Let Us Be Humble

It is no secret that Harvard undergraduates are believed to lack humility. Widely perceived as high-achievers but also entitled and elitist, we jokingly embrace this stereotype, often alluding to it in memes or self-deprecating humor. When asked where we go to college, we murmur “a school in Boston” as we believe that this is somehow less pretentious than the honest, straightforward “Harvard.” Such cosmetic charades are harmless; however, our lack of humility has translated into a lack of respect for the very things that we pretend to be modest about.

It is clear that we recognize that we will graduate Harvard with a valuable academic education, but we sometimes seem to forget whence this education comes. In the past semester, there have been a number of undergraduate protests against the denial of tenure to various Harvard professors. I have no specific opinion about any one of these cases and I have a great deal of respect for any Harvard faculty member and their body of work. But I do find it troubling, and — depending on my mood — almost comical, that 20-year olds with not even a bachelor’s degree yet think that they are qualified to opine on the scholarship worth of an academic — oftentimes more qualified even than a committee of tenured faculty, each of whom has striven for years to establish leadership positions in their chosen fields. And of course, the forcefulness extends beyond promotion decisions to termination demands, as, for example, in the insistence that a faculty dean be “removed” due to his choice of professional client.

In his remarkable “A Letter to the Director of the London School of Economics” penned in 1968 during the student protests at that institution, the philosopher Imre Lakatos, makes a distinction — that still resonates 50 years later — between student demands for free expression of complaints and criticism (including of academic matters) and student demands for power over appointments and syllabi. Lakatos views the former as entirely valid and justified, but the latter, he argues, “surreptitiously” converts a “revolt against academic paternalism into a political revolt against academic autonomy.” One may not agree in toto with Lakatos’ analysis, but the context in which he wrote is important: This was a man who had seen first hand the demands of Nazi students to suppress “Jewish-liberal- marxist influence” expressed in the syllabi, and later the efforts of the Lysenkoists and the Soviet Communist Party to murderously suppress dissenters in genetics research.

Today, the general sense of entitlement that we feel — “the coddling of the American mind,” as described by Greg Lukanioff and Jonathan D. Haidt — continues to be discussed by many academics and students alike. Lukanioff and Haidt discuss the increasingly common phenomenon of American college students demanding “protection” (i.e. trigger warnings) from words and ideas that they don’t like in the name of improving mental health. The duo argue that such systems of protection are not only deleterious to education and freedom of thought, but also harmful to students’ emotional well being. I will leave it to the reader to evaluate Lukanioff and Haidt’s claims, but one cannot deny that undergraduates today are pampered and cosseted by their institutions.

While I have yet to hear a Stanford student say that they “go to school in Palo Alto,” it is clear that these attitudes are not unique to Harvard students. No university is perfect. As students, we must not be apathetic or blindly compliant to every University policy, and it is important that we think critically and appropriately address problems when we see them. However, we must also be aware of our (lack of) stature and knowledge, and appreciate that we have much to learn from those who have paved the way for us to be here. As an old proverb states: “He who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool; shun him.” Let us know that we indeed know not, and be grateful that those who know are willing to educate us.

Aditi Sundaram ‘19 is a joint concentrator in Mathematics and Philosophy in Eliot House. Her column appears on alternate Wednesdays.