News

Garber Privately Tells Faculty That Harvard Must Rethink Messaging After GOP Victory

News

Cambridge Assistant City Manager to Lead Harvard’s Campus Planning

News

Despite Defunding Threats, Harvard President Praises Former Student Tapped by Trump to Lead NIH

News

Person Found Dead in Allston Apartment After Hours-Long Barricade

News

‘I Am Really Sorry’: Khurana Apologizes for International Student Winter Housing Denials

Letters

Letter to the Editor: On the Clubs that Divide Us

By Peter D. Dane

To the editor:

It seems to this old graduate that the University’s goal, over many years and with considerable effort, has been to make this place a fair one which also fairly represents every human aspect of our world writ large. Does it make any sense, after having assembled this many-hued, multi-sex, polyglot horde, to encourage them not to act for all in adding, without reservation, the value of their diverse voices but rather to carve themselves up into like-kind groups that wager, at least partially, against the greatest possible common good?

To all my friends, this observation: avoid like the plague any exclusive places—in fact, all of them. Learn to live, straight-up, with your fellow human beings without the benefit of any presumed authority or allegiance or borrowed pride. Lastly, to hell with tribalism. We see its ill effects everywhere. Why should we buy into, however modestly, the petty or actual evils that it brings? Indeed, we should not.


Peter D. Dane ’69 is a consultant living in Cambridge.

Want to keep up with breaking news? Subscribe to our email newsletter.

Tags
Letters