ridenhour. Copyright © 1990 by Songs
of Universal, Inc., Your Mother’s Music, Inc., Reach Global, Inc., and Shocklee Music. All rights for Your Mother’s Music, Inc., controlled and administered by Songs of Universal, Inc. All rights for Shocklee Music controlled and administered by Reach Global, Inc. · Excerpt from “Izzo (H.O.V.A.),” words and music by Kanye West, Berry Gordy, Alphonso Mizell, Deke Richards, Frederick Perren, and Shawn Carter. Copyright © 2001 by EMI April Music Inc., Ye World Music, Jobete Music Co., Inc., EMI Blackwood Music, and Lil Lulu Publishing. All rights for Ye World Music Publishing controlled and administered by EMI April Music. All rights for Lil Lulu Publishing controlled and administered by EMI Blackwood Music. · Excerpt from “The Message,” words and music by Edward Fletcher, Clifton Chase, Sylvia Robinson, and Melvin Glover. Copyright © 1982 by Sugar Hill Music Publishing Ltd. and Twenty Nine Black Music. All rights controlled and administered by Songs of Universal Inc. · Excerpt from “Party and Bullshit,” words and music by Christopher Wallace, Osten Harvey, Willie Hutch, Bob West, Hal Davis, and Berry Gordy. Copyright © 1993 by Jobete Music Co., Inc., EMI April Music Inc., Big Poppa Music, Justin Combs Publishing Company Inc., and New Line Tunes, copyright renewed. All rights on behalf of Jobete Music Co., Inc., Big Poppa Music, and Justin Combs Publishing Company Inc. administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, 424 Church Street, Suite 1200, Nashville, TN 37219. All rights on behalf of New Line Tunes administered by Universal Music Corp. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard Corporation.
Hal Leonard Corporation and Kobalt Music: Excerpt from “N.Y. State of Mind,” words and music by Eric Barrier, William Griffin, Christopher E. Martin, and Nasir Jones. Copyright © 1994 by EMI April Music Inc., Gifted Pearl Music, Universal Music–Z Songs, and Skematics Music, Inc. All rights for Gifted Pearl Music administered worldwide by Kobalt Songs Music Publishing. All rights for Skematics Music Inc. controlled and administered by Universal Music–Z Tunes LLC. Contains elements of “Mahogany” by Eric Barrier and William Griffin. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard Corporation and Kobalt Music.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mark Greif received a BA summa cum laude from Harvard in history and literature and an MPhil from Oxford in English as a British Marshall Scholar. He earned a PhD in American studies from Yale in 2007. In 2004, in New York, he co-founded the literary and intellectual journal n+1, and has been a principal at the magazine since then. Since 2008, he has been on the faculty of the New School in New York, where he is now an associate professor. His book The Age of the Crisis of Man: Thought and Fiction in America, 1933–1973 was published in 2015 by Princeton University Press. In 2013–14, he was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. For 2016–17, he is a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford.
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