Redmond Self-Righteous

To the editors:

Concerning Kamil Redmond's "Looking Out for Number One," (Opinion, Jan. 21), I must raise several objections.

Like several opinion pieces that have been published in The Crimson since the vote to return grapes to the dining halls and the election of Beth A. Stewart '00 and Samuel C. Cohen '00 to lead the Undergraduate Council, Redmond's comments reeked of self-righteousness. Instead of treating with respect those who disagree with her, Redmond treats us as small children to be lectured and informed that we are bad. Instead of putting forward a rational, ethics-based argument for Harvard students' involvement in the world around us, she sternly reminds us that we have such obligations. It is this same self-righteousness that has provoked the "Harvard Students First" backlash that brought grapes back and kept Redmond out of the council vice president's chair.

I grant Redmond that we as Harvard students do have obligations to others. I was always taught, and firmly believe, that from those to whom the most has been given, the most is expected. However, I disagree with Redmond's leap from the idea that we have obligations to our fellow humans to the idea that those obligations require us to elect a "progressive" council president and vice president to fulfill them for us.

Rather, I believe we are capable of fulfilling those obligations in ways we choose and that will have a direct and knowable impact on others, such as volunteering through Philips Brooks House or any other of the myriad of opportunities that exist for community service on this campus. All these forms of helping others are infinitely more effective and important than any actions based upon abstract ideas of justice can be. What's more, by keeping the fulfillment of social obligations at the individual level, those who disagree with the "progressive" agenda can help others as they please and not have another's morality thrust upon them. I am sure Redmond would not want any conservatives to use the Undergraduate Council as a tool to force their views on sexual morality upon the campus; why then is it acceptable for her and other "progressives" to use the council to force their views on economic morality on the campus?

Redmond and her associates must learn that not all agree with their moral views and that those who do not are not ignorant or selfish individuals to be bludgeoned into towing the line that Redmond would draw. BRADLEY L. DAVIS '00   Jan. 22, 1998