Intellectual Provincialism Dominates College

One of the more subtle illusions entertained widely at Harvard about Harvard concerns the breadth of its intellectual attitudes. Impressed by its own academic eminence and wide influence in America, together with a feeling of receptivity to outside ideas, the College sees itself as a diversified community, containing and encouraging widely differing viewpoints that contribute to a catholic outlook.

This illusion is strengthened by adherence to the policy of geographical distribution in admissions. The policy is partially intended to provide a nationwide diffusion of alumni; but its extension to the House system indicates the Administration's conviction that association with students of different backgrounds is valuable to the educational experience. As applied to Harvard, however, this policy does little more than prevent domination by one type. Its positive advantages are relatively superficial, providing a deceptive variety which extends to manners and customs, but in general, no deeper.

Sophisticated Applicants

For despite the good intentions of the Admissions Committee, its selections are limited by the choices of the applicants. In most cases those students who can overcome the prejudice against Harvard that exists strongly around the U.S., come from backgrounds which lean toward or admire the East; and those who are equipped to handle the academic requirements of Harvard usually possess a sophistication which allows them to be easily assimilated into the predominating intellectual atmosphere. The rarity of extreme local accents at Harvard suggests a group of students who are already conscious of and are trying to suppress their regionality. They are further coerced by pressure to eradicate some of the more betraying aspects of their own provincialism. As a result, the overwhelming majority of "distributional" acceptances, despite surface differences, soon become indistinguishable intellectually from the large group of Easterners whose attitudes set the tone for the college.

Universal Microcosm

The acquiesence of the student body to the ensconsced pattern intensifies rather than alleviates the Eastern provincialism that characterizes the Harvard undergraduate. Provincialism here means something other than the narrowness and lack of cultural feeling which the term usually connotes. It is rather a posture of universality, created by the sense of being superlative in certain areas. New York City is in this way an example of provincialism, in that the staunch, chauvinistic New Yorker sees his city as a microcosm of the universe, and believes that everything important in the world is in some way embraced by New York. Similarly, Harvard's well-known complacency regarding its academic superiority affects its powers of self-evaluation: it can recognize and examine its own academic characteristics without admitting that there are other valid ones. This easily leads to the condescension which is typical of Harvard's attitude toward other colleges, and the belief that there are no other legitimate types of intellectual investigation than those used here. Academic pre-eminence is interpreted not necessarily as knowing it all, but at least as possessing the best, perhaps the only methods to find it out.

Harvard's particular provincialism, then, lies not so much in the constraint of its limits as in its inability to see these limits. That Harvard is bounded is as unthinkable as the same statement applied to the universe; or, if one grants that it might be true, the analagous reaction comes forth: What is there outside? Harvard students have very little awareness of the just discrepancy between Harvard as they see it, and as it appears to others.

Undergraduate Myopia

Their myopia is especially strong when they envision Harvard as a completely cosmopolitan college. This contention rests upon the dual claims of unreserved acceptance of large numbers of foreign students, and eager susceptibility to international influences ranging from Austin-Healy's to Zen Buddhism. Both these claims are more attractive than true. Foreign students are accepted on the same basis as all others, more often despite than because of their foreign origins and customs. The college community is liberal enough not to be suspicious of outsiders, but it is not particularly interested in them either. The typical foreign student at Harvard is treated as any other student, with neither more nor less solicitude or attention.

The American who has received some education in Europe is no better off for it at Harvard; on the contrary, any vestiges are considered affectations which should be shed as quickly as possible. This is particularly true of the younger tutors, returning from Oxford and Cambridge, whose educational advances are overshadowed in the minds of students by the atrocious mannerisms they have picked up. There is no general eagerness to share these different educational experiences, no strong curiosity concerning foreign ideas.

Travel Common

The explanation for this attitude can be found primarily in the commonness of European travel, which is often a narrowing experience at college age. It is narrowing because it breaks down the feelings of wonder and strangeness with which a child responds to something new, substituting mere indifference. Furthermore, in destroying the attractive image of Europeans formed in childhood it replaces them with the easy stereotypes to which the tourist is most often exposed. The triumph of "really getting to know the people," prime goal of the sincere and energetic travellers, usually consists of conversations in museums, evenings in the beercellars, and native dating. Intellectually, there is little contact; such as there is stays mainly in the of politics, or the racial problem in our South.

