The Town That Time Forgot

2006: Thoughts Upon Attending Graduation at Berkeley

    I've never been big on graduations, having skipped both my college and medical school events. I never saw the point - two seconds on the platform and a photo-op that came only after enduring boring and meaningless speeches. So I went to England during my college graduation and let the other 3,000 seniors sweat it out in the hot summer sun. Four years later I took my honeymoon while the other med students stood in line to receive a facsimile of the actual diploma that would arrive in the mail several weeks later.

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   Having children finally forced me to engage in this early summer ritual- and impressed upon me the irony that abounds at these events. The junior high graduation was a study in contrasts: fourteen year old's dressed as if for the prom congratulated by parents decked out in an assortment of what can best be described as beach wear: flip flops, cutoffs and boxers, tee shirts and halter tops. The student speeches given at the high school graduations ranged from the amusing to the uncomfortable. There was the class valedictorian waxing nostalgic on the platform about all the hours he spent in "smoke filled rooms" (I was pretty sure he wasn't referring to cigarettes or political gatherings) Then there was the girl who spent her time at the podium expressing her undying love for her high school boyfriend. There were, however, a few wonderful moments - such as the speech delivered with such passion and finesse by my number two child that for a moment the din of the crowd subsided.    

   Such moments were few and far between, but over the years I learned that some institutions execute this ritual better than others. The large scale event with thousands in the football stadium is impersonal and tedious. Thankfully, at the university my children attended this part of the ceremony was optional, so when they graduated I skipped that part and attended the small intimate gatherings organized by department where the actual diplomas were awarded. These ceremonies were over in less than an hour: short, simple and to the point, plus they fed us well and we were able to meet their professors. This university was not stupid- they knew we had just shelled out the cost of a nice condo to send our children there and treated us accordingly.

   Today I attended the next to last of these events for my children: law school graduation at Berkeley. The day was beautiful, the venue grand, and the Dean of the Law School witty and engaging. Pomp and Circumstance was played by a reggae band and Dean Edley did a wicked imitation of a screaming Howard Dean (who refused to speak at the graduation because he wouldn't cross the picket line of media savvy Cal janitors). In an especially ironic touch, the administration announced the winner of the Sandy Cohen award and the band played the theme music to the OC as the graduates left the theater. It was one of those "only in California moments," as a new lawyer received an award named for a fictional television character.

   Yet as I listened to the student speakers this Boomer had a strange sense of deja vu. They went on and on about social justice, activism, and human rights as it became clear that the identity of Boalt Hall had been forged in the free speech, civil rights, and anti-war movements of the 1960s- and then frozen in time. I had the same sense I do when I walked down Telegraph Avenue where the shops sell much the same merchandise they did 40 years ago. Nothing had changed- they were still fighting the good fight- against racism, poverty, injustice, and war - except they hadn't noticed the world had changed. It was as if the last 40 years had never happened; they didn't seem to notice that the solutions they were advocating had been tried many times before and no one seemed to be questioning why we should believe they would be successful now.

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   The speaker’s impassioned calls for student activism to fight the Minutemen on the border seemed predicated on the belief that the only legitimate activism came from people like themselves. From their liberal bunker, where alternative voices were rarely heard, it hadn't occurred to them that the Minutemen were also activists. I wondered if they knew how reactionary they sounded. Theirs was the only truth; they knew what was best; they would lead the great unwashed out of poverty and darkness.  I was struck by how patronizing they sounded. The poor and dispossessed could not lift themselves up without them; only they could lead the way. 

       If graduations are supposed to celebrate the future, there was something depressing about this event. It seemed more a memorial to the past than a glimpse of the future. The faces were young- but the rhetoric long familiar. I heard no new ideas, just shopworn solutions. As I left the theater I thought - this is the price we pay for academic uni-think. These tired templates are never challenged so they continue to rule like aging divas over an increasingly irrelevant court.    

    Despite the lip service given to social justice, the student speakers were all off to collect sizable paychecks from major law firms in the fall; their activism just one more line on a resume. So I am glad I am almost done with this ritual. I have one more graduation to attend- this time next year at the vet school. I hear they bring their animals-  that will, at least, be interesting.