The late Dr. Viktor Frankl, one of the world’s foremost psychologists and author of the international best-seller Man’s Search for Meaning, will be honored Friday with a 15-foot inspirational statue at Alliant International University in San Diego.
Frankl, a three-time concentration camp survivor, traveled from Austria to lecture at Alliant many times, consistently emphasizing that one’s agency to choose responsibly was the indicator of true freedom.
“Freedom threatens to degenerate into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness,” said Frankl. “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances; to choose his own way.”
“Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual,” he said.
Frankl, who died in 1997, frequently and enthusiastically told his American audiences that “The Statue of Liberty on the East Coast should be accompanied by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.”
With that as a guiding inspiration and to honor Frankl, sculptor Gary Lee Price has proposed a 300-foot Statue of Responsibility. A 15-ft replica of that statue will be placed at Alliant.
A public unveiling of the statue will take place at 10:30 a.m. on Friday between the theater and Daley Hall.
