Wall Street, Heal Thyself

At first glance, it is difficult to take the Occupy Wall Street protests seriously—in part because the participants seem to be having so much fun. On Oct. 2, the start of a third week of demonstrations against the financial industry, visitors to Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan might have thought they had stumbled on a carnival, or an East Coast spinoff of Burning Man. A shirtless protester writhed to the beat of an African drum while another waved a flag with the slogan “Generation Revolution.” A punk rocker with a dog collar around his neck and a safety pin through his nostrils spoke about the virtues of peace, love, and anarchy.