Final clubs are an intoxicating experience. Since the start of freshman year, they have kept me drunk: drunk with enough alcohol to kill a small country, but also drunk with a sad sense of social elitism. Despite many moral misgivings, however, I still find myself—now a senior—standing at their doorsteps and date events, indulging my guilty pleasure. I keep going because I lack a clear conviction as to why I should not.
I often feel that I operate in two different worlds here at Harvard. In one, I find my favorite classmates and closest friends are those who challenge my opinions, make me engage important ideas, camp out in the dining hall to discuss issues much more complex than we would care to admit. They are the ones who, as I walk away, leave me dazed because they are, simply, so impressive. This world is my moral refuge—and in it there is no real place for my more unfortunate social tendencies.
Then there is my other world: the seedier social world, whose residents I find generally, though not universally, less remarkable, but whose company I seek out nearly every Saturday night. They roam in those eight imposing mansions that enshrine the mystique of the elite—admittedly debunked after meeting most of the members, but still somehow compelling every time I walk by. This world’s inhabitants and I share little to nothing in common—not gender, race, socioeconomic background, or unabashed self-entitlement, and certainly not a penchant for Nantucket Reds.
But despite my dissimilar profile—and my lofty, if disingenuous, rejection of their elitism—I must secretly derive some satisfaction from their world. Otherwise, I’d be spending every Saturday night with a beer, good conversation, and the good company of world number one, hanging out in some public space where we would probably be debating the moral qualms of all-male, elitist organizations. I wouldn’t be excited by the prospect of the next garden party or themed event. But I’m not hanging out in public spaces, and I am shamefully psyched for the Boxer Rebellion party.
It is not as though I am ignorant to the many complaints that have cropped up against final clubs over the past several years. I listen to the arguments about the injustice in supporting clubs that perpetuate privilege to the detriment of the 90 percent of unwelcome Harvard students, and I agree—even when a friend accuses me of causing male cronyism in financial institutions because I frequent final clubs (yes, me alone).
For the fourth time in my Harvard career, I’m watching as my male friends go through the clubs’ vicious processes, and for the fourth time, I’m disgusted. I watch their self-esteem ebb and flow on the vacillating whims of “the members.” I listen with horror—and a little awe—to stories about the extravagant trips taken by members and punches, and I listen with sympathy to complaints about the unfairness of a process that alienates a large majority of campus. In theory, I agree with all the charges. Yet I still go.
I’ve never been especially distressed that final clubs don’t allow women within their ranks. Sure, the explicit insult to half of the student body rubs me the wrong way, but in the end the same students—male and female—would inhabit them and the same would be excluded. Bee girls might merge with Fly guys, and the Isis could legitimate its bonds with the Delphic. But the change would be nominal. I still wouldn’t fit in—so, selfishly, I’ve never been passionate about extending membership.
It is more the blatant and embraced elitism that makes me wince. It is the 50-year-old stewards who serve these 20-year-old products of privilege; the boundaries of excess that become ever-widened; the women and non-members who grovel at clubs’ doors, reliant upon members for entry, drinks, entertainment, approval; and most importantly, the obliviousness of many members. That’s what makes me cringe—but sadly, not hard enough to make a real social sacrifice.
Moral cowardice is an ugly animal, particularly among professedly idealistic 20-year-olds. It lurks in us all, of course, waiting to prey on our often-juvenile vulnerabilities—weaknesses which mar an otherwise healthy sense of right and wrong. As we struggle to sift through innumerable conflicts of conscience, we often resign ourselves to compromise. We do just enough to maintain a façade of standing for something great, yet we do little enough to ensure that no sacrifice is needed—especially, it seems, if it might infringe on a thriving social life. But lacking mature resolve to do what is morally right is not a pardon; it is pathetic.
I am able to come down on the “right” side of the debate at the dinner table, yet I still reap the benefits of the “wrong” on the weekends. And at the end of the night, I feel the bad kind of drunk.
