Denialism

Berkeley’s New Monument to Itself [Updated]

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by

Chris
in

So, here it is. Titled “Berkeley’s Big People,” it is installed along I-80, so those of you driving north of San Francisco will probably see it, as it is 30 feet tall and visible from a mile away.

Given the landscape of “free speech,” it would have been much more appropriate to have erected a large Don Quixote, fending off autism-causing vaccines, and tilting at a windmill atop a stolen shopping basket full of junk but missing it because he was high. And then declaring victory.

Updates: my Berkeley friends respond! All of these responses are incredibly valuable, so you are to be subjected to them now!

AC asks: “‘lower sproul plaza drumming circle’ is listed as a cultural contribution?”

and then remarks: “mmm … i think you should round up some little people and protest the name. it’s offensive.”

BG remarks that after victory is declared, the statute should depict: “…pooping on the street!”

Comments

  1. Jeff

    Did the people who commissioned and created this statue miss the irony of the empty signs?

    Reply
  2. Rachel

    I say this with much affection for Berkeley, having graduated from Cal and living there for several years afterward. Berkeley is an awesome town: great food, great public spaces and great atmosphere.

    That said…it’s hard to understand how a such smart town can be so fucking retarded sometimes.

    Reply
  3. mc

    I remember watching student tours on the Berkeley campus. They would go on and on about the free speech movement, the FBI watching people and the rest.

    They also talked about how at one time the physics building had more Nobel Laureates (in physics) than the entire USSR. I actually found it a little sad that they were talking about the past. I also found it sad that potential undergrads were being sold on issues which didn’t affect them. The Nobel committee doesn’t take lecturing skills into account when giving medals (and tenure committees may give even less weight). How much does Berkeley’s past with the free speech movement affect the quality of an education a student gets?

    Having watched “demonstrations” that often devolved into minor riots with little relation to the supposed cause (how does breaking windows on Telegraph avenue help the homeless?) I didn’t have much of a feeling that the Berkeley activism of my day was effective.

    But, I was probably the wrong person to appreciate all that is the Berkeley mythos. One of my first days I explored around on my own and came back to tell my new friends about my trip. They corrected me: that was not a stinky, dirty, messy empty lot, it was “Power to the People” park (People’s park).

    From my recollection of how the city of Berkeley worked, they would have done well to use the money for that project in their schools.

    Reply
  4. Anonymous

    How much does Berkeley’s past with the free speech movement affect the quality of an education a student gets?

    I think you’ll find that the FSM was one of the great watershed events in American postsecondary education, and its effects on the quality of education that students get all over the country (not just in California) has been profound.

    Reply
  5. D. C. Sessions

    BG remarks that after victory is declared, the statute should depict: “…pooping on the street!”

    We’ll be pooping in the streets
    With our children at our feet
    And the morals that they worship will be gone
    And the men who spurred us on
    Sit in judgement of all wrong
    They decide and the shotgun sings the song

    …

    Reply
  6. Chris H.

    I think you’ll find that the FSM was one of the great watershed events in American postsecondary education, and its effects on the quality of education that students get all over the country (not just in California) has been profound.

    The FSM has a lot of value, but speech and transparency have largely been ineffectual in dealing with modern political problems and injustice. The Enlightenment ideal that free speech will create a marketplace of ideas, and that truth will emerge has been proven false over and over again by the likes of the Swift Boaters, etc.

    Reply
  7. D. C. Sessions

    The FSM has a lot of value, but speech and transparency have largely been ineffectual in dealing with modern political problems and injustice.

    The main practical lesson of the FSM has been that restrictions on academic freedom can’t afford to be half-hearted. It’s much as with the standard observation that Gandi’s tactics worked against the British and would have failed tragically against the Romans, Nazis, or modern Chinese.

    The Enlightenment ideal that free speech will create a marketplace of ideas, and that truth will emerge has been proven false over and over again by the likes of the Swift Boaters, etc.

    I wouldn’t choose the Swift Boaters as my example; today, if anything, they stand to support Jefferson’s dictum that the antidote to false speech is not restriction on it but the freedom to speak the truth.

    However, you can certainly find plenty of examples (urban legends if nothing else, or of course woo) where truth never does seem to get its boots on. I will argue that the lesson to be taken there is that giving people the means to discover the truth is no guarantee that they will make the attempt.

    Reply
  8. Sean Craven

    I’ve been living in Berkeley for nearly twenty years and I have no idea what I’ll do if this place ever runs out of ways to make me feel embarrassed about being a West coast leftie. Let me see if I can summon up an appropriate response.

    Ahem.

    I am a big person — six-three, two-twenty — and as such I must protest the name and concept behind this statue. To promote virtue with the word ‘big’ is a direct insult to small people who are every bit as important the size-enabled. And of course the racism inherent in size-based valuation systems is pernicious and must be crushed.

    This gross insult to diminutive Americans must be erased; their tiny tears must be dried.

    In order to promote this end I’m going to climb the statue and stay there until every shelf in Berkeley can be reached by the wee-est of our alternatively height-empowered citizens, squawking and grunting and defecating into a bucket. I am not either going to do it just for the attention.

    And then something about the war or whatever.

    Reply
  9. Anonymous

    > empty signs?

    Standard frame size should be published somewhere, I imagine, to make signs up the right size to snap into place.

    Bring your own ladder.

    Please don’t fall onto the freeway when changing the signs.

    Reply
  10. Anonymous

    > erected a large Don Quixote

    Don’t miss the statue down at the Marina

    http://farm3.static.flickr.com

    The arrow is pointed across the bay at the Transamerica Pyramid and Sutro Tower, perhaps to drive away the mind control rays.

    Reply
  11. Anonymous

    http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2181/2337875259_d57e909edb.jpg?v=0

    Reply

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