A Band-Aid for Bleeding Hearts

“UBS is one of the world’s leading investment banks,” a recent Crimson editorial informs its readers, “it manages assets worth well over $2 trillion.” And if those numbers do not render you speechless, another of UBS’s accomplishments, the editorial presumes, certainly will. Apparently, by arranging what some hope to be China’s largest ever stock offering, “the bank plays an important role in underwriting the supporters of Sudan’s genocidal government.”

And with that note, the chanticleers of self-righteous indignation sound their call—nearly 900 hundred tiresome words long—to action.

“Divest from Sudan!” or, more recently, “from Burma too!” the choruses one after another, in perpetual refrain, raise, striking so high a pitch that few politically-sensitive observers withhold their applause. But this tired routine cannot—and should not—remain above reproach. This bleeding-heart activism is not mere well-intentioned, innocuous idealism, but potentially a cause of harm—not, thankfully, to the benighted peoples the campaigners ostensibly seek to help—but to their own society.

This self-congratulatory student activism, typified by such officious petition-writing, fosters a pernicious habit of moral sloth and validated pride. These bad habits, easily formed and even more easily justified, make our own politics more bitter, more boastful, and less humane.

Unsurprisingly, these self-styled moral paragons select an investment bank to impugn—a target fit for the coward or the sycophant too fearful or too flattering not to pander to popular prejudices. Despite the competitive investment-bank recruiting process and their selective hiring, it is de rigueur for Harvard opinion-makers to cast aspersions at them. As they submit their résumés in droves, Harvard students only sheepishly admit their interest in finance, repeatedly avow not to “sell out,” and abjure any attraction to filthy lucre.

Surely, earning a pay check, in whichever way one chooses to do so, comes with its attendant drudgery: It is the fate of man to earn his keep by toil. Perhaps that is why activism comes so effortlessly to Harvard students—they acutely realize the effort of employment and the comparative ease of stroking one’s ego while greedily claiming the moral high ground.

The ivory-tower activist only need reach for his keyboard, or, if he feels adventurous that day, grab a placard and march in the square, to soothe his weary conscience worn down by the moral baggage of upper-middle-class luxury. Common sense approved by custom once deemed the best goods to be those most difficult to attain—the postmodern Academy has, thanks to the e-mail petition (located at www.UBSpetition.org, if you are curious), overthrown that logic.

But this activism’s meddling morality, for all of its ease, most inexcusably errs in its pride. What sort of imperialist hubris, unbefitting of our University’s commitment to moral neutrality and relativism, can claim to dictate proper political behavior to the indigenous rulers of third-world states? No conscientious man would dare defend Sudan—or Burma—and their dastardly deeds, and rightfully so. But the implications of such posturing, by intimidating investment banks, shaking down corporations, and guilt-tripping college administrators, bode extremely ill for our politics.

Political solutions, no matter how uncontroversial or widely supported, can never be flawless and exact. The law of unintended consequences, in so complex a subject as human beings, ensures that no plan will be foolproof. Such a realization should not force us subsequently to withhold our moral outrage against the Darfur atrocities. But to recognize the abomination is not to discover the cure. Surely, the intricate market mechanisms, for which the Darfur petitioners think they have fully accounted, will not operate as predictably as they do in theory.

By asserting Americans’ moral obligation to petition for divestment, these activists confuse and contort politics. The obligation—to sign a petition and forget about it—so insignificant and so menial, provides only a delusion of altruism; the radical expectations—that the just policy can be surgically and indirectly effected by economic manipulation—only sets us up for disappointment and disillusionment.

Politics should be the preserve of reason, where arguments about the common good and the individual good are entertained, disputed, and resolved. It should not have to shudder at the specter of busybody protestors and petition-signing extortionists. Moral indignation is an important passion for politics—it serves as a corrective to abstract cold reason gone astray. But it is nevertheless extremely powerful and should be used wisely. We should hope and pray for the abject of Darfur or Myanmar; but we cannot immanentize the eschaton—bring Heaven to earth—in hoping to ameliorate theirs and every other situation needing improvement.

We must recognize and respect the limits of politics, which means accounting for our own limits—of time, resources, and moral fallibility. To do otherwise, to insist that we can save the world and right every evil whether by the pen or the sword, we set ourselves up for failure, radicalize politics, and, by leaving unrealistic expectations unrealized, engender bitterness and cynicism in politics.

Politics is not a simple science. We would do well then to resist those ideologues who promise paradise through policies of greatest simplicity, ease, and comfort.

To the student activists: We should help where we can. But your fine-sounding sayings and high-minded petitions only help yourselves.



Christopher B. Lacaria ’09 is a history concentrator in Kirkland House. His column appears regularly.