What we have happening right now is an attempt by one man and his cult following to destroy one of the most successful enterprises in history and for no reason that makes sense. The enterprise I am referring to is Harvard University and, by extension, its essence and its ecosystem.
Harvard’s essence is its devotion to the ideals of the Enlightenment: such things as freedom of thought, intellectual curiosity, rigorous thinking, scientific discipline and an openness to new ideas. (I thank Paul Krugman for this listing in “The Economic Consequences of Destroying Harvard.”)
Harvard’s ecosystem is the fruit of the intellectual ferment found in its Nobel Prizes (52 winners among its faculty); its patents (over 5,800 owned by Harvard); and its advancements in a number of key fields, including physics, medicine, engineering and business — for example, the programmable computer, the defibrillator, the syphilis test, research on pandemic prevention and dementia, and hack-resistant computer networks. (Thanks to Dr. Steven Pinker for this information in his New York Times op-ed, “Harvard Derangement Syndrome.”)
As you can imagine, Harvard’s cutting-edge research draws the best minds from the world over. Without government money, much of this research would be impossible.
Why would Donald Trump and his “Make America Great Again” followers want to end this? One major reason given is that the Republican Party is anti-intellectual. Its position, in effect, is that “the golden eggs are fine, but the goose must go.” This is absurd, of course. It only makes sense, in a perverted way, if the goose and its freedom/science/democracy stand in the way of grabbing autocratic power. It’s as if the MAGA mob has decided that the only way forward is backward, before there was science, freedom of thought and our Constitution. This seemed to have been suggested in JD Vance’s remarks before the National Conservatism Conference in 2021 — that, to rebuild our nation along the lines of White Christian nationalism, the universities must be destroyed. (Thanks to Heather Cox Richardson, “Letters from an American,” May 25). This position is an insult both to Christianity and to the Constitution.
Frederick Longacre
Hockessin
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
