Roosevelts and Kennedys may have once walked these grounds, but it’s hard to find students who think politicians can truly change the world. It’s not that we’re not passionate about our liberal politics. It’s just that we’re wary of looking foolish by being passionately liberal.
Sure, every once in a while Harvard dabbles in radicalism. Three years ago a group of students stormed the university president’s office and waged a multiday sit-in, demanding a living wage for Harvard workers. Shaggy protesters built an unwieldy tent city inside stately Harvard Yard. When the university caved, the protesters went back to their dorms and apathy reigned once more. Now it’s much more common to see a Harvard student complimenting president Larry Summers on his tennis game than challenging him on his policies.
It looked for a time like the war in Iraq might change things. Last spring, when President George W. Bush began dropping bombs on Baghdad, no one made cynical jokes or seemed embarrassed to talk openly about how they felt. My friends admitted they were scared, confused, anxious and angry. Eventually, thousands of students showed they were willing to act on their convictions, walking out of classes and filling the yard in protest.
For a brief moment, apathetic Harvard had become activist Harvard again. Today chaos may rule the day in Iraq, but things here have gotten pretty sedate again. Instead of protesting the war, students are dressing up and going to intimate “Evenings With the Candidates” in Harvard houses and swooning for the cameras at tapings of Chris Matthews’s “Hardball Goes to Harvard” series. Kids who briefly muddied their feet and chanted against the war are now polishing their shoes and smiling noncommittally at the candidates.
The Democrats aren’t doing much to keep our radical spirit alive. When Matthews asked John Kerry what his favorite movie was at one of the “Hardball” tapings, the Massachusetts senator seemed stumped. When he spoke in an undergraduate dorm, Wesley Clark kept finding awkward silence where he expected applause. And when Matthews asked Dean to name his favorite book, the front runner boldly plugged his own campaign biography.
So even as the country faces grave issues of war and peace, Harvard students are more worked up about what’s on the dining-hall menu than they are about the White House race. Personally, I’m keeping my hopes up for a revival of passionate political activism. At cynical Harvard, optimism is an act of rebellion in and of itself.
