Certainly your understanding of quantum mechanics won't be affected by your religious or political views. But in so many subjects, from Government to English to Biology, professors will have the chance to pass off their own liberal opinions as fact, as part of the essential knowledge within a discipline.

Professors have become adept at blending objective and subjective statements until students can't tell which is which. At Harvard, where respect for professors becomes transformed into a kind of hero worship, students eagerly accept professorial pronouncements as the new Gospel.

I generally hold nothing but contempt for Harvard liberals, but I'd like to grudgingly praise them for their recognition that what we teach in our schools is in fact a political question. What I hate is their crass politicization of the whole process of learning. Another day, another editorial.

Myth 2: Harvard teaches you how to think, and not what to think.

Although this is patently untrue, Harvard students will encounter this falsehood at every turn of their undergraduate careers. Harvard teachers and administrators like to emphasize the process of scholarship and reasoning, saying that professors teach students how to research and how to construct an argument.

The problem with this myth is that the best teaching is done by example. Harvard professors teach us how to think by sharing their own thought processes. Students eager to learn (and get good grades) adopt not just the thought processes, but the conclusions, of their professors. Who can blame them? They have little choice in the matter. There's nobody around to show them that these same tools of rational discourse and assiduous research can yield entirely different results.

Myth 3: Harvard is a veritable Garden of Diversity, through which young Adams and Eves can romp in diverse ways, playing with many diverse animals and eating diversely delicious foods.

This myth is sort of like a Crimson "Inside the Houses" article, writ large to apply to all of Harvard. But Harvard doesn't nurture diversity; it destroys it. Of course, Harvard has all the trappings of superficial diversity--people of different skin colors, sexual orientations, national and state origins. But it lays siege to the most important diversity of all: diversity of opinion.

"Peer pressure liberalism" forces conservatives to give up their opinions in order to make friends and fit in. Pressure from one's fellow students to toe the party line can be even more effective than the indoctrination carried out by the professors.

Quite simply, it's just easier to be a liberal at Harvard. As a first-year, you'll find yourself in unfamiliar surroundings, anxious about your academic future and your social life. Being conservative is just another thing to worry about, another hurdle to jump. Most people will say that it's not worth the trouble. But fighting for what you believe in is always worth the trouble.

You may have the same reaction to this editorial that I had to the strange letter from my mother's friend. But if you haven't been filled with the liberal platitudes, if you're still capable of thinking for yourself at the end of your Harvard experience, you will understand that I wasn't a crazy, paranoid fundamentalist.

You'll just realize that I was right.

David B. Lat '96 is well-loved by the members of AFARM.