Sacrifice

There's a story about the Roman Empire that says when generals would return home and be triumphantly paraded around the city they would employ slaves to whisper in their ears, “You are but a man.”

Stanford, as an institution, rejects this notion. The idea of Stanford, and all colleges of its caliber, is to aggrandize and promote individualism to its breaking point. Without plucky self-motivated beansprouts there is nothing to give Stanford the reputation it needs to operate, which necessitates a kind of libertarian capitalist mindset.

This is why the prominence of Rodin's Burghers of Calais is somewhat puzzling. The story is of six men who offered up their lives so that their city could be spared. Heroism to the point of absurdity. But the figures are meek, humiliated, despairing. Rodin goes out of his way to suggest their ordinariness. Though these figures are very deliberately individual, they cannot be confused for more than simple peasants. They look either forlorn or distressed or haggard, even though they were all volunteers. Their sacrifice is almost painfully clear. But Rodin makes it impossible to forget their station: They're not on pedestals, their keys to the city are prominently displayed, although they are slightly larger than life they all slouch so their heads are at eye level. It's like their citizenship necessitates their sacrifice, and vice versa.

Why include this statue? Because even Stanford students need to be reminded that their actions have outside consequence. Like Princeton and Yale and unlike Harvard and Columbia, Stanford exists in a bubble. Ordinary people don't regularly intrude into the lives of Stanford students, and students rarely venture off campus. So the Burghers serve as a way to assert that everything studied here is for a greater purpose. It's not to fulfill some individual dream of greatness. We sacrifice our natural aptitudes and drive just like the Burghers sacrificed their lives because these are the only things we have to give to the community that requires sacrifice of us. Yes, capitalist drive is valuable. But it has to be done with the idea that we're all products of and actors in a larger society that needs our daily toil and anguish and problem-sets. We are but men.