March and protest
I won’t lie. When it comes to the protests for public education in California, I’m in an ethical double bind.
It’s a lofty idea, romantic even, defending public education. How can you, in good conscience, be against that? You can’t really. We’re students; presumably, education is important, otherwise we wouldn’t be here slaving away at papers and studying for exams into the early hours of the morning. But the problem here doesn’t lie with the goal. It lies with the cause–the battered about, beaten down cause that, when it comes down to it, lacks direction.
The cause comes down to an easy oversimplification: we want money, but there isn’t money. Why do we deserve it more than anyone else?
But let’s suggest this: The cause rests more with a lack of transparency. A budget’s been produced that mandates fee hikes, cuts and layoffs; no one’s happy; but there hasn’t been a tradition of public discourse, involving students and faculty, accompanying it. Perhaps there are alternate sources of funding, but there’s no real way to be sure. No one is saying why it is, just that it is, and we’re expected to respect that.
There arises a second problem: the symbolic value of the UC and what this means for the value of our education. As the best professors get swept away with better offers from schools with more money/less financial difficulties, the value of our degree means less–and we’re well aware of the impending permanent damage.
This is, at least, the cause that I’ve come to understand.
But here’s where the ethical dilemma enters: there’s something remarkably unattractive about the protests. The protests turned violent (last Friday morning’s was grossly distasteful to most students) and the outrageous claims profusely being tossed about (“Free housing for everyone!” – ridiculous) give me every reason to want to distance myself from the the demonstrations. And then there’s the history–the feeling that that you’re participating in something monumental, historic, something that gave Berkeley (and other schools) its reputation in the first place–that regretfully produces the radical activists wanting a small taste of rebellion; maybe these are the ones that promote those outrageous claims, but it makes you hesitant about Berkeley’s reputation for protest and demonstration just the same. Further salting our tastes for the protests is the inherent irony to (many of) the protests: locking students, who actually want to attend class, out of buildings, disrupting in-session classes with fire alarms. Not cool.
In the end, the cause is a noble one, but it’s confused. It isn’t possible for everyone to be happy. I want to support public education, but I don’t agree (or don’t know if I agree) with a lot of the claims thrown out there or even the tactics used. I support a cause that rests with transparency and promoting value and investment in public education, but I can’t say whether fee hikes are the right path or whether the cause I’m supporting is the cause even 40% of the students out there are protesting. Participating in the demonstration feels like an automatic association with the certain crowds of radicalism I don’t support–the vandalism and violence, the unjustified and impractical claims and solutions being offered. This isn’t at all an indication of what I’ll do, or what I think people should do, or what I think the solutions are, but rather undigested thoughts on the double bind I feel, have heard others hint at in some form or another.
I guess we’ll see today.