Yesterday, for the first time ever I passed some workers installing one of the many displays of the “Core Values of Socialism” that have proliferated around the city over the past few years.

The Core Values can be found in numerous formats (paper posters, painted on surfaces, printed on surfaces, carved in stone and displayed or projected visually) and in a wide variety of locations (at street intersections, at bus stops, on construction barriers, on or in busses, in taxis, at the entrances to government buildings, etc.)

Despite their number and variety I’ve never once witnessed one of these displays actually being installed. Just seeing it struck me as a valuable reminder that the headless voice of the state is projected through individual human actions at all levels.

Here we see the voice of the state being spoken through two dudes hot-gluing foam cutouts on a wall alongside a highway.