“Why I Got Arrested with Occupy Cal - and How”

linguaphile:

execrablefrippery:

Celeste Langan, “Why I Got Arrested with Occupy Cal—and How” (Remaking the University)

     As to why I was there: as a tenured professor (and tenure can be defined as a right granted to occupy a position on campus without threat of eviction for expressing dissent) I wanted to express my concern about the double threat posed to the ideal of liberal education by the rising cost of tuition and, more generally, the burden of debt. On the one hand, as many have pointed out, rising costs limit access. On the other hand, the debt students incur as they pursue a liberal arts education also poses a threat to free inquiry, that central value of democratic society. Students are so concerned about their economic futures that they sometimes feel constrained in their choice of courses and majors, too anxious about acquiring the proper credentials for employment to explore areas of intellectual inquiry that might interest them but don’t appear to have an instrumental value. When I was teaching Walden last month, I couldn’t help but notice how incisively Thoreau diagnoses the effect of “insolvency” on the capacity to think and live freely; the time people spend reading and thinking, he suggests, is increasingly regarded as time “stolen” and “borrowed” from wage-earning.
   I note the same narrowly pragmatic thinking in the haste with which the police acted and Chancellor Birgeneau’s justification for his decision to authorize the police action: “We simply cannot afford to spend our precious resources and, in particular, student tuition, on costly and avoidable expenses associated with violence or vandalism.” No one wishes to “waste” resources in this climate. Yet if one follows this logic one can see the looming threat: lawful assembly, peaceful dissent, and free inquiry—even so-called “breadth requirements”—can all entail some cost. They interfere with “getting and spending.” Dissent, like free inquiry, is sometimes inefficient. Dissent doesn’t always have a “deliverable.” But it takes time to determine a just answer to “What is to be done?’.

This woman is not only amazing and brilliant and badass and all those other adjectives, she’s also one of the most inspiring professors I had at Berkeley, one who supported and challenged and cared about me. Read what she says. I promise it’s worth your time.

Reading this post makes me sad that I never got to take a class with Celeste Langan while at Cal. Well-written, and it definitely gets at the core of why these protests are not, as so often claimed, a waste of time. 

Jesse Kornbluth: The Police Riot at Berkeley: If They'll Beat a Poet Laureate, Will They Kill a Student?

A lot of the news coming out of Berkeley lately has been horrifying. I feel physically sickened to read that the police dragged Celeste Langan to the ground by her hair, or thought nothing of beating Geoffrey O’Brien until his ribs broke, or striking Robert Hass with batons. It’s notable that these are all English professors and I can’t help but feel proud of how they are upholding the tradition of nonviolent protest. The police violence used against these protesters is inexcusable, but the majority of protesters have fought back with their words and their linked arms. 

Here’s hoping that these protests don’t end in tragedy. 

dear anxiety,

thanks for keeping me up until 4:30 am for no good reason at all!

no love,

me