Harvard does have some intellectuals. Each of these groups attract some, but in some ways it feels like a fluke. Given the hostile environment to real thinking, students become "politic."

The politic are those who, despite their feelings on an issue, "just don't want to get into it." Maybe they feel the exchange of ideas will leave them where they are anyway and just create tension in a rooming group or a friendship. "It's just not worth it," they think, and so they are willing to step back and keep their ideas to themselves. They can see Harvard isn't the place where each existential moment deserves its own observations, where "what it all means" might be as important as the bottom line.

The intellectual high school senior probably self-selects away from Harvard and toward schools like Swarthmore. Imagine what you would think of a student who showed up as a pre-frosh and asked when the last time you were up late struggling with Wittgenstein's theories of games or Weber's predictions for the future of civilization--not just writing a response paper after skimming half the book, but really considering the challenges posed by these thinkers. Imagine if they asked if the triumphs and catastrophes, big and small, we face every day, even if we rush by and pretend not to see them, grabbed you with a thought and would not let go. What would you say? If a pre-frosh came up to you and asked about what the true nature of good is, the most common student response would be something flippant like "not this conversation" and change the subject, more often than not to the chorus of "I have so much work."

Maybe the undifferentiated mass of "work" we always talk about is the real problem. Where is the "learning from discussions with others" touted in those viewbooks? Does anyone ever carry conversation beyond section? When is the last time you got into a discussion with a roommate over reading for a class you don't have in common, or even one you do have in common? Hey, when is the last time you talked about anything with your roommates? Harvard often seems like an intellectual wasteland.

There are some reliable exceptions, such as this editorial page, some study groups at the IOP, the extraordinary tutorial and the really rare Core section that may live up to its billing as a class about "approaches to knowledge." Yet they are few and far between and seem rather the exceptions that prove the rule.

So, Swarthmore, Williams, maybe even Yale and the University of Chicago, you win. The lesson here is clear enough: no intellectuals need apply.

Adam I. Arenson '00-'01 is a history and literature concentrator in Lowell House. His column appears on alternate Thursdays.