A SHOT AT THE "PARTING SHOT"

To the Editors of the Crimson:

Garrett Epps' "Parting Shot" paean to the virtues of the C student and his expose of the moral turpitude and inhumanity of A students, warmed my anti-intellectual heart. It resurrected for me the treasured sage counsel of Sen. Roman Hruska, on the occasion of President Nixon's nomination of Harold Carswell to the Supreme Court, that we need more mediocre men in positions of power.

Mr. Epps' passionate analysis is a welcome call to arms for those of us who wish to combat the hordes of summas and magnas who are trying to "squeeze the life out of us." I have one nagging question, however: why does he choose to canonize the C student? Surely if virtue increases positively with distance from Group I, aren't D and E students even more in the state of grace? I am also slightly puzzled about why Mr. Epps, who was struck with his anti-Harvard revelations back in his freshman year during the Strike, remained for three subsequent years at this institution which he so percipiently recognized as a heartless manufacturer of oppressors (I was not so fortunate to be enlightened early--a senior at the time of the Strike, it proved terribly difficult to unburden myself of the delusion inculcated by four years that my education was worth something). Perhaps he selflessly devoted his last three years to missionary work among those naive and misguided souls hurtling headlong into the depraved trap of intellectual achievement. He should in such a case be applauded, since be sacrificed his own purity (certainly his virtue would have been less compromised had he transferred to an unaccredited junior college, or more righteously still, quit altogether and thumbed his nose at academe) that others might be saved.

No, Mr. Epps should not be slighted for failing to follow the logic of his beliefs: there are few of us so pure that we have not succumbed to the lurid temptation of distinction somewhere along the way. Rather he is to be congratulated, if not for embodying the mediocrity he so persuasively apotheosizes, at least for pointing out the possibility of salvation to those callow freshmen destined to follow him, by warning them of the ineluctable moral degradation which will infect them should they get an A. It's not too late for them to flunk out and secure their status as good guys. Let not the technocratic brutes of the university power structure captiously accuse Epps of paranois, juvenile rantings, or hubris in reverse. In the august company of other devotees of mediocrity such as Spiro Agnew he has dedicated himself to the fight to dethrone A students and turn Harvard's clock back. Dick Betts   Harvard '69, Teaching Fellow   in Government