video on Alito

Check out this video of a Professor Turley from GW Law School explaining how “breathtakingly conservative” Sam Alito is. windows media player and quicktime.

Alito: Bush pushes all in

Alright, so you’re George W. Bush. Your presidency is essentially in complete and utter collapse: your relationship with Cheney is on the rocks, your top aides are being indicted or being threatened with indictments, a war you started under questionable, if not outright dishonest pretenses is failing both in reality and in the court of public opinion, you’re at least partially responsible for the most massive failure in federal aid since Reconstruction, your base feels betrayed because when you had the opportunity they’ve been preparing for since the 1970s you tried to appoint your buddy lawyer to the Supreme Court, and congressional leadership, which had been acting as a wing of the executive branch since 2002, has finally grown a set of opinions, in large part because most of them are considering trying to replace you. Basically, you’re losing at everything: competence, popularity, politics and legacy.

Luckily, you manufactured a problem with executive privilege and have another shot at the Supreme Court. What do you do? You appoint the most conservative judge you can find. Enter, Judge Samuel Alito. Now, I’m not really qualified to comment on the actual legal issues at hand (although it never stopped me commenting on other things), so I’ll let you dig through what you think of the law, Alito’s jurisprudence, etc. on your own. When you do, educate me! What I can see quite clearly, is the President Bush is looking for a fight and he’s looking for a fight that he thinks will reunite his party and get him a big W in his column (no pun intended). If Democrats challenge, they’ll have to pull a filibuster, and W thinks he can win that political food fight. Judging from last Spring, he may be right. Democrats, liberals etc. throughout the country may be having small seizures as they read this man’s world view, but that’s why you win presidential elections.

goings on

A bright and sunny Monday morning here at Cambridge Common. Katie and Chip apparently spent their Sunday’s pondering music, and shared some knowledge with us last night on that topic. Chip considers the whitewashing of the Black Eyed Peas, and Katie describes the ideal community created by Kuumba. I meanwhile, wrote a note about Cambridge Common’s first month in its new form and the way in which the community created here is our biggest asset. Also, check out the pictures from Friday’s exciting labor rally!

As per usual, share your thoughts and have a great Monday!

Black Skin, White Mask

How many of you all remember the pre-2003 Black Eyed Peas (or BEP for short)? For those of you who can reach that far back into your psyche, they were not that different from what you see and hear of them today. They were originally signed to Ruthless Records in 1992 by the father of gangsta rap, Eazy-E (can you believe it?). Their music back then was still like nothing people had previously heard, their videos reflected this ingenuity, and they were the strange avant-garde of alternative rap. Oh yeah, all their members were domestic racial minorities and their first two albums (released in 1998 and 2000) sold less than 200,000 copies combined despite receiving major label push. Their most recent album, Monkey Business, was released in June of this year and sold 295,000 copies in its first week of release. What has accounted for this drastic change? Commercially, why were the Black Eyed Peas able to achieve in seven days what they hadn’t been able to achieve in seven years? I see the answer as being one small, “lovely lady lump”-having White girl from the burbs of California who came to the group in 2003 and provided another example of the age-old practice of putting a White face on Black art’s most lucrative field: music. (more in expanded post)

Presently, the Black Eyed Peas are characterized as a Pop group. Simple and plain. A visit to Launch.Com will reveal that they are not categorized as a rap group or even alternative rap group, but pop. Pop as a genre of music is an interesting thing. Some people take it narrowly to mean music light on bass (relatively), heavy on chorus, and sing-songy non-serious lyrics about love. Others take it broadly to mean POPular music of any variety that is widely appreciated (read: bought). I see the Black Eyed Peas as being closer to the broad definition than to the narrow one, though they are moving more and more to the narrow definition with each passing single. In the past two years as their popularity has exponentially grown their musical image has ventured further and further from their pre-Fergie era. Relatedly, I remember being a senior in high school and hearing “Where Is The Love?” and thinking, “Black Eyed Peas and Justin Timberlake?!? That’s like Led Zeppelin and Frank Sinatra!” I felt that the Black Eyed Peas had sold out and gone “pop”, but I had no idea of the extent to which they would do so and become corporate pawns and musical sidekicks in the group THEY started.

