Young America's Foundation recently released a pamphlet, Comedy and Tragedy: College Course Descriptions and What they Tell Us About Higher Education Today. As one may deduce from the title, its function is similar to that of my ten favorite course descriptions, as published here a month ago. Remarkably, while YAF listed eleven Harvard courses, my list and theirs had exactly two in common (ESPP 90d and General Education 103, for those of you keeping score at home).
The difference in lists is partly from different qualifications -- YAF seems to have used last year's catalogue, or included bracketed courses -- but also reflects the need to define our terms better when we speak of political correctness with "indoctrination" in mind. The YAF list is heavy on romance classes and myth classes; "Folklore and Mythology 113. Swahili Women Storytellers" is a good example. Weird, however, is not necessarily PC. Citing these classes surely attributes to them more power than they merit, something akin to calling the Harvard-Radcliffe Science Fiction Association the most dangerous political group on campus.
YAF meanwhile ignores such more traditional fields as Government. A letter-writer in the previous issue asserted that Cornel West or Martin Kilson would "run circles around [me] -- or is it 'indoctrination' if a black man is smarter than you?" Considering that most black men on this campus are smarter than I, apparently not. But when students are led to believe that men as diverse as Jesse Jackson, Alan Keyes, and Colin Powell all are part of some monolithic race-based contribution, the bigger problem is not that the indoctrination is taking place, but to exactly whom this misguided lesson is preached.
Perhaps political correctness can never be defined more sharply than the old pornography standard, "I know it when I see it." Will we never be able to explain why titles like "History of Science 189. Alternative Economies: The Case Against Capitalism, 1648-1848" are so problematic? Is the crusade against it reduced to exhaustive reading of the text, the same deconstruction from which so many of the courses I cited suffer? One can only present these arguments the way one presents the courses themselves, and let you be the judge.
( Matt Bruce)
Am I the only one who saw the huge Crimson headline reporting that a national conservative journal, The Weekly Standard, alleged the existence of racial preferences in Harvard Government Department graduate admissions and financial aid, and thought, "Well, duh"? Harvard has racial preferences in everything from undergraduate admissions to tenure decisions. If this is a secret, then it is one of the worst-kept secrets at the University. I admit to being surprised by the details. I knew that some of the financial aid was race-based. I did not know that Harvard gives more money to blacks and Hispanics with no demonstrated need than to white and Asian graduate students showing full need. The outrageous details make interesting, if disturbing, reading.
The reaction of the campus to The Weekly Standard's exposé reveals quite a lot about how affirmative action survives. Not even the usual apologists for affirmative action were leaping to the defense of the Government Department's program. We can forgive campus editorialists for relying on bland generalities in their defenses of affirmative action. The ugly details of an authentic racial preference program are just too ugly to defend. Far better to speak of lofty goals like "intellectual diversity" and "equal opportunity" than to dirty oneself with the messy details of reality.
( Doug Gordon )
In last Saturday's Harvard Crimson "Dartboard", Nancy Raine Reyes proved why pro wrestling is popular, Jimmy Swaggart was famous, and why Ricki Lake has become a cultural icon. Reyes wondered aloud why we should care about the pope. What does he actually do? After all, he doesn't "heal the sick" like Jimmy Swaggart, he isn't a major sports figure, and he is not even a Crimson editor!
Why on Earth should we care about the Pope? Roman Catholics are spread all over the world. Catholics reside even in Cambridge and New York, where the Pope just visited. To millions of people, the Pope is the holiest man alive. His words touch their souls. His actions move their hearts. His exhortations move them to action.
But Reyes couldn't see that. All she could see was a man who spoke out for morality, decency, and love. She wonders why we should care. Anyone can preach those things. This is the Pope's greatest strength. Anyone can preach his message, but only he does. Only he has the strength to stand in defense of simple humanity in the face of those who doubt, scorn, and write "Dartboard."
In the end, it matters not what The Harvard Crimson writes about the Pope. The Pope touches millions of people every year. He inspires people all over the world to seek a path of love and decency. The Pope has earned the reverence and respect of the world. We can't say the same about Jimmy Swaggart, pro wrestling, Ricki Lake, or The Harvard Crimson.
( Stephen Manley )
After a one year hiatus, the Association Against Learning in the Absense of Religion and Morality (AALARM) is back. This small band of campus conservatives is best known for its lengthy poster wars with its nemesis, the Bisexual, Gay and Lesbian Students Association (BGLSA). This senior expected to be bored again with mindless quotes being thrown back and forth by both sides -- the fourth time really loses its charm. Lo and behold, my expectations were exceeded. It seems as though campus freak and "Activism" concentrator Joshua Oppenheimer decided the best way to get good coverage in the Independent is to switch sides and ally himself with AALARM.
A close look at the posters shows that both AALARM and BGLSA posters were put up with the same roll of tape, a revelation first noted by UC member Marco Simons. AALARM took credit for a small round of postering earlier in the week, but denied involvement in the later postering drives. The conspiracy theories were soon confirmed when Oppenheimer acknowledged respondsibility.
Mr. Oppenheimer has demonstrated time and time again that he firmly believes his sexual orientation gives him the right to destroy other people's property (in 1993, Oppenheimer tore down an AALARM poster in front of Dean of Students Archie Epps) and deny freedom of expression (Oppenheimer's disgraceful interuption of a Government 1091 lecture).
Apparently Oppenheimer has been given yet another special right because of his orientation -- the right to impersonate other people. One need only wonder what would happen had AALARM pretended to be the BGLSA.
( Corwyn Hopke )
The Baby Boom generation is now officially passé, at the same time that it officially has both political and cultural power. Only in the Clinton administration would one celebrate the release of "Us and Them: Symphonic Pink Floyd." As one could guess from the title, this album features the tragically pretentious "greatest Floyd hits," as performed by the Royal Symphony Orchestra. Hearing sample sound bites inspired in me the same visceral hatred I felt the first time I ever heard an instrumental cover of a Rolling Stones song on Muzak. The main differences here are that Muzak is passively endured rather than actively bought, and that I once actually liked the Stones.
Baby Boomers now buy tiny foreign luxury cars with "comfy" seats. It is only fitting that the band that recorded "Comfortably Numb" has been elevated to the status of high culture, now that the enlightened whiners from the 1960s control the haughty life of academia, attacking Great Books by expounding on "how this relates to Emerson (or, for my acquaintances unfortunate enough to major in English, Foucault)." The audience for classical music, and its performers, used to be limited to old people and Salient editors. Now that the Baby Boomers, not so long after bankrupting our Social Security fund, have appropriated it, we can see that the message of rebellion is, like so much about the Sixties, a charade.
This epiphany leads to strange bedfellows. Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols is said to have been "discovered" in the late 1970s while hanging around London with a homemade "I HATE PINK FLOYD" T-shirt. It is hard to see at first what conservatives and punk rockers have in common, but both are authentic; both fiercely espouse individualism without, one would hope, being sanctimonious about it; and both can see through sham. The past two years have witnessed the rise of Newt Gingrich, and the related rise of Green Day. Campus political protests have become, of all things, banal, while "classic rock" stations struggle to avoid joining the era they celebrate on the ashheap of history. When the last Eagles reunion tour finally ends, when the last Deadhead finally decides to get a life, I can only say "good riddance."
( Matt Bruce )