The Old Regime and Randomization

MOST first-year students view randomization in the short term. They wonder if they will get into the house of their choice, or at most, if they will still like the house when they are seniors.

But randomization is not a transient issue, nor is it a new one.

Alexis de Tocqueville neatly outlined every consequence of randomization 133 years ago in his immortal Old Regime and the French Revolution. As the book clearly shows, randomization could be the crucial step that turns University Hall into the greatest center of despotic power since the Parisian mob stormed Versailles.

Eliot Master Alan E. Heimert '49 has described the administration's actions as indicating "that the houses will be run from University Hall." His colleague, Adams Master Robert J. Kiely, agrees, saying, "Harvard is a very undemocratic place. Deans want to centralize even more."

Just substitute "provinces" for "houses" and "Paris" for "University Hall" in the first statement, then switch "Harvard" and "Deans" to "France" and "Bourbon kings" in the second.

The masters are now describing France on what Tocqueville calls "that fateful day" when Charles VII usurped the power of taxation from the people. From that point on, the decay into despotism was all but inevitable.

If President Bok and Dean Jewett (the king and first minister) steal the vital power of deciding housing procedures from the masters (the feudal lords of Harvard), the university will inevitably degenerate into the same sort of rancorous discord that plagued eighteenth-century France.

And as always, the lowest class will bear the brunt of the inequity. Those oppressed peasants, the students, will be left without the right or ability to decide their own futures.

TOCQUEVILLE lists three main consequences of the centralization of power. The first is that the peasants' resentment of their lords increased dramatically. "The more [governmental] functions passed out of the hands of the nobility, the more uncalled-for did their privileges appear--until at last their mere existence seemed a meaningless anachronism."

Right now, we all love our house masters, for we respect their dedication to improving our lives. But if, as Master Heimert predicts, the houses are to be run from University Hall, won't the house masters become as much of a "meaningless anachronism" as the French aristocracy?

How will students, squeezed into cramped, gloomy suites or even put up in Yard dorms, bear to see the finest rooms of their house occupied by a freeloading professor who just serves pastries once a week?

Stripping the masters of their authority will leave them the objects of bitter envy that will bubble in the breast of each of their tenants.

But while they learn to despise the privileges of the masters, students will give up trying to fight the administration. This apathy is the second consequence of Toquevillian centralization: A despotically governed people becomes unable to think for itself.

In France, peasants became so accustomed to being told how to live their lives that they looked to the central government for advice on such basic subjects as what crops to plant and where to sell them.

At Harvard, students will become just as docile when they realize that they are equally powerless.

University Hall brushes off Undergraduate Council resolutions as cavalierly as Louis XIV ever snubbed his subjects. Students can debate randomization until they are blue in the face without any real hope of influencing the administration, forming what Tocqueville would call "assemblies [with] no real power."

And everyone knows that the objections of the masters and not of the Class of '92 derailed last year's movement for randomization. There is little reason to believe that the current first-year petition will be more than an "empty show of freedom."

If Toqueville's predictions hold true, students will feel incapable of controlling their own lives. They will demand greater concentration requirements and an expanded core curriculum--thus relieving them of the burden of electives.

In the worst case scenario, students may actually begin to listen to their advisors.

THE third and final consequence of centralized administration is perhaps the most famous: revolution. It is easier to knock over a one-legged giant than an octopus.

Central administration, writes Tocqueville, explains "why it was that an uprising of the people could overwhelm so abruptly and decisively a monarchy that for so many centuries had successfully withstood so many onslaughts and, on the very eve of its downfall, seemed inexpungible even to the men who were about to destroy it."

It has been 200 years since Parisians stormed the Bastille, but only 20 since students stormed University Hall. Yes, the administration seems secure now. But if all power is concentrated in University Hall, the next students who take the building may keep it.

By keeping both masters and students out of the decision on randomization, the administration is making the same mistakes as did the House of Bourbon. Unless it improves its attitudes about housing, University Hall may find students deserting the houses in favor of a more enlightened system of liberty, equality, and fraternities.

Zachary M. Schrag '92 is, admittedly, a Social Studies concentrator. As such, he applies different social theories to every aspect of his life. But this time, he really thinks he's on to something.