Another way to chart the pop progression of the Black Eyed Peas is to take a look at the styles of their four albums as assessed by AllMusic.Com. According to this website, the Black Eyed Peas’ album styles of music went from “Alternative Rap” to “Pop-Rap” to “Party Rap“. Although the line between the 2nd and 3rd sub-genres may be fuzzy to some, “pop rap” is defined as being widely accepted rap and “party rap” is rap specifically aimed at being played at parties, in my humble opinion. A current look at the most recent single from BEP shows that they are DEFINITELY putting out party rap music. “My Humps” is currently the #3 song in the U.S. and may reach #1 due to its still increasing popularity. But wait? Is party/pop rap new to the Black Eyed Peas? Before 2003 were they not putting out records aimed at getting people to tell DJs to “turn that sh*t up, play it again” or “make a brother feel like I’m in the disco”? Yup. They were (listen to “Joints and Jams” or “Request Line“). Hmmm…what gives?

Prior to 2003 the Black Eyed Peas employed Kim Hill as their backup singer. She is the female vocalist heard in the aforementioned “Joints and Jams”. She is Black. You’ve probably never heard of her. In 2003 Hill was replaced by Fergie–a small, energetic bundle of U.S. status quo affirmation that proved to have the ability to take BEP to the next level. Whichever exec at A&M was behind getting Fergie into the group should be the label President. Really. Despite pouring what was surely millions of dollars into two widely-released albums by the Black Eyed Pease in 1998 and 2000 they bore very little commercial fruit. However, after adding a White female to the group in contrast to the Native American, Filipino-American, and Jamaican-American in the group sales exploded. Whereas Hill was rarely featured prominently in videos and never featured on album covers, Fergie was. Also of note on the first two BEP album covers is the prominence of the big, melanin-filled faces of males on the dark backdrop in contrast to the more holistic view and lighter backdrop of their most recent album cover. One says “BLACK MUSIC…SCARY!” while the other says “You have nothing to fear. This is now integrated music.”

In the same vein as Eminem in relation to D-12 or Elvis Presley in relation to Chuck Berry, a White person has now been put at the forefront of what was previously a Black…situation, let’s say. This age-old gimmick has been around for a long time and is continuing with the Black Eyed Peas and their new leader (yeah, I said it), Fergie. A visit to Launch.Com again shows that when one searches for the Black Eyed Peas, their picture is not a group one but solely that of Fergie. Is she the entire group (or even one of the founding members)? No. Additionally, a Google “Images” search for Black Eyed Peas reveals Fergie as the very first picture. According to Launch (a subsidiary of Yahoo!, Inc.) and Google, Inc.–two of the largest information superhighway corporations in the world–Black Eyed Peas = Fergie. Additionally, the popularity of “My Humps” brings Fergie even more publicity separate from that of BEP since it is nearly a solo song. Sad. The mass appeal that Fergie has brought to the Black Eyed Peas is quite sad. They are creating (largely) the same type of music that they have been creating all of their career but their group now has a White face and leader. The music industry “powers that be” behind the marketing and exploitation of BEP as a “pop” group did so in the interest of increasing the bottom line. This is wrong. What was once a cutting edge group for non-status quo, non-commerical radio fiends has become just that. Fergie and Corporate America (the REAL name of this country) have teamed up to once again push genre-leading Black artists to the periphery, market their product with a White face, and make boatloads of money while doing so. Poor (literally) Kim Hill.

taking a cue from Kuumba

Golis just offered a gladdening reminder of how Cambridge Common is building a community—and an un-clannish one at that. In a similarly hopeful spirit, we might examine other student enterprises that help us envision, in practical and ideological terms, the kind of communities we want to take part in shaping. Case in point: The Kuumba Singers, Harvard’s famous and beloved Black Diaspora choir, founded in 1970 to provide a sense of unity and belonging for the very few Black students matriculating at the time. In a few significant ways, Kuumba represents the antithesis of some of the problems of individualism, elitism, and privilege we’ve been discussing with respect to final clubs and Harvard in general. Allow me to break it down into a four-part harmony of sorts. (more in expanded post)