Shallow 'Cosmopolitans'

Back at college, students who have not been to Europe receive vicarious tours, and the general feeling is one of close familiarity and affinity with Europe and its people. The danger of this impression of cosmopolitanism lies not merely in its inaccuracy, but in the convenient rationale it affords for an escape from one's own background. While the student sloughs off childhood attributes, he is tempted to discard many of the values developed at home in favor of the new ones he imagines to have found here. But Harvard, while it spurns the richness of a full American tradition, does not provide a satisfactory Continental substitute. To the undergraduate, Europe is a spectrum ranging from Germany's "Hegelian mysticism" to England's ubiquitous middle class muddling through Asia and Africa are still thought of as lower civilizations, admired only for primitive art and Japanese prints. This is the average extent of undergraduate cosmopolitanism. Meanwhile, the non-Eastern student has been taught the inadequacies of his own provincialism; and even if he does not repudiate his background by the end of his four years at Harvard, he will wear an eastern mask while he is here, to be shed only when he returns home, if he returns at all.

Provincialism, in its non-restrictive aspects, can provide a center of loyalty, an accumulation of attitudes and standards to serve as a basis of action and thought. As a state of mind, it furnishes a setting in which ideas can be fixed and evaluated, and, to some extent, ordered. Eastern provincialism, as seen at Harvard, is an especially enlightened type: it is urbane, cultured, informed and relatively tolerant. But where Harvard leaves people to themselves superficially, it makes more stringent demands intellectually. It imposes its own attitudes and values in the guise of liberality, expelling and excluding alternative patterns of thinking.

Subjective Approach

Any college, through a standard of technique necessary for academic success, must inevitably impose some measure of intellectual uniformity on its students. At Harvard, this technique involves an ever-increasing awareness of subjectivity in approaching academic problems. This is paralleled and reinforced by the Eastern tendency to evaluate people in psychological and economic terms, with less emphasis on appearance and immediate impressions. The underlying tone of circumspection and distrust, intensified by the double thrust of college and community, can but impose an extreme self-consciousness on the student. This creates a kind of intellectual narcissism, as well as a false identification of self-consciousness with self-knowledge that produces the familar know-it-all pose for which Harvard is so famous.

Intellectual Snobbery

When Harvard is accused of snobbery, thought immediately focuses on money, clothes, manners, and social status. But with regard to these peripheral considerations, the accusation is probably not well founded. This becomes telling when it is directed toward the intellectual sphere. At Harvard, a wrong conclusion is bad indeed, and the wrong outlook is contemptible. The Harvard student will accept a new idea if he agrees with it; but it commands little attention merely because it is new, or different. The intolerance of this aspect of Harvard's provincialism is demonstrated by the refusal to discuss matters on any but one's own terms, on the theory that they are the only possible ones in which the subject in question can be considered. This superiority accounts for the scorn with which the naivete of many a Freshman has been greeted, to be transformed soon into a smooth scepticism, or perhaps an even more knowing cynicism.

Scepticism, as an attitude of the college student, is an artificial technique to help him examine his academic problems. As a frame of mind, however, it is less likely to be the result of experience or disillusionment than it is the position taken by one who wants to give the the impression that he has been around. It is ideal for the student who is less anxious to be right than he is to avoid being wrong, whose desire for truth subserves his dread of being thought foolish. In his efforts to elude being caught in a ridiculous posture, he avoids positive commitment if possible. Religous zeal and patriotism are examples of attitudes missing or rare at Harvard, the epithet "pious" provokes dension, and the term "all-American" would only be used in a perjorative sense.

Eastern Casualness

The basic cause of this position is the characteristic Eastern antipathy toward enthusiasm. The current Ivy ideal is the casual man who pursues a line of conduct corresponding to a preconceived code, directed by an unalterable mental outlook in which spontaneous emotions play a miniscule role. If enthusiasm is allowed to creep in, it is carefully controlled and channelled toward "safe" objects such as Humphrey Bogart or the Kingston Trio; it is never casual to display enthusiasm or emotion toward anything more serious than these.

Negative Responses

Without judging casualness as a standard of action, one can notice its effects when applied with rigor as an intellectual guide. The resolute determination to avoid enthusiasm in criticism can easily turn into a consistent refusal to be pleased. While the student avoids a potentially embarassing epousal of a cause, he is amply protected when on the attack, being free to concentrate on the weaknesses which can be found even in geniuses. The technique of isolating certain elements for criticism is never used to praise an author or defend a position, but is common when breaking down a work of art. Many students are more delighted to discover error than beauty, and find it difficult to counteract this when they have to sustain a long thesis that is something other than adverse criticism. Even the moderate position removes emotional response as a criterion for evaluation, relying solely on theoretically objective tests that are often based on standards more arbitrary and less reliable than the emotions themselves. This withdrawal of feeling can explain the anti-sentimentalism--which may be repressed sentimentalism--that rejects all Romantic music, rococco art, and Victorian literature while it lavishes its pent-up critical enthusiasm on movies whose artistic worth is patently nil.

