Operation Gen Ed Freedom

My, my, has this page been busy! Harsh words have been flying, and all of Harvard has been caught in the crossfire—it sure seems like everybody here has got an opinion about curricular review.

It’s time for some perspective, people. We’ve gotten so drawn into the nitty-gritty details of this proposal that we are all failing to see the big picture: If the new general education proposal passes, the terrorists will have won.

The guise of a broad education is just a red herring, if not a façade for promoting the terrorist agenda. We are in a state of war. We need to focus on the problem at hand: eradicating the unreasonable, ungodly, democracy-hating savages from the face of this Earth. These people do not listen to reason—they are religious extremists who only understand hatred. We have to fight fire with fire—not with a required half-course in each of seven unique fields.

Getting rid of these vermin would pave the way for democracy and free trade with the remaining non-terrorist people. We have a plan to do this and bring our boys home from Iraq, but I cannot tell you what it is. However I can give you an anonymous tip: General education is not included in this plan. The general education proposal is a direct obstacle in our righteous pathway. They call it “liberal arts” for a reason.

Moving on, let’s just take a look at the “Societies of the World” requirement. Whose bright idea was it to study backward civilizations where they don’t even have the wits about them to speak English? I don’t know about you, but my ancestors did not leave the Garden of Eden and travel a zillion miles on a boat just to get to America and have to learn about other people’s cultures. That is just what the terrorists want you to learn! If other cultures were so darn great, God would not have put all of the Indians on reservations.

Please do not think me uncompromising—I do firmly believe that the Core Curriculum needs one hell of a makeover. And, unlike some complainers who do nothing but nag but can never be satisfied, I have a solution. We need our education to promote important life skills.

For example, we ought to require every undergraduate to pass an armed combat test. That’s certainly relevant to our modern world and should be a proposed requirement in the field, “The United States and the World.” You would be astonished at the number of Harvard undergraduates who have never fired a semi-automatic firearm but can quote Hamlet. We need less of this touchy-feely stuff.

In fact, the education Harvard has been offering its undergraduates in the past decades has made them less likely to be wearing cargoes and riot gear and more likely to be unshaven and tear-gassed during a protest. Terrorism is a disease, and general education is a Typhoid Mary—don’t let it cough all over your patriotism. God bless America.



Sarah C. McKetta ’09, a Crimson editorial editor, is an anthropology concentrator in Winthrop House.