She could be talking about my grad school years.
Oh, wait. She is talking about my grad school years. And she's got it right.
Freedom to Deface
Attitudes toward graffiti are one of the biggest divides between the conservative and progressive (or anarchist) mindset.
To a conservative, graffiti is self-evidently abhorrent, a spirit-crushing blight on the public realm, and a theft of property by feckless individuals who avenge their mediocrity by destroying what others have built.
It is a round-the-clock reminder that vandals (most often fatherless young men) recently broke the law with impunity and may still be in the neighborhood, ready to commit crime again.
To a progressive, by contrast, graffiti is a “political statement,” as the New York Times recently put it, a courageous strike against stultifying bourgeois values.
It represents urban grit and resistance to corporate hegemony.
The property owner whose building has been unwillingly appropriated is a nonentity; the “tagger” is the city’s vibrant, anti-capitalist soul.
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