Thus, when I answered that it was not difficult to intellectually intimidate David Reisman, all conversation at the party stopped. I could see the eyes of the brilliant young man in front of me dilate. I watched him choke slightly on his scotch as he feebly mumbled something about not being aware of that. My only way out of such an impasse was to go into the bathroom of the small suite with the hope that the discussion which I had stopped would resume by the time I had refilled my glass with ice and scotch.

As I left New York that night, I reflected on what I had seen, and the meaning of being a Harvard man. Undoubtedly part of the problem of looking at a Harvard man from an outsider's point of view can be related to a long, ingrained geographical and cultural sense of provincialism that is part of the ethos absorbed by those who grow up in the middle and far Wests.

But in a deeper and more human sense, Harvard is an ideal more than an institutional reality. Like any other utopian ideal, Harvard has become an absolute value which is referred to by the non-Harvard man when he feels that he or his institution is not living up to the highest conceivable ideals of the life of the mind. Harvard also resembles utopias because it is seen as a place where the normal pressures affecting ordinary college teachers are not present-a recurrent story told to me by peers at the conventions involved Harvard's indifference towards publication. The moral of this story was always the same: when you reach the height of Olympus, you no longer have to worry about such trivial matters as "publishing or perishing." You no longer have to build those statelier mansions for your soul. You can have a quiet stall in Widener library and merely be.

As a Harvard man who is still looking for a job, who in many ways feels bound to an idea of America which a Harvard identity (and a Marine identity) both occlude, I have truly come upon a unique dilemma in my experience. As I enter the payrolls of my chosen profession, am I to be forever plagued by this Harvard identity? Is it forever to come between me and a proper human relationship with those equally or even more gifted? Or have I become encased in a convenient suit of armor that will be very useful for protection against the infighting and backbiting for which academics are so notorious?

Or does being a Harvard man convey to the unwelcoming possessor of that title an active sort of responsibility which demands of him that he live up to that identity? Being from Harvard, you know that what is worshipped is the ideal, the abstraction, and not the living diurnal embodiment of Harvard. Yet when you turn outside the University, you see yourself again and again being personally identified with it. Ultimately, you realize that you have been entrapped willy-nilly by that identity which others have projected from themselves upon you. The only solution you can properly resign yourself to under these conditions is to live up to the ideal while denying that the actual Harvard of any given moment is any more than an approximation of it.