Green Fascism at Harvard

Harvard is a truly disgusting place. Will Durant has tossed about an expression - "the scourge of half-educated youth" - which couldn't be a more apt description of the wretched student body combined, of course, with the Harvard "faculty".

The student newspaper, the Harvard Crimson, recently ran a little green Inquisition. It sought to expose all faculty members for their choice of automotive transportation. First read some of the excerpts:

The Harvard Showroom Is Open

In Faculty, hybrids are popular, but Subarus take the cake; in VES, there's even a Suburban

What happens when an academic must descend from the highest reaches of the Ivory Tower and, well, buy a car?

The Crimson surveyed the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ wheels this semester and came to a few tentative conclusions: Priuses are common, suspected Porsche owners don’t want to be interviewed, and, as for the most academic of automobiles? It’s the Subaru Forester.

Taken together, the roster of cars—and other modes of transport—employed by Harvard professors sheds a bit of light on the Faculty’s distinctive character: part snooty and part down-to-earth, part self-conscious and part green-conscious. None of those attributes, it turns out, are mutually exclusive.

GREEN ON THE RISE

"I drive a Chevy," John R. Stilgoe proclaims. “It makes me sound like a common man.” The famously quirky visual and environmental studies professor says his black ’96 Suburban helps him blend into rural America on his annual summer field trips into the heartland.

He’s also quick to note that he doesn’t actually drive his massive SUV (city fuel economy: 11-12 miles per gallon) to campus—just from his house south of Boston to a train station. "If you reduce your carbon footprint at the house, you can drive whatever you want," Stilgoe says.

As for luxury cars, the 223 professors who responded to the survey seemed a bit hesitant to reveal that they owned them. One of the few who did, historian Sugata Bose, said in an e-mail: "I am not sure I should reveal this information to a Crimson reporter, but I drive a BMW 325xi. I hope very much that Harvard students will approve."



Oh, where to start. Everything about Harvard is ludicrous; every little story, incident, heck even the diction (e.g. heteronormative) emanating from Harvardians provides springboards to a bottomless pit of blog material - sort of akin to the New York Times.

The entire premise reeks of arrogance. Why is anyone's car the business of a student newspaper? Where's the liberality? What happened to the concept of pro-choice? Where's the right to privacy? Killing an unborn baby is nobody's concern, but the fuel efficiency of one's car is...???

Now take for instance this bottomhole, professor John R. Stilgoe, who is spotlighted as a token driver of an earth-heating Suburban. The guy is not even really an outlier in that he is "quick to note that he doesn’t actually drive his massive SUV (city fuel economy: 11-12 miles per gallon) to campus..."

So even the gas guzzler owner is a staunch environmentalist. Or at least he is AFRAID to say that burning gas is not a crime against the galaxy. Tell those little pissant Inquisitors what they want to hear!

The jerk also says that driving a Chevy makes him sound like a common man. That it helps him blend in rural America. Note that he is NOT a common man...he only sounds that way to the undiscerning. I am sorry, but this idea about blending in in rural American bespeaks supreme arrogance. You'd think an über-educated man with his vast stores of knowledge would be able to easily wend his way through Nebraska. You'd think he wouldn't need a costume to do whatever BS, tax-payer funded research it is that he does. They make it like Red State America is on another planet; ivory tower professors had best don spacesuits when condescending upon NASCAR country. Believe me, the most chauvinistic, self-unconscious bigots are to be found on college campuses like Harvard. And of course they masquerade as "liberals", "progressives", and crusaders for "diversity". They literally see 40%-50% of Americans as ignorant rubes - as mere commoners.

The dimly lit journalists of today's Big Media are remarkable for their inability to in any way challenge clichéd answers. Feed them a line (that strikes the right chords) and they will move on to the next, scripted question. It's apparent from how they swallowed Prof. Stilgoe's balderdash, that these aspirant little Commie journalists are just as incompetent as their incumbent peers at the New York Times, CNN, etc.

If they were really concerned about burnt gasoline raping Father Nature, they'd have pressed Stilgoe about his rural jaunts. How does a Harvard student not understand that a Suburban driven all over rural American IS NOT OFFSET by short trips to a commuting train station the two days a week, and seven months a year, a professor pontificates on campus. Do they not realize how far rural America is from Boston? A roundtrip to Manhattan is 470 miles from Stilgoe's house, that's about 40 gallons of gas right there - and rural America still ain't even close to the Big Apple.

So I googled this Stilgoe guy and let's just say he is one whacked-out dude. Look at the ridiculous, made-up courses he teaches.

I was about to send him an antagonistic email but found this on his website.



It reads "no" on email. What an advanced, progressive sort of guy we have here teaching at Harvard! Maybe I will drop by his house in nearby Norwell. If someone competent and documented will watch my kids for less than $15 per hour, then I promise to pay the professor, what should be, a very entertaining visit.

