Faculty Blog

jux·ta·po·si·tion noun 1. an act or instance of placing close together or side by side, especially for comparison or contrast.

In mathematics, we use juxtaposition to indicate multiplication. When we write 7y, we place the 7 next to the y to indicate multiplication - 7 times y.

In Washington, DC, juxtaposition is used as motivation - to learn, to grow, to see if you are paying attention.

It all began at the Capitol Visitors Center. There, in the shadow of the statue of Freedom, in a building that grew out of a belief that we are all endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, the security guard stopped me and told me I could not take my LC travel mug into the building. I took off the cover, and held the mug upside down, and showed the man that the mug was empty. "No, you'll have to throw it away," was his reply.

At the entrance to the U.S. Navy Submarine School, student submariners have to walk past a plaque that says "No written procedure gives you permission to do something dumb." I am sure that the security guard was following some written procedure, and I think it's pretty dumb.

I recognize that I am naive about many things, I don't know how to think like a terrorist, but, seriously, where is the threat in a demonstrably empty travel mug? In the shadow of Freedom, I was free to be treated like a security threat; I was free to remove the belt from my trousers; and I was free to be electronically searched. I tolerate that treatment every time I travel by plane, and I know why and I am (mostly) glad to comply, but something about my coffee cup today really bugs me. The coffee cup was empty, I showed the empty cup to the guard, and he was free not to apply any common sense or to trust the evidence of his senses.

A few hours later, I was shushed by a security guard in the National Gallery of Art. The art that we were talking about (too loudly) was meant to be provocative - it was meant to make you talk about it. I have to be believe that Mel Bochner, the painter whose work we were reacting to, would be happy that we had climbed up all those stairs deliberately to encounter his work. These were paintings - in your face, what are you gonna do about it - paintings. We reacted, too loudly. I was free to be quiet, because this was that guard's museum, and he was responsible for good order and discipline.

When I get carried away, and risk harm to myself or others, I depend on the community around me to set me right, and I am grateful for the help. But when petty little security guards apply petty little rules to nibble away at Freedom, we are moving in the wrong direction. We visit the Holocaust Museum tomorrow, and Hitler started small, too. And the Nazi's admired good order and discipline.

~Jeff Olbrys