1) Merit. As a choir, one of Kuumba’s primary aims is to sound good. Simple enough. And by in large, it overwhelmingly succeeds (Sheldon, the director, and other highly-trained musicians may sometimes disagree on a technical level, but judging by the number of audience members who leave performances with tear-stained, beaming faces, I think it’s clear that Kuumba holds it down). What’s amazing about Kuumba’s success is that while it has an explicit interest in evaluating the objective talents of its members and accepting or rejecting applicants based on their merit, it chooses not to do so. Kuumba does not hold auditions, so absolutely anyone, be they seasoned church soloist or screechy shower singer (we all know who we are), is free and welcome to join the choir as a Kuumbabe (the affectionate moniker for Kuumba members).

Clearly, this does not mean that Kuumba lacks any merit criteria. On a sub-group level, the Brothers and Sisters of Kuumba hold auditions, and of course the soloists have to try out to earn their parts. Like the structure of most student organizations, too, members are elected to serve in leadership positions, which is merit-based insofar as if you’ve never volunteered to carry equipment or done something else above and beyond just showing up for rehearsals and shows, all the charm and good looks in the world are not going to get you elected. But these mini-hierarchies are contextualized within a group whose permeable boundaries and welcoming attitude make the choir’s renown and prestige all the more impressive.

2) Inclusiveness. As Kuumba demonstrates, low or nonexistant barriers to entry do not necessarily jeopardize overall quality. And while this may be a function of the choir’s structural requirements of a few amazing soloists coupled with large harmonizing groups that can accomodate weaker singers, we can nevertheless interpret Kuumba’s decision to balance the need to attract vocal talent with a commitment to openness as a virtue unto itself. Furthermore, Kuumba’s inclusiveness extends beyond its no-auditions-necessary policy and has resulted in an inspirational diversity of membership that warrants recognition, especially given our recent discussions of the difficulty of creating a multicultural, welcoming Women’s Center. Kuumba is one of the most solidly multi-ethnic organizations I know whose purposes do not explicitly include promoting diversity or studying international relations. Kuumba continually makes concerted efforts to help members who do not identify as Black feel comfortable and appreciated in the choir. While upholding a commitment to honoring, learning from, and continuing the struggles of the Black Diaspora, Kuumba uses Black culture and creativity to build a community that transcends racial boundaries without degrading the authenticity of its roots.

3) Morality. As a non-religious person raised faintly Jewish, until joining Kuumba I thought my days of singing about Jesus had ended along with elementary school Christmas concerts. Kuumba is undeniably infused with a very strong Christian spirit—not only in the lyrics of its songs, but in the tradition of ending each rehearsal by joining hands in a circle as members offer praise for joyous occurrences in their lives and request prayers for challenges. But in Kuumba, Christianity is a felt presence, not a prerequisite for inclusion. No one is trying to indoctrinate or convert you. True, the members who identify with Christian faith may have a different connection to the songs than non-believing members like me. But what everyone in Kuumba is there to celebrate is not a religion, and not even a people, but a living, ongoing history of struggle, survival, and triumph—a history in which Christianity has been a significant source, though not the only source, of spiritual strength—and a history Kuumba continues to shape. Unlike Harvard, Kuumba does ask its members to make moral choices about how to best serve their communities—an ethic so important to Kuumba that it’s even embodied in the choir’s name. From the Kuumba website: “In Swahili, ‘kuumba’ roughly means creativity, though the literal meaning is more subtle: it is the creativity of leaving a space better than you found it.” Kuumba’s version of moral individualism stresses unique contributions to a greater community, not uniqueness or personal success for its own sake.

