With the current stimulus plan showing few signs of creating real economic stability, maybe the leaders of the free world should take a look back a few centuries.
In 1790 Edmund Burke’s scathing attack on the French Revolution ignited what would become centuries of debate.
He argued the justification for wealth was found through the hope it brought to the poor.
More than 200 years later, the same ideas hold true.
UF, which is just one of the many universities struggling with severe budgetary constraints due to the economic downturn, has plans to plug $70 million to $80 million into the Reitz Union for an “expansion/renovation” project.
Though funded by Student Government, the administration fully supports the measure, which will likely charge students a fee in order to cover around $56 million of the cost. Back track to pre-Revolutionary France — Burke argued that large and commanding cathedrals emphasized the hope of a better tomorrow for those in the streets, and it further served to signify to the nobles that they had an up-to-par partner in government.
In Burke’s world, this translates roughly into the following:
The university playing the role of the clergy — the students as the paupers, and the 46 schools ranked higher than UF as the nobility.
Status is as still as big a part of our world as it was in Burke’s, just as universal in nature as the principle of inevitable inequality.
Therefore, if renovating a building, regardless if there is real need or not, regardless of a hiring freeze, regardless of creating a new student fee, regardless of the recent hike in tuition cost — if the building increases pride, power or prestige — build it.
Now, in an age of debt and deficits, the stimulus funds given to state universities may be seen by some as “free” money.
But — and nothing but respect toward Burke — if that same institution is forced to lay off professors and cut tens of millions of dollars from the budget, and if that same institution strives to produce students with civic responsibility to have a positive impact on society, maybe it is sending the wrong message by spending money on pride rather than educational tools with tax dollars.
Then again, perhaps it is only fair to spend money obtained by fiscally irresponsible means on fiscally irresponsible things.
