Agreed. It's certainly worthwhile to look into that. The fact is, people with political influence (monied downtown tech workers) are upset. That's likely to cause some kind of reaction from government, eventually. Given that, it's better to analyze the situation rationally and try to steer the government towards the right solution, than to sit in denial until we get a botched, inhumane overreaction.

"The score is four/And next time more!"

Yes, I know it's a counterfactual, but I can never resist the opportunity to toss out that old chestnut, because just about every time I do so, it meets two or three people who not only have never heard of it, but never imagined it possible.

Oh wow, I guess I'm in your two or three this time. I am not really sure what to make of that.

Clearly not all 'mob grievances' are legitimate.

Now you're thinkin'! Homework: Define a function, of as many terms as you like, by which to evaluate the legitimacy of a given mob grievance.

I think that if we could do that, we would be well on our way to implementing an ideal society. ;)

Anyway, even if we take the 'techies' grievances with the homeless as not legitimate, I think it is important to remain honest with ourselves as to what those (not legitimate) grievances are. The author is proposing a theory of the origin of those grievances that I think discards the seemingly obvious origin.

So for example, I assume the issue the residents of Kent had with the college students was somewhere along the lines of "they were a bunch of unpatriotic smelly hippies who didn't spend enough time in class". Both of us agree that would not be a legitimate grievance. What I think is relatively unsupported and usefulness is an alternative theory that the residents of Kent thought that all the college students were "Pretentious educated snobs who, on their shoestring college student budgets, contributed little to local businesses", asserting that the hippy stuff was just a convenient excuse. I mean, that could be the case, but I would want to see a pretty solid refutation of the obvious theory before I accept that less direct one.

While the residents of Kent were obviously being hateful monsters, they were probably being straightforward and honest with their complaints.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes what the mob claims their grievance is (legitimate or not) really is what they think their grievance is.

Well, you were thinking, anyway, for a brief, shining moment. I misdoubt you will again, and for longer next time -- once you start to get a taste for the habit, it's all but impossible to kick, not least because you don't want to.

Now I have to come clean: I gave you a trick question, asking you to define a function which in fact is trivial. Do you know Lisp? Never mind, it's simple enough, not least because we can cheat by assuming the definition of 'legitimacy' -- here, I'll give it to you in Lisp, thus:

    (defun mob-legitimate-p (&rest args)
      nil)

Let's assume I feel, for whatever reason, that you done me wrong. Let us further assume I find it meet to express my resulting dismay by first blacking your eye and splitting your lip, and then aiming a loaded shotgun at your brisket and demanding that you put right my grievance, in the precise fashion I see fit, lest I splatter your thorax across the opposite wall.

Now, leave aside the question of whether you've given me cause for grievance, which you'll note was nowhere mentioned in your homework assignment. While I'm aiming that shotgun at your chest, how legitimate do you think you'll regard my grievance? How does it affect your consideration that I find it meet to back my demand for redress with violence and the threat of more violence? Regardless of how I might make or you might evaluate my case in the abstract, what effect do you consider my actions to have on the legitimacy of my claim?

And, finally: Can you define in rigorous terms why it should be in any way more moral, or less deleterious to the good order and conduct of any society, for many people to engage in actions analogous to those I've just laid out? It's not right or just or meet or permissible for me to act in that fashion, but the common theory seems to be that, if I go out and round up five hundred more who're pissed off just like me and we all come back with shotguns, or Molotovs, or what-have-you, the very same actions are somehow ennobled thereby. I've heard a goodly number of arguments for why that is, but none has managed to convince me; perhaps you'll be the first! In any case, I hope you'll attempt so to do, and look forward to studying the result.

I am sensing some combativeness which is leading me to suspect you have wildly misinterpreted my intent. It is not my intention to make any assertion on morality in this comment, or the previous comment.

Part of my point was that the legitimacy of the grievance is a distraction. Due to its subjective nature, it cannot be computed (most reasonable people will often find each other in agreement, but this is still a distraction (and itself depends on the subjective. What is "reasonable"?))

Furthermore, actions taken by either party are again a distraction. We can talk about appropriate ways to resolve disputes, (I would argue, and I think you would agree, that threatening me with a shotgun is an appropriate response to an exceptionally narrow range of situations) but that is not what this discussion is about. The article is not about how to resolve the tension between the homeless and the 'techies'.

What the article is about is classifying the nature of the grievance techies have with the homeless. The article asserts the grievance stems from a form of Puritanism; Puritan-esque ideas about the intrinsic value of labor and the forms that contribution to society must take. The author implies that this grievance would be "not legitimate", and in fact I agree with the author. Still, the 'legitimacy' of that grievance is a distraction in the context of this conversation.

I am not arguing that the authors judgement call on the legitimacy of this grievance is incorrect. Rather, I am arguing that the author has dismissed the possibility that the grievance techies have with the homeless is much simpler (which does not* mean 'correct', 'legitimate', or 'moral'.)*

I cannot fulfill your request (in the final paragraph of your above comment), because I do not believe that a grievance is legitimized by the size of the mob. Furthermore, I believe the 'moral legitimacy' of the a grievance is not relevant to ascertaining what grievances a mob has. In fact, we cannot even begin to discuss that until we have agreed upon exactly what that grievance is. Agreeing what the grievance is must be a prerequisite for discussing the merits of the grievance.

tl;dr: The mob is techies. Noreen Malone believes that the mob has been riled up by some form of neopuritanism. I consider that possible, but I do not consider it the simplest explanation, nor the most likely explanation.

dude, you rule! :D

public function getYourPitchforks($year, $money, $housing, $safety, $politics, $scapegoat) { if($politics[$year]['money'] > $politics[$year-1]['money']){ unset($scapegoat[$politics['id']]); ksort($scapegoat['money']); $scapegoat[0]['money']--; $scapegoat[0]['housing']--; $scapegoat[0]['safety']--; } $year++; $money--; $housing--; $safety--; if(count($scapegoat)){ $this->getYourPitchforks($year, $money, $housing, $safety, $politics, $scapegoat); } else { return array('money'=>$money,'housing'=>$housing,'safety'=>$safety); } }