Breakthrough: Rear View Politics

Surrealism is no stranger to politics. In a recent posting , Ted describes how a non-descript stand of oak trees in Berkeley has metamorphosed into an "ecological wonder." Equally as intriguing is how efforts by the University of California to ensure tranquility at a football game, by separating this ecological wonder from 70,000 fans with a fence, became the moral equivalent of Bloody Thursday .

In a recent New York Times article, politicians and protesters tried to equate this safety measure with the Free Speech Movement and Peoples Park . The Mayor of Berkeley, Tom Bates, is quoted:

"A lot of people who have been here a long time have seen this as a potential return to that [park] problem"

This evocation of the 1960s is indicative of a brand of moral politics. It is a politics of protest against the oppression of powerful and impersonal forces over "the people;" we are all victims. As others have pointed out, it is no coincidence that the Times article described those trying to resurrect Berkeley in the 1960s as a "graying antiestablishment set" and "hippies and fulminating Marxists." The oppressor story has common meaning to this audience; it offers a nostalgic throwback to a time of moral clarity - it feels good and righteous.

While it is critical to understand the lessons of politics past, we should not attempt to reincarnate them at every turn. In Berkeley's case, the "problem" of accommodating the aspirations of student athletes is a far cry from the National Guard running rough shod over them - Mario Savio must be turning in his grave. A politics of possibility demands that we recognize fundamental assumptions (stories) that permeate our political subconscious, and it challenges us to look forward not backwards.

Post a comment