Adams House Apparatchiks

A defense of the indefensible usually makes for amusing arguments. So far, defenders of interhouse restrictions in Adams House have explained, most persuasively: “Life isn’t always fair,” “Harvard students can’t always get what they want,” “It’s a tough life” and “Shut the crap up.”

But Dartboard would like to focus on the most pernicious fallacy haunting this debate, one succinctly put by letter-writer Bram J. Levy ’04: “Something’s amiss when millions of people can’t find clean water or adequately feed their families, and we whine about our dining halls.” This argument squelches consideration of any quality-of-life issue at Harvard if consistently applied: Are the treadmills at the MAC inadequate and not stacking up to those provided to varsity athletes? Let’s just be thankful for the treadmills we have, because some people don’t have any! Is that government TF who starts every section with fits of giggles and high-level consultations with the section pet not explaining the material? Let’s just be thankful for the educational opportunities we have! And shut the crap up!

All of this is refuted by the simple observation that Harvard students pay for what they get, or in the case of Adams dining hall, what they don’t get. Therefore, it is quite a stretch to equate taking food from Adams with stealing, as Christopher A. Lamie ’04, an Adams House resident, does. The “let’s all be glad we have food” self-righteousness may masquerade as conscientious consideration of life’s admittedly more important problems like starvation in the Third World, but it really arises from indulgence and provincialism: the singular condition of parents paying for everything—room, board, books and classes—thus rendering the quality of goods and services received for the most part irrelevant to the student. As long as Mom and Dad are the ones footing the bill, students have little incentive to care much about bad food and bad TFs.It reminds Dartboard of when he was six years old, reading story books about the real world: “There’s the nice police officer who keeps us safe. There’s the nice doctor, who takes care of us when we’re sick.” Everyone is always nice, and no one is ever paying them for what they do. Dartboard hopes that, when students themselves are shelling out for their food, they will be more discerning customers. After all it’s a tough life, and when you’re paying for what you want, you should get it.

-LUKE SMITH '04