4) Humility. On an individual personality level, perhaps, not all Kuumbabes are terribly modest (I know a couple, in fact, who definitely aren’t). But for some reason, Kuumba seems to bring out this side in people. And since humility is a quality that I for one could stand to see more of around here, it’s worth asking how Kuumba cultivates them to the extent it does. Maybe it’s because singing makes most people feel pretty vulnerable (and if you are the one who screws up the note or lyric for the soprano section, you’re obliged to raise your hand mea culpa style). Maybe it’s because the choir as a whole values hard work and practice just as much as—if not more than—innate virtuosic talent (a rare outlook in a culture that tends to view genius, artistic or otherwise, as an inborn gift to be capitalized upon rather than a hard-won strength that needs nurturing and development to reach its potential). Even the soloists of Kuumba are surprisingly modest about their talents; rather than defining or overshadowing the songs, solos aim to enhance them. I think Toni Morrison captures this phenomenon beautifully when she says:

“There must have been a time when an artist could be genuinely representative of a tribe and in it; when an artist could have a tribal or racial sensibility and an individual expression of it. There were spaces and places in which a single person could enter and behave as an individual within the context of the community. A small remnant of that you can see sometimes in Black churches where people shout.”

And finally, in my experience, one of the most rewarding elements of Kuumba is this: there is something incredibly humbling and simultaneously empowering about being a small voice that contributes to such a rich, enormous sound. A friend of mine who plays in the Kuumba band put it another way. When I asked him whether he ever gets stage fright, he replied that he used to, until he realized that “It’s not about me; it’s about the music.” Not exactly a sentiment one might expect to hear from oft-ambitious, hyper-individualistic Harvard students.

Despite holding the uncontested title of Biggest Kuumba Groupie, I recognize that Kuumba isn’t perfect. Like any group, it has its own issues with negotiating gender, race, class, etc. Some of these issues can be very sensitive and difficult to work out. For instance, the kente cloth stoles singers wear during performances feature different design patterns for men and women, so it’s possible that a gender-queer Kuumbabe might experience some discomfort during wardrobe selection. Problems of cultural imperialism may also arise, as some non-Black-identifying people might appropriate Kuumba as a form of social capital, while Black students may join as a misguided means of ‘proving’ their own race consciousness. But while Kuumba may not find simple solutions to these endemic social problems (and it would be unreasonable to expect it to), it has managed to get a whole lot of things right. In aiming to understand and reinterpret the roles of individualism and elitism in Harvard organizations, with ample appreciation for the vicissitudes inherent in forming and maintaining student communities, we can enjoy a respite from criticizing the status quo to engage in the equally important exercise of appreciating examples of alternative possibilities.

On a somewhat lighter note, if you now find yourself hankering for some Kuumba soul, visit this marvelous Civil Rights Movement website by the History Channel, which features some of their recorded songs. When you get to the homepage, look under Primary Sources and click on Music (Songs & Lyrics). “Hold On” is one of my favorites—guaranteed to give you chills. Enjoy!

a note from the Editor: one month in, community and Cambridge Common

When Cambridge Common was relaunched a little over a month ago, our email campaign billed the site as a space for alternative opinion; I wrote that we should “end the monopoly,” referring to a structural problem created by the Crimson’s domination of campus media and “truth.” We were looking to be an alternative opinion source, a space for addressing on a more regular basis some of the big questions, a space for throwing spitballs at the Crimson, a space for opinions from the left in a different format. A lot of that has happened and in the process our readership has grown and become regular- over 300 visitors a day Monday through Thursday, around 1,500 visitors a week.

Something more important has happened at the same time: a community is beginning to form. Chimaobi and I have been joined by Deb and Katie, as well as readers like Guess Why, Yi-Ping, Sarika, Dave, C.G., Rob, Paloma and many anonymous contributors. Reader contributions have made the comments section the most valuable space on this site, pushing the four of us on the front page to flesh out our ideas and respond to criticism and allowing readers to contribute thoughts of their own. Discussions like those that resulted from Chimaobi’s post about his experience in the black community at Harvard and in Boston, “Northern Discomfort,” Deb’s post about Asian American issues at Harvard, “Why Asian American Issues are Issues,” and my posts about Final Clubs, all show that something more organic and interactive is existing here than could ever exist in more traditional media. (more in expanded post)

This is tremendously important to me. It acknowledges an imperfection in thought and a complexity of analysis and opinion that is almost never present in other forms of media. A Crimson staff ed, for example, is often the result of give and take and discussion similar to that which occurs in our threads. By the time it is in the paper for consumption, however, it is supposed to represent some sort of perfect piece of analysis, an opinion with an immaculate conception and often without the acknowledgments of the possible inconsistencies, the dissenting factors, and the ideological frameworks. The messy nature of opinion, of different frames of analysis, different sets of facts and the occasional (or often) inadequacies of the logic or writing itself, are all hidden behind the black and white text, away from public scrutiny. As Katie has pointed out, Cambridge Common allows for us to have a different conception of truth and opinion that is much more fluid and contingent, much messier and more complex.

