W. H. Locke Anderson

W. H. LOCKE ANDERSON

Much of my life seems to have been accidental, so it doesn't surprise me that my getting arrested was not very well thought out. I was just walking down the stairs one Friday, and a woman was headed the other direction. She asked me if I would be willing to get arrested, and I said yes, with no more thought than if she had asked me to go to the movies. Of course, if it hadn't been someone I respect, I might have found an excuse. But I was in an ugly political mood, looking for trouble anyhow. A civil disturbance seemed like a good place to find it.

I don't remember very well now how it felt to be arrested. The period while we were waiting to be hauled away was inspiring, I remember. We were singing, and as people were led off one by one, the voices were gradually silenced. It was like the end of The Dialogue of the Carmelites, by Francis Poulenc, in which some nuns are led off to the guillotine. None of us was beheaded, but the handcuffs hurt a lot, and I was worried about being able to get a bus back to my car. All this I recall, but I don't recall much intensity of feeling.

Deciding to go to jail was much more self conscious. It was not an accident, but something to which I gave a lot of thought, and which I did not decide upon easily. l am a law abiding person. I drive 55, and although I may blow up the Internal Revenue Service some day, I will never cheat on my income tax. Moreover the prospect of going to jail is scary to someone like me who has had so sheltered a life. Like most of the men of my social class, I have had a very expensive education, but a very limited range of experience. Getting arrested was a group effort, with the strengthening influences of solidarity and comradeship. Going to jail will be more lonely, although Jonathan Ellis is doing the same thing.

So what made me refuse to pay a small fine and to put myself thereby in contempt of court? There are several distinguishable factors, but the boundaries between them are very blurry.

First, there are some factors that are narrowly political. The demonstrations, civil disobedience, and mass willingness to get arrested at Pursell's office were part of a coordinated political campaign. The police, courts, and jails are used by the authorities to punish dissent, but they can be used by dissenters to gain a public forum that would otherwise be closed to them. If the reactionaries are going to try to suppress dissent, they can be made to pay for it in a country with a free press. This argues for maximizing the number of newsworthy events that come out of any given protest, and the news that some people are going to jail for protesting peacefully reflects very badly on the authorities. So someone should go to jail, and preferable an old guy with a secure job who has very little to lose from having a jail record. Then the question of what old guy has to be answered. They don't choose you in a popularity contest. You have to volunteer. That's where I come into the story.

My politics are radical, but my being a professor has put me outside much of the radical politics in Ann Arbor. By being willing to go to jail despite being respectable, I turn my status into a political asset rather than a liability. My stance gets some credibility from my position anyhow. There really are a few people who will listen to you out of respect for professors as such. Moreover, I am evidently not just an intellectual who talks a good game but never does anything. I am a professor who is not afraid to go to jail. Thus I am a rather well qualified old guy without much to lose.

Still I had to volunteer. Nobody pressured me. And there are personal reasons why I did so. To begin with, I am a teacher. Any teacher has a moral impact on students. This is unavoidable, and is a great responsibility. I have encountered some exceptional moral teachers in the schools I have attended and taught in, and their example has been an inspiration to me. I have also encountered some real swine. I remember one economist who told me without apology that he never acts as an expert witness for the plaintiff in a racial discrimination suit because the defendants pay so much better. I believe he thought I would approve of his position, which is the prevalent stance among many successful economists. I think it is more and more becoming the dominant viewpoint in a university that emphasizes "professionalism." I was revolted, of course. Students deserve better. They deserve teachers who will set good examples in personal and public politics, who aren't afraid to oppose the currents of expediency. Going to jail for political reasons isn't a very grand gesture, nothing like going to the guillotine, but it tends in the right direction, and may make it easier for others to see that they can do the same.

Furthermore, I hope to gain credibility in my own eyes by getting over the fear of going to jail, since it will be harder to think of myself as a hypocrite. I view this as a decisive break with the respectability on which I was raised. This is liberation for me, a long overdue installment on growing up and becoming autonomous. Maybe some of my children will learn from my example, and be freer than I have been for most of my life.

And finally, going to jail will at last give me something to say when people ask if I had an interesting summer.