Mario Savio'直面齿轮机(Link prak -Wretches And Kings)

Mario Savio'

直面齿轮机

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AN END TO HISTORY

BY MARIO SAVIO, STUDENT IN THE DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY,

BERKELEY, AND MEMBER FSM STEERING COMMITTEE

Published originally in

Humanity, an arena of critique and commitment

No. 2, December 1964.

Reprinted with permission of Lynne Hollander. Copyright 1998 by Lynne Hollander.

I originally intended to revise [this] thoroughly. I have since changed my mind, deciding to have it

reprinted as first taken from a tape made in Sproul Hall during the December sit-in. I find the

article does not even conform to the subject of the title. But I also believe that a positive purpose

would be served by preserving the text.

-- Mario Savio

Last summer I went to Mississippi to join the struggle there for civil rights. This fall I am engaged

in another phase of the same struggle, this time in Berkeley. The two battlefields may seem quite

different to some observers, but this is not the case. The same rights are at stake in both places --

the right to participate as citizens in democratic society and the right to due process of law. Further,

it is a struggle against the same enemy. In Mississippi an autocratic and powerful minority rules,

through organized violence, to suppress the vast, virtually powerless majority. In California, the

privileged

minority

manipulates

the

university

bureaucracy

to

suppress

the

students'

political

expression.

That

bureaucracy

masks

the

financial

plutocrats;

that

impersonal

bureaucracy is the efficient enemy in a

In

our

free-speech

fight

at

the

University

of

California,

we

have

come

up

against

what

may

emerge

as

the

greatest

problem

of

our

nation

--

depersonalized,

unresponsive

bureaucracy.

We

have encountered the organized status quo in Mississippi, but it is the same in Berkeley. Here we

find it impossible usually to meet with anyone but secretaries. Beyond that, we find functionaries

who

cannot

make

policy

but

can

only

hide

behind

the

rules.

We

have

discovered

total

lack

of

response on the part of the policy

makers. To grasp a situation which is truly

Kafkaesque, it is

necessary to understand the bureaucratic mentality. And we have learned quite a bit about it this

fall, more outside the classroom than in.

As

bureaucrat,

an

administrator

believes

that

nothing

new

happens. He

occupies

an

a-historical

point of view. In September, to get the attention of this bureaucracy which had issued arbitrary

edicts suppressing student political expression and refused to discuss its action, we held a sit-in on

the campus. We sat around a police car and kept it immobilized for over thirty-two hours. At last,

the

administrative

bureaucracy

agreed

to

negotiate.

But

instead,

on

the

following

Monday,

we

discovered that a committee had been appointed, in accordance with usual regulations, to resolve

the

dispute.

Our

attempt

to

convince

any

of

the

administrators

that

an

event

had

occurred,

that