Oppositional Culture

How does a culture of opposition develop?  According to James C. Scott (whose book Weapons of the Weak not only is a favorite, but is one that I will be reviewing in a few weeks) opposition culture develops out of the grievances that the oppressed express to each other.  But my take, anyway, is that a revolutionary oppositional culture needs to be directed at specific individuals that can then be said to violate a norm that is proposed by the revolutionary culture.

The problem is that the dominant, hegemonic culture defines the values and behaviors that earn power.  People without power have two choices for gaining power: adopt the values and behaviors that the hegemon teaches lead to power (it has been pointed out that drug dealers are good capitalists, for instance), or develop a new culture that may or may not change the power relationships that currently exist.  Scott also points out that so-called revolutionary movements created in the name of the peasants have often merely replaced the power elite with a new power elite, and sometimes (usually) even made things worse.  See Communism (big C), more or less.

One can hardly blame the oppressed for deciding that it makes more sense to dream of one day being powerful than to dream of one day ending powerlessness.  But, the revolutionary dreams differently, I suppose.  The question is whether or not there is a strong enough culture of opposition.  It seems like in America today, there are few people to blame specifically - there's Madoff, but he's behind bars, and is an isolated (yeah, right) case.  In Boston, I can't understand why more people aren't furious at Mayor Menino, and all I can think is that he's a good Democrat, so the citizens that associate with the Party think he's looking out for them.  And he says a lot of the right things, and even gets the city to do some good things for the citizens of Boston.  

The real movers and shakers in Boston, hell in the nation, are in the Fortune 500.  They are the ones that are creating the world we live in.  They are the ones that make millions while the rest of us, well, don't.  But we don't know who they are.  It's not like we can point to so-and-so and the policy decisions that s/he is responsible for and say: that person is oppressing us.  Our experience has become so bureaucratized - in our lived experience with government, with our employers - that we don't know who to blame anymore, except "the system".  Hard, really, to build a revolutionary culture in opposition to that - it's not concrete enough.  A person, an individual who you know and can see and ultimately judge based on the values of your revolutionary culture, that's what's needed.