Letter to the Editor: On the Clubs that Divide Us

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.