Ingenuousness Shunned

Education, or any progressive experience, necessarily involves the subject in a sophisticating process. But sophistication, so far from being regarded as an artificial by-product, is revered at Harvard as a goal in itself, and as a guarantor of good taste. To the contrary, it is the quality of ingenuousness which is condemned and shunned as being only one step removed from gulibility, and two from stupidity. The mistrust of naturalness, of sincerity, and of humility, all of which are connected in the Harvard mind with ingenuousness, follows logically. The seasoned Harvardman is guarded and suspicious without provocation; if this is an unavoidable transformation which every student must under-go, then Harvard cannot claim to be a truly liberal intellectual community.

Warmth Lacking

What is lacking so conspicuously is a prevalence of warmth, or any real concern for kindness. Warmth seemingly goes against every Harvard grain: it is not characteristic of the East; it appears incompatible with scepticism; and it is ultimately blocked by self-consciousness. It is essentially an enthusiastic attitude. Kindness finds even stronger opposition at Harvard: even taken in its deepest sense, not as a wish to avoid causing pain, but as a constant consideration and valuation of feelings, it contradicts the most sacred critical canons. It is thought to be a sign of the rankest tender-mindedness and most erroneous subjectivity, a barrier to any sort of harsh truth.

There are those, however, who believe that kindness, rather than interfering with the search for truth, can greatly help in this search; that emotions and sensitivity do have a legitimate role in scholarly activity; and that, in any intellectual conversation, whether with writings or with other people, kindness can only lend depth and humanity. The gap in time and traditions, the obstructions to communication can be over-come by the desire to understand. The ability to be convinced depends in great measure on warm and generous feelings toward other ideas and aspirations.

College may not be the proper time for this kind of sympathetic attitude; it is the time for scepticism. But scepticism need not be hostile; nor must selfconscious awareness of subjectivity prevent emotional involvement. Nothing would be more absurd than to strive for an artificial warmth or some sort of reinfused provincialism. Kindness and enthusiasm are natural qualities; the problem is to preserve them through college. Harvard offers a challenge to the student to maintain his intellectual intergrity in the face of the fashionable consensus, and to observe, while at college, the standards by which he intends to lead the rest of his life

Shallow 'Cosmopolitans'

Back at college, students who have not been to Europe receive vicarious tours, and the general feeling is one of close familiarity and affinity with Europe and its people. The danger of this impression of cosmopolitanism lies not merely in its inaccuracy, but in the convenient rationale it affords for an escape from one's own background. While the student sloughs off childhood attributes, he is tempted to discard many of the values developed at home in favor of the new ones he imagines to have found here. But Harvard, while it spurns the richness of a full American tradition, does not provide a satisfactory Continental substitute. To the undergraduate, Europe is a spectrum ranging from Germany's "Hegelian mysticism" to England's ubiquitous middle class muddling through Asia and Africa are still thought of as lower civilizations, admired only for primitive art and Japanese prints. This is the average extent of undergraduate cosmopolitanism. Meanwhile, the non-Eastern student has been taught the inadequacies of his own provincialism; and even if he does not repudiate his background by the end of his four years at Harvard, he will wear an eastern mask while he is here, to be shed only when he returns home, if he returns at all.

Provincialism, in its non-restrictive aspects, can provide a center of loyalty, an accumulation of attitudes and standards to serve as a basis of action and thought. As a state of mind, it furnishes a setting in which ideas can be fixed and evaluated, and, to some extent, ordered. Eastern provincialism, as seen at Harvard, is an especially enlightened type: it is urbane, cultured, informed and relatively tolerant. But where Harvard leaves people to themselves superficially, it makes more stringent demands intellectually. It imposes its own attitudes and values in the guise of liberality, expelling and excluding alternative patterns of thinking.

Subjective Approach

Any college, through a standard of technique necessary for academic success, must inevitably impose some measure of intellectual uniformity on its students. At Harvard, this technique involves an ever-increasing awareness of subjectivity in approaching academic problems. This is paralleled and reinforced by the Eastern tendency to evaluate people in psychological and economic terms, with less emphasis on appearance and immediate impressions. The underlying tone of circumspection and distrust, intensified by the double thrust of college and community, can but impose an extreme self-consciousness on the student. This creates a kind of intellectual narcissism, as well as a false identification of self-consciousness with self-knowledge that produces the familar know-it-all pose for which Harvard is so famous.

