…local protests, in order to be effective, must have a specific local object; in this case, they are presented with one that could indeed make an immense global difference.
the Occupy movement… is remarkably a spontaneous populist expression, not clearly linked to any established political tendencies….
[In a general sense]…its implicit rejection of the alliance of financial and bureaucratic oligarchies aligns it naturally with the new “post-liberal” politics….
Yet it is only if they adopt some such more specific goal that the protestors will be equal to the symbolic resonance of the local hornet’s nest where they find themselves encamped.
And curiously, it is the same lamentable failure to be alert to symbolic resonance which has characterised the official Anglican response so far – though, in this respect, it limps behind the vast majority of Anglican clergy and laity.
I read this twice. If I understand it correctly, this article is calling for the Church to play a key role in holding the business world to ethical standards. St Paul’s is seen as on the margin of City and city, of finance and the wider community, thus as able to represent each to the other. At least that is how I read it but its good points are weakened by opaque waffle. Alas, the humanities have been driven mad by what the academics call fondly ‘the turn to theory’. In this case although the good professor wants (I guess) to be straightforward, to me it sounds eerily like another exercise in semiotics.