Seniors Sent Off With One Last Political Theory Lecture

Nestled in the Hearst Greek Theatre and wrapped in blue and gold, UC Berkeley's class of 2005 heard a strong political message from keynote speaker and political theorist Benjamin Barber at Wednesday's commencement ceremony.

After numerous congratulations from Chancellor Robert Birgeneau and ASUC President Misha Leybovich, who called UC Berkeley "an all-you-can-eat knowledge buffet," Barber spoke of the mounting danger of political apathy.

Drawing from his seminal book "Jihad vs. McWorld," Barber warned the more than 700 students who participated in Wednesday's ceremonies about the danger of becoming global consumers rather than global citizens.

"Freedom has become a word we use confidently," Barber, a prominent political consultant and professor at the University of Maryland, told the crowd of graduates and family members. "It has become the great American boast, the great American cliche."

After assuring the crowd that his crimson gown was not from Stanford University, but Harvard University, Barber buckled down and avoided the traditional congratulatory platitudes in favor of a probing political speech.

"The source of manipulation is the market economy that claims to want us to be free," he said. "You can choose three dozen brands of toothpaste, but try choosing a viable dental program that the poor can afford."

Barber said the American consumer culture could destroy public liberty.

"Ours is an era of personal preference and private consumption," he said. "It allows us to feel free even as we yield gently to the undermining of democracy."

Barber said if the graduating generation succumbs to "the private impulse lurking inside," the promise of public liberty and community will be eliminated.

Drawing on an allegory about the trapping of monkeys, Barber warned that people become enslaved to consumerism willingly.

"You are being invited to become compulsive monkeys," he said. "No vendor will put a gun to your head to buy a product, and every merchandiser will tell you they're just giving you want you want."

Barber said the barrage of advertising through television and other media outlets causes Americans to withdraw from their "public selves" and produce a culture that "many of us despise."

Despite the somber message that the United States has let democracy crumble, Barber maintained that this generation could reverse the consumer culture through common cooperation.

Barber urged graduates to fix "the mess my generation has made of this world."

"To quote from a familiar gospel hymn, ‘We are the change we've been waiting for,'" he said.

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