Intellectual Snobbery

When Harvard is accused of snobbery, thought immediately focuses on money, clothes, manners, and social status. But with regard to these peripheral considerations, the accusation is probably not well founded. This becomes telling when it is directed toward the intellectual sphere. At Harvard, a wrong conclusion is bad indeed, and the wrong outlook is contemptible. The Harvard student will accept a new idea if he agrees with it; but it commands little attention merely because it is new, or different. The intolerance of this aspect of Harvard's provincialism is demonstrated by the refusal to discuss matters on any but one's own terms, on the theory that they are the only possible ones in which the subject in question can be considered. This superiority accounts for the scorn with which the naivete of many a Freshman has been greeted, to be transformed soon into a smooth scepticism, or perhaps an even more knowing cynicism.

Scepticism, as an attitude of the college student, is an artificial technique to help him examine his academic problems. As a frame of mind, however, it is less likely to be the result of experience or disillusionment than it is the position taken by one who wants to give the the impression that he has been around. It is ideal for the student who is less anxious to be right than he is to avoid being wrong, whose desire for truth subserves his dread of being thought foolish. In his efforts to elude being caught in a ridiculous posture, he avoids positive commitment if possible. Religous zeal and patriotism are examples of attitudes missing or rare at Harvard, the epithet "pious" provokes dension, and the term "all-American" would only be used in a perjorative sense.

Eastern Casualness

The basic cause of this position is the characteristic Eastern antipathy toward enthusiasm. The current Ivy ideal is the casual man who pursues a line of conduct corresponding to a preconceived code, directed by an unalterable mental outlook in which spontaneous emotions play a miniscule role. If enthusiasm is allowed to creep in, it is carefully controlled and channelled toward "safe" objects such as Humphrey Bogart or the Kingston Trio; it is never casual to display enthusiasm or emotion toward anything more serious than these.

Negative Responses

Without judging casualness as a standard of action, one can notice its effects when applied with rigor as an intellectual guide. The resolute determination to avoid enthusiasm in criticism can easily turn into a consistent refusal to be pleased. While the student avoids a potentially embarassing epousal of a cause, he is amply protected when on the attack, being free to concentrate on the weaknesses which can be found even in geniuses. The technique of isolating certain elements for criticism is never used to praise an author or defend a position, but is common when breaking down a work of art. Many students are more delighted to discover error than beauty, and find it difficult to counteract this when they have to sustain a long thesis that is something other than adverse criticism. Even the moderate position removes emotional response as a criterion for evaluation, relying solely on theoretically objective tests that are often based on standards more arbitrary and less reliable than the emotions themselves. This withdrawal of feeling can explain the anti-sentimentalism--which may be repressed sentimentalism--that rejects all Romantic music, rococco art, and Victorian literature while it lavishes its pent-up critical enthusiasm on movies whose artistic worth is patently nil.

Ingenuousness Shunned

Education, or any progressive experience, necessarily involves the subject in a sophisticating process. But sophistication, so far from being regarded as an artificial by-product, is revered at Harvard as a goal in itself, and as a guarantor of good taste. To the contrary, it is the quality of ingenuousness which is condemned and shunned as being only one step removed from gulibility, and two from stupidity. The mistrust of naturalness, of sincerity, and of humility, all of which are connected in the Harvard mind with ingenuousness, follows logically. The seasoned Harvardman is guarded and suspicious without provocation; if this is an unavoidable transformation which every student must under-go, then Harvard cannot claim to be a truly liberal intellectual community.

Warmth Lacking

What is lacking so conspicuously is a prevalence of warmth, or any real concern for kindness. Warmth seemingly goes against every Harvard grain: it is not characteristic of the East; it appears incompatible with scepticism; and it is ultimately blocked by self-consciousness. It is essentially an enthusiastic attitude. Kindness finds even stronger opposition at Harvard: even taken in its deepest sense, not as a wish to avoid causing pain, but as a constant consideration and valuation of feelings, it contradicts the most sacred critical canons. It is thought to be a sign of the rankest tender-mindedness and most erroneous subjectivity, a barrier to any sort of harsh truth.

There are those, however, who believe that kindness, rather than interfering with the search for truth, can greatly help in this search; that emotions and sensitivity do have a legitimate role in scholarly activity; and that, in any intellectual conversation, whether with writings or with other people, kindness can only lend depth and humanity. The gap in time and traditions, the obstructions to communication can be over-come by the desire to understand. The ability to be convinced depends in great measure on warm and generous feelings toward other ideas and aspirations.

College may not be the proper time for this kind of sympathetic attitude; it is the time for scepticism. But scepticism need not be hostile; nor must selfconscious awareness of subjectivity prevent emotional involvement. Nothing would be more absurd than to strive for an artificial warmth or some sort of reinfused provincialism. Kindness and enthusiasm are natural qualities; the problem is to preserve them through college. Harvard offers a challenge to the student to maintain his intellectual intergrity in the face of the fashionable consensus, and to observe, while at college, the standards by which he intends to lead the rest of his life