Know Your Target

To the Editors of The Crimson:

I've been at Harvard for four years, and new that it is about time to leave, I'd like to an a pet peeve: Harvard students are too quick. This is not usually considered a problem. Aren't we, after all, the few, the proud, and the chosen? We are chosen for intellectual skill and the ability to articulate our marvelous thoughts. Campus society puts a premium on wit; if you aren't funny, or at least interesting, you're dead in the water. If knowledge is good, being quick is better.

Unfortunately, the line between being quick and being sharp is a fine one. Knee-jerk wit beats a certain resemblance to a handgun in the possession of a child--you don't know whether it will go off, and you don't know who it may hit. Knee-jerk wit may go a long way toward explaining our reputation for arrogance. The image of the stuck in Harvard student has always bothered like too many of my colleagues to understand how we have managed to maintain this distressing image.

I'm not talking about deliberate cruelty, even in its more subtle forms. What I am talking about, of course, is excess. I get the impression that some people have spent so much time in the trenches of verbal warfare that they have lost sight of the enemy.

The inspiration for this letter came this evening when I answered a long string of telephone calls for one of my ever-popular and rarely present roommates. Three different callers within an hour decided that it took me too long to answer their questions and found joking about my presumed lunacy or incompetence the only possible response. Each was funny, in his own way. Unfortunately, the jokes fell flat on my cars; you see, I stutter. I answered slowly because that was the only speed at which I could spit out the words. This is not a call for sympathy. I rankly, I've been stuttering for a long time, and I'm used to it. Harvard students are not the only people who respond in this fashion. People are usually confused when confronted by my difficulty, as they would be by any unusual situation. Knee-jerk wit is a common reaction; however, the results of my unscientific survey reveal that more Harvard students react this way than do a random sample of those not blessed with Centers phones.

The third caller of the evening called again. He asked me it I stuttered and apologized for his rudeness. He said he felt terribly embarrassed to look courage to make that second call; I applaud his thought and effort. Frankly, it made my evening--I don't get many apologies. Although I would love not to get harassed on the phone quite so often, my thought is for the other two callers. Did they know what they were doing? Probably not. Would they feel embarrassed if they had? Probably. There would have been no need to feel embarrassed if these three had thought before they jibed.

It peeves me that we don't stop to think; we fire verbally at anything that moves. I don't expect immediate understanding, but I shouldn't have to wear an orange hat to answer the phone. I and many others cannot warn you ahead of time that we are vulnerable. Don't shoot until you have identified your target.

Thank you Giles A. Rirch '85