To Be Moral

Harvard is, of course, an educational institution with an endowment of 1.5 billion, a winning football team, thirteen upperclass Houses, some Nobel laureates running loose, a new science center, a law school, and various other facilities, possessions, etc. which somehow adds up to being an integral part of an economic and political structure that in many ways determines (even orders) the lives of not only Americans, but many people the world over. And, here's the part I think is important; we the people on the Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility and our fellow students, are part of it. We can't but help to be.

A large share of Harvard students, and students like us, end up in positions of authority in that structure we are asking Harvard (that Harvard that doesn't include us) to oppose, to do the "moral" thing in regards to its investments and dealings with the Cambridge and world community. Do we know not only what we are asking Harvard, but what we are asking ourselves?

In my freshman year, elements of PALC and AFRO took over the offices of President Bok. Due to the fact I was doing an all-nighter, I was able to be a witness to all the developments from the very beginning (somewhere I have a tape recording of the first beckonings for help and aid broadcasted from Massachusetts Hall). As an impressionable freshman, I thought that finally, the "liberality" of Harvard-including its students-was to be demonstrated.

It wasn't.

I was struck by some of the hypocrisy of it all; for many students, it was a time of fun and games, marching about out of classes and eating Professor Guinier's doughnuts while not facing the central fact of the entire matter: that they were members of a class of people who had the highest level of material consumption in a society with a high level of material consumption, and their excesses had precipitated this crisis.

I remember asking one of my dormmates if he didn't see the dichotomy between the marchers' philosophy and their actions. I then asked the question whether these same Harvard students would accept a change in lifestyles so that such further exploitations by Gulf or other corporations wouldn't be possible. He couldn't see the point at all, and ran off to march and be "liberal". It's an easy thing to be a liberal when the implications of your liberality are some four thousand miles away. I went from room to room in my entry way turning off lights and stereos left on in the haste of my dormmates to get where the action was. It wasn't much of an embargo on Gulf oil, but at least I was consistent.

I think it is important for members of this committee to see the point my dormmate wasn't able to see: that when we are asking Harvard to change its investment patterns and to be more moral in its actions, we are asking ourselves the same things. Harvard can't be moral for us (that Harvard of the buildings, football teams, etc.), we have to be that way ourselves. If we tell Harvard to tell Gulf to quit exploiting foreign countries and suppressing people, we must face up to the fact that we are telling ourselves we must get along with lesser amounts of raw materials and products, and we must be moral in the distribution of the amounts we have left. If we insist that Harvard resist Con Ed's attempts to buy the Storm Mountain property, we must be aware of the effects of our actions. Not only will the ecology of the area be preserved, but a smaller capability for energy production (which represents a certain amount of produced goods) will also be maintained. How moral will we be in helping to decide who must limit consumption to make up for this energy deficit?

If the members of this committee become "paper liberals", if we do not discern the crucial point of our existence, we will be ineffective as in the past. Harvard still owns stock in Gulf, Gulf is still in Angola, and instead of the issues being clear-cut, Gulf is changing some of its methods so it is more difficult to see its exploitation in Africa and other parts of the world. I do not expect any miracles: to change Harvard so that not even we could change it from the course we wish to see it on if we should at any time become co-opted after we graduate from it will take a tremendous amount of intelligence, courage, luck, and support from our fellow students. As of now, I'm not overly optimistic. We weren't even able to end in an orderly fashion.

I've been disappointed with Harvard ever since my arrival in Harvard Yard that hot muggy September day which seems so long ago. Some of the disappointment has been in the fact I expected Harvard (now the buildings and the students) to do things for me: to in effect, show me the way. That can't be done; ultimately, I have to think for myself. I really don't know what is going to happen with, through, or by this committee, but I'm going to try to insure that something at least does: that when we, the students who are really what Harvard is all about, talk and act about corporate responsibility, we make sure that we'll apply it to ourselves when we leave the Harvard of the buildings and become part of those outside the ivy walls.

Veritas.

Now by the next meeting, I intend to know where Harvard has invested all of that 1.5 billion, and then...

J.D. Anderson '75 is a member of Dudley House.