And this is important not simply because truth is usually that messy and complex, but also because I think it’s important to acknowledge that just because I run (or write for) a website or newspaper doesn’t suddenly make me smarter than everyone else. This is especially true at a place like Harvard, where it is likely that while I may have more knowledge of one sliver of experience or academia, I am fundamentally ignorant in many many other areas in which those around me are quite brilliant. We write here, then, more out of a political desire to begin conversations and a passion for our opinions, but with full acknowledgment that we are fallible and that it is important to constantly subject ourselves to scrutiny by those who may (and often do) know more. While opinion writing does involve a leap of arrogance, the comments section is there to humble us for our own sake and for the sake of our readers. If the process works, than the result of any given conversation thread is simultaneously more thoughtful, more productive, and more engaging than simple front page opinion journalism.

All of this is a long way of me saying that, while new media and “blogs” can be easily and properly ridiculed in many ways for being trite vanity projects or ideological echo chambers (and I’m sure we have our moments of both), it is the contributions of the readers, the creation of a community as is beginning to occur, that prevents us from going that route. So thank you for coming and thank you for reading. If you have been contributing, whether with support or critique, explanation or anecdote, thank you. If you have not been, feel free to do so.

labor movement makes some noise

On Friday, 200+ people, about 1/2 to 2/3 Harvard janitors and their family and the rest Harvard students, protested Harvard’s treatment of workers. The march began at Holyoke Center, where the crowd listened to speakers including two Harvard workers, the Vice Mayor of Cambridge Majorie Decker and City Councilor Brian Murphy, and the head of the local SEIU Union. During the speeches, a Harvard worker and a member of the Student Labor Action Movement delivered a petition with over 700 signatures to the Harvard Labor Relations Office in Holyoke Center. From the Holyoke Center, the group walked through the streets down Mass Ave to Johnston’s Gate, and then Memorial Hall, where President Summers was addressing parents here for First-year Parent’s Weekend. After hearing a few more speakers and chanting: “Harvard, escucha, estamos en la lucha” (translation: Harvard, listen, we’re in the fight), the crowd went around to the back where President Summers’ car waited for him. Apparently unwilling to face the crowd, President Summers left through another entry and his car left to meet him without him in it. More pictures, all brought to you by Seth Flaxman, can be found in the expanded post.

For supporters of Harvard workers and the Student Labor Action Movement, the rally was a stunning success. Those involved with labor efforts at Harvard described it as the largest and most energized crowd since the Living Wage Campaign of 2001.(more in expanded post)

The pictures below are of, in order, the rally at Holyoke Center (Vice Mayor Decker is speaking), the march beginning to march down Massachusetts Avenue, the march continuing toward Johnston’s Gate, the march moving through the Yard, and finally protestors waiting to express themselves to the, unsurprisingly, no show President Summers.

an astonishing Fitzmas

I was disappointed with Fitzmas at first. Cheney didn’t get directly implicated, which I thought had at least an outside chance of happening, and Rove didn’t get indicted, which I thought had at least a 2/3 chance of happening. Scooter Libby just seemed like the smallest big fish that could have been fried. Then, however, I watched the press conference. Before you read anything else, you should do the same. It’s 15 minutes long, but it’s probably some of the most newsworthy 15 minutes of the last few years of political history. Video: wmp and qt.

What becomes immediately clear from watching the press conference is that Patrick Fitzgerald is one angry boy scout. This is a man who takes the law very seriously, and is clearly absolutely furious that this White House continuously and intentionally lied to him. He makes an incredibly strong case for the fact that Libby just flat out lied to save himself, and that everything Libby said had to be a lie. Some have described perjury and obstruction of justice charges as just “gotcha charges” when you have nothing else to do. This is certainly not that.(more in expanded post)

One of the problems with the case at this point, of course, is that it’s almost impossible to know what will happen next. Fitzgerald describes why secrecy is important, but it’s still incredibly frustrating. However, one Andrew Sullivan reader (and Sullivan himself) have an interesting take:

A READER NAILS IT: This blog’s greatest resource is you. Here’s an email that shows why:

Just got through reading a transcript of the Fitz press conference, and a few things stood out.

