Travels of a Hipster

Interview with Zachary Quinto in NYMagazine

What do you think is gonna happen with Occupy Wall Street? Do you think it’s gonna fizzle or grow week-by-week?

As a left-leaning Democrat, I feel a sense of resonance with their position, but as a citizen of this country, I feel deeply unsettled that people are rising up in movements against one another. It feels like we’re missing the mark. I just think it’s all broken. I think our financial system, so many aspects of our social connections, seem fractured. And I think it’s a really tenuous time for our country. I don’t know what will happen going into this election year. It seems like the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street — there’s such tremendous disparity right now. It’s like, you have the legalization of gay marriage in the state of New York and three months later you have Jamey Rodemeyer killing himself, yet another gay teenager bullied into taking his own life. And, you know, again, as a gay man, I look at that and say there’s a hopelessness that surrounds it. But as a human being, I look at it and say, “Why? Where is this disparity coming from and why can’t we as a culture, as a society, dig deeper to examine it?” We’re terrified of facing ourselves, we’re terrified of what we’ll find and so, instead, we seem to waste time and energy with small-mindedness and intolerance and with bigotry and with hatred and with fear. And those things are just gonna — no matter if it’s Occupy Wall Street or any other social or political or financial issue, we’re hurtling towards something that is really scary to me. And I feel like Occupy Wall Street is indicative of that. But also it’s potentially valuable as a platform for people to really look at these issues. But it just feels like another opportunity for intense divisiveness and, you know, it feels like potentially another receptacle for right-wing Republicans and neo-conservatives to just undermine and invalidate and get absorbed in the quagmire of idealistic, ideological debates. The bottom line is, we’re all fucked, you know what I mean?

via NYMag