And mind you, this is the only professor with the gumption to own a real "SUV". Clearly he lacks the pebbles to say, "Hey, listen you little snot-nosed twenty year-old wannabe journalist, I'll drive whatever the hell I want..."



More from the Crimson:

The Crimson surveyed the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ wheels this semester and came to a few tentative conclusions: Priuses are common, suspected Porsche owners don’t want to be interviewed, and, as for the most academic of automobiles? It’s the Subaru Forester.

Forester ownership transcends the disciplines, from anthropology to African American studies and from English to history—with at least 15 FAS Forester owners in all. "Half of Cambridge" drives the $22,000-and-up cross between a station wagon and an SUV, anthropologist Theodore C. Bestor muses.

Now I don't consider the Subaru Forester an SUV - at least for Harvard people. Here's why, it is a Gay-Mobile. Go google it, it is the number one, most popular vehicle in the gay community. So while the geeks at the Harvard Crimson have outed it as the most popular car for demigods on campus, in my book, it doesn't really count.

For one thing, it's likely pure cover. Hypocrites that want the space and comfort of a larger car figure they can buy the Gay-Mobile and stave off criticism. Obviously the ruse works and it reminds us that, all mocking aside, Harvard professors aren't completely stupid.

Just the other day, at my local library, I pulled up next to a Subaru Forester. I would never have taken any notice if I weren't in the middle of writing this post. On the bumper was a sticker that read, "Love is all it takes to make a family". Aha!

On my way into the building, I held the door open for two incredibly wide, short-haired, earring-less women who were exiting with a small child. Of course, they got right into the Forrester.

And this brings me back to Prof Stigloe. I wanted to ask him if he was really lying more to the Crimson or to himself. Does he in fact give a hoot about environmentalist nonsense or is he kidding himself about why he really drives the Suburban? I'll bet he drives it for the same reason I do. It is an awesome ride. It's more comfortable than my living room furniture. Perhaps he cloaks his true feelings with this elitist crap about blending into rural America. But more likely, he just doesn't feel like taking cross-country trips in an uncomfortable, tiny lawnmower of a vehicle.

I don't blame him. Once you get used to a Suburban, driving any other car feels like a Flintstone mobile. Then again, there may be no genuine dishonesty - he may just be a flat-out, self-justifying hypocrite. With all the deflection going on, it's just too hard to tell and really quite beside the point.



Okay, so here's the secret, if you want to teach at Harvard and drive in comfort, then hide behind empathy for gays. If you want to drive a globe-heating Suburban, tell the pissant Crimson reporter that you need it for your field research - you know, to blend in with the lumpen masses. Even though these kiddie Inquisitors have dubious standing in the first place, and are obviously short on brains, they'll be sure to approve of the morally superior tack and the bigotry towards the common man.

As for these professors I ask:

Where's your integrity? Where's the intellectual honesty? ¿Dondé están los cohones?

Reporters also spotted at least four Porsches across campus. Various attempts to figure out who owned them were unsuccessful. Chemistry professor Stuart L. Schreiber, the subject of a 1994 Crimson profile that featured his Porsche, would not comment for this article.

Why are Porche driving professors afraid to tell the little sh*t reporters that they will drive whatever the bleep they want to drive?

As for luxury cars, the 223 professors who responded to the survey seemed a bit hesitant to reveal that they owned them. One of the few who did, historian Sugata Bose, said in an e-mail: "I am not sure I should reveal this information to a Crimson reporter, but I drive a BMW 325xi. I hope very much that Harvard students will approve."

He hopes the students "approve"????

This is insane. It's the students who should, at least theoretically, logically, and historically, be seeking approval from the professors.

Let me get this straight. Harvard students, who hemorrhage $50,000 of taxpayer and parental money EACH YEAR, are questioning the propriety of owning a $50,000 car that a grown adult buys with his own earned income???

Anyway, why should I defend these professors? They obviously treat the students like customers (who are never wrong) with their pandering, grade inflation, and whatnot. The prof's lack the fortitude to defend themselves. They lack the brains and/or stomach to stand up to Cambridge groupthink. From where I sit, they barely merit any respect, even from the little pissants of the Harvard Crimson. In essence, the teachers are really just aged students themselves - and are even more demented. They're crazier because they've been in the Cambridge echo-system a whole lot longer.

I don't quite know what to do with the dizzying arrogance of Harvard students. They are mere children. They have never worked in the real world. They have never paid any taxes or any household bills. They've never procreated. They've never served in the military. Collectively they haven't done anything that history has adjudged to be within the domain of adulthood.

Their sense of moral superiority coudn't be more baseless or more nauseating.



No doubt soon the Crimson reporters will be following professors into bathrooms, noting how much paper they use and how many gallons they flush.

The "scourge of half-educated youth"?

Even for Harvard, Will Durant may have overestimated the fraction.