As bizarre as that baseball analogy was, I think it said a lot about what might happen in the next few days or weeks. Seems to me that when discussing the possibility of a leak-related crime, e.g. violation of either the Intelligence Identities Act or Espionage Act, Fitz focused on how such prosecutions were very difficult because they require proof of a mental state. (Hence the silly analogy about a pitcher throwing at guy’s head.) Under both statutes, the disclosure of classified info must be intentional or purposeful, i.e., the perp must have “known” that the information was classified (for the Espionage Act) or that the agent was “covert,” among other things (under the Intelligence Act). As Fitz asked, “was this something where he intended to cause whatever damage was caused? Or did they intend to do something else and where are the shades of gray?”

I don’t know what Fitz knows. But I think he is one inch from prosecuting the leak itself – at least his public comments leave the impression that he’s pissed about it – and the only thing holding him back is that he’s afraid he can’t prove state of mind. Proving state of mind is really hard in any case — and it’s especially hard when the defendant is an intelligent career political operative with an expensive white collar defense lawyer. I think Fitz can do it, and I think Fitz thinks he can do it, but he seems to be playing it cautious. Why?

Let’s just take the Espionage Act. Fitz clearly said that Plame’s position was classified, he implied strongly that it related to national security, and as Josh Marshall pointed out in a recent post, the indictment itself states that both Cheney and Libby knew the precise division of the CIA where she worked, which by definition made her covert. So right there – as soon as he tells that to Miller – you have a prima facie violation of the Espionage Act.

Fitz also said, “I don’t buy that theory [that one should never use the Espionage statute], but I do know you should be very careful in applying that law because there are a lot of interests that could be implicated in making sure that you picked the right case to charge that statute … You want to know what their motive is, you want to know their state of knowledge, you want to know their intent, you want to know the facts.” He went on to lament the fact that Libby had lied, thus throwing the proverbial sand in his eyes.

What’s all this mean? Well, seems like Fitz has a pretty strong case for the Espionage Act, and if Plame met the objective standards in the Intelligence Act, for that one too. And it seems like the fact that Libby lied repeatedly is very strong evidence of a culpable state of mind, belying any claim that he didn’t “know” the info was classified or that divulging it was wrong. Add that to the very specific allegation in the indictment that he knew exactly where she worked, and there it is.

So why not charge it? Because Fitz has Libby nailed on the 5 counts from today’s indictment. Just nailed. So he’s bringing Libby in on those charges, they’re going to talk some turkey, and Fitz is going to see if Libby will talk, maybe about VP, maybe about Official A (who’s clearly Rove), or maybe about the VP’s moles at State and in the CIA. Offer some carrots – maybe no jail – but if Libby refuses, then Fitz brings down the espionage or intelligence act charges. Libby has nowhere to go, and Fitz knows it. In my view, he’s going to try to exploit that opening before wrapping this thing up.

That’s entirely my view as well, after mulling this over some more for a few hours. From the evidence we now have, it seems crystal clear to me that Libby knew he was out of line when he leaked the Plame name, and perjured himself to protect himself and the real source of the leak, Cheney. He gambled that the reporters wouldn’t squeal; and that he could cleverly spin his phone conversations so that the information seemed to come from reporters, not him. The question now is whether he will now turn against his colleagues and master to save his own skin. This story is just beginning. Ultimately, it’s about Cheney.

It will be interesting to watch as Libby’s trail, and any other subsequent indictments either of Cheney or Rove, pull the curtain back on this administration’s hawkish ideologues, internal disputes between the Dep. of Defense and State, or between the CIA and the Vice President’s office. This could be huge.

a little Thursday night fun

want to go to Schwarzenegger Street? Check out this hilarious anti-Governator video.

