A Compromising Position

Deval Patrick’s recent success epitomizes a path that Harvard seniors choose as they struggle between helping themselves and helping society. Going from consulting presentation to I-banking reception, idealistic social studies concentrators (and similar students) suit up for recruiters, and, in doing so, set themselves up to be sold to the highest bidder.

Perhaps, students hope, they can have their cake and eat it too. If they follow the socially acceptable path to success in politics or business, they can then use their lucre for good causes. The “Deval Patrick” hope is that you follow the rules, hang around the right people, embody what society considers “success,” and, by playing the game, you maximize your ability to change society for the better. It’s kind of like turning around in the final quarter to say, “Aha! I was actually on the other team and now I’m going to help them win!”

But although you might make a few easy points in the confusion—exposing Watergate or releasing the Pentagon Papers—that’s after putting the winning team up a 100. It just doesn’t make any sense. How can students give up the best years of their lives on the hope that, in half a century, they will be able to turn around and make up for lost time?

I’m not going to lie; I thought that was the way to go before I came here. The compromises aren’t that hard to make. Maybe I should guard my words so that I don’t hurt my chances in politics. Maybe I should join that final club, despite what they represent, to change them from the inside and make the connections that will help me change society in the future. And maybe I should take that high-paying corporate job because I’ve got nothing better to do and it will help position me for greater things in the future.

But to do any one of those things would be to score points against the teams we should be helping. The idea that we can climb up the long ladder of privilege and then kick it down is farcical. Such a notion could only exist at a place like Harvard, where socially conscious students feel the need to justify their extreme privilege. We’re young and we’re supposed to be idealistic, but too many Harvard students limit themselves to a “realistic” alternative that they don’t even understand. Too many of us define our ideals around ourselves and too few of us define ourselves around ideals.

The compromise logic assumes that the only way to make a change, to contribute in this world, is to be on top. Fortunately, the world isn’t only about the elite; I can sit at the Institute of Politics all day long shaking the hands of politicians, dignitaries and world leaders, but it’s not going to teach me anything about the real lives of billions of people. Students are willing to give a figure at the JFK Forum an hour of undivided attention, but how many of them spare a couple of minutes to consider illiterate people living on under $2 a day, or even Harvard janitors and dining hall workers? We can pretend that the small elite around Harvard is the whole world, but we’d just be wasting four years of our lives.

Once we realize that billions of people exist outside of our little bubble, we have to ask ourselves whether they need another businessman, politician, or lawyer who follows the socially acceptable compromise path.

For example, last summer’s immigration protests were hailed as the equivalent of the civil rights movement for latinos, but there was no Martin Luther King Jr. to lead the movement. Why? Because the leaders of the immigration movement were too distant from the lives that they were trying to serve. Most of the leaders were either born here or had lived in the U.S. for years. Having worked up to the top of the ladder, they were then trying to turn around and lead a population that they couldn’t even hope to represent. MLK never went into I-banking; the leaders of tomorrow will not have the credibility necessary to speak for the impoverished and the oppressed if they pursue the traditional paths to success.

So what should socially conscious students do? The answer can be found in the lives of the billions whom we rarely notice within the Harvard bubble. You won’t have to go far away to find them though. I wouldn’t ask you to search for the answers in Guatemala or China; you can start by talking to the people that serve you here at Harvard. If you are really daring, you can try to make it out to Dorchester, or even Mattapan.

The jobs you choose during recruiting season, if you’re not confident enough to go your own way, are the ones that will expose you to real problems and real people, not the bank accounts of millionaires. Teach for America and the Peace Corps are good examples of what more Harvard graduates should do. The pay is obviously not competitive, but the road to change is not paved with gold, and those that truly wish to do good do not expect a reward for their efforts.



Kyle A. de Beausset ’08, a Crimson editorial editor, is an environmental science and public policy concentrator in Leverett House. He is co-director of Students Taking on Poverty (STOP).