Patriotism From A Distance

A recent Crimson survey found that 69 percent of Harvard students favor U.S. military retaliation for the Sept. 11 attacks, yet only 38 percent of students would be willing to take part in that attack if called up to serve. Simple arithmetic reveals a startling inconsistency, namely that at least 31 percent of Harvard students want to see a military attack, but only from a safe distance.

When I conducted my own lunch-line survey to understand this inconsistency, I was given one explanation right away: Harvard students are too valuable to fight. We could better serve the country by working in labs or running businesses, than by fighting on the front lines. But can 31 percent of the student body really believe that, by virtue of being educated here, our lives are more precious than those of our fellow citizens? Justifications about the supposed value of a Harvard-educated citizen serve only to obfuscate the truth. Supporting war while refusing to fight creates and perpetuates inequality in our society. We think we are too valuable, so instead we send the poor, the uneducated and the disenfranchised to die.

Those who believe their Harvard education excuses them from military service should take a lesson from this school’s past. The walls of Memorial Hall are lined with the names of Harvard students who were not too valuable to fight and die in the Civil War. The murals of Widener Library show a soldier transfigured as he embraces victory and death, and another mural depicts infantrymen marching off to battle. The inscription does not criticize these men for wasting their talent and education as soldiers. Rather, the walls memorialize and praise the students: “They crossed the sea crusaders keen to help the nations battling in a righteous cause.”

With these memorials, Harvard instructs us to fight if we advocate war, and not to advocate war if we are not willing to fight.

There is another explanation for why 31 percent of students want war, but refuse to fight. That reason is indifference, and it is every bit as harmful as elitism. Indifference leads people to make thoughtless decisions about the lives of others. An indifferent person does not think about the consequences of war in Afghanistan, or Sudan, or wherever it eventually takes place. When asked whether he wants U.S. military retaliation, the indifferent student says “yes” without hesitation. But when asked whether he’d be willing to serve, he is no longer indifferent. When it is his life that is to be risked, he actually thinks about the dangers of war and decides that they pose too great a risk. In a democracy, this type of indifference is dangerous because public opinion shapes national policies. The indifferent American’s thoughtless approval of war sends American soldiers to die without purpose.

The issue here is not whether military action is the right or wrong response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on America. Harvard students of the past knew the hypocrisy of advocating war and then refusing to serve. It is time that 31 percent of today’s students realized this. When the privileged call for war but refuse to fight, the powerless are drafted to fight in their place. This manipulation of the poor and uneducated undermines the equality that America is supposed to represent.