Harvard and the American dream: the well-trodden routes

The Crimson ran two great pieces of writing today on the concept of recruiting and careerism. They are ostensibly contradicting each other: Sahil arguing that recruiting is a natural extension of Harvard and our previous lives and Henry arguing that it is a comfortable and sadly uninspired way to use a privileged and educated existence. But, in some sense, they represented a strange cohesion of perspectives on the dominant mode of Harvard students and the structure of a Harvard education. For me, Sahil’s comment was about acknowledging Harvard’s role in society- a place to cultivate social “heroes”- whlie Henry’s comment was more about expressing sadness of what American society current views as those heroes.(more in expanded post)

Take Sahil’s main paragraph:

Harvard has always attempted to exemplify the ideals of a society at a given period and recruiting is just another expression of this. We are, after all, not the University of Chicago, who have defined excellence as academic achievement and correspondingly produced intellectuals, regardless of society’s valuation for them. Harvard is instead in the business of producing heroes, living ideals of society’s idea of excellence. Were American society to idealize bookish grad students, Harvard would churn them out in droves. Instead, we like our grads competitive, young, and wealthy. And so, where corporate recruiting caters to this societal idealization, Harvard fulfills it, because that is what Harvard does.

I think he’s quite right. Unlike University of Chicago that has created a culture that is specific in the kind of education that it endorses, specific in the culture that it creates and the students it believes are valuable, Harvard is neutral on the question, allowing recruiters and culture to seep in and reflect, to a large extent, the dominant values of our time: money and status. As Sahil later points out:

What I am suggesting is that the majority of Harvard’s organization kids believe in excellence, but not much else. We have taken on the standards of other people not because we found them good and noble, but because we profited for them.

So, while I disagree with his later assertion that it is somehow futile to try to change oneself considering this as our context, he is quite lucid about what Harvard is about, and why Harvard students have the tendencies that we do. Strangely though, Henry’s column hits almost exactly the same note:

Most of us simply go with the flow—abdicating control of our lives to the conventional prestige we pursue and to the technology that effectively keeps us too distracted to ask the uncomfortable questions about where we are really going and why. Between our work-hard/party-hard lifestyle, any time or energy for actual solitary reflection is lost—as is any moment for original thought and conscious direction of purpose.

And thus many of us unsurprisingly head to posh post-graduation destinations. We are so busy thinking about the micro rather than the macro that we get to senior year without a clear purpose of why we are here and who we want to be. While some of us mindlessly pursue the status symbols, the more passive amongst us ambivalently follow along, soothed by the potential for easy money and the fact that “everyone is doing it.” Trained to be technicians–-people who think very creatively, but within specific parameters—we are content to sell off our brainpower to corporations, political parties, and law firms. Plus, between the money the firms will offer and the hours they will demand from us, we will continue to be able to live in secure comfort—still lacking the time to question ultimately what we are doing with our lives.

While Sahil sees the same thing as a fatalistic reality, Henry has an optimism (or at least glimer of hope) that some will choose to change this culture, that we can acknowledge that there is something wrong with ourselves and Harvard through introspection and a little courage.

Still, when taken together, the two pieces paint a pretty depressing picture of the Harvard student. I’m not sure I agree with the writers that we are so uniform, that we are, in fact, of one type, but both certainly seem to be pointing out serious things about our dominant culture. And I don’t think, as some might, that taking the “well-trodden routes,” as Henry calls them, is such an anomaly. I would guess that few in the world are true adventurers, are truly brave enough to wade into the unknown, truly believe that we as individuals can be radically different. That is, after all, why we so often celebrate those people-the revolutionaries, the innovators, the avant-garde. They are radical because they are rare.

But it is true, I think, that we are living in a moment of dramatic and sad conformity to a culture obsessed with money and status, raised by parents who learned to be politically fatalistic through failure, in a country where the state seems to continually slide away from reality and relevance. It is unsurprising, then, that many people approach this world, uncomfortable with what they see, and seek personal comfort over public good. It is unsurprising that there are few around us brave enough to be revolutionaries, innovators or avant-garde. The questions that naturally arises out of both columns, then, are: how long can our society trod this path before it implodes on itself? How long can money and status be the fuel for the American way of life before all else- a sense of meaning, of community, of morality- is lost? And, can Harvard possibly produce people who have the courage to be different enough to do something about it?