Fun Czar

Yes, yes, I've seen the story about the new Harvard "fun czar." I wouldn't say that Harvard is actually unfun in the way that a sharp, stabbing pain or Harvard Law School is unfun. Rather, it's more a case where other colleges seem to be really and truly fun experiences that people look back upon fondly years later while Harvard is kind of blah. A lot of cold weather and wishing HUDS would serve popcorn chicken more often. But of course that has less to do with lack of czars than with the fact that the student body consists of almost shockingly unfun people. Most of those folks, I think, would be unfun no matter where they went. Indeed, they're probably happier being surrounded by lots of lame people. But from my perspective it kind of sucked. I like my post-graduation life a lot more. My younger cousin and then my younger brother are both at America's premiere safety school right now, and though I'll talk trash as much (if not more) than the next guy, it's not at all an unreasonable decision.

At any rate, I'll be interested in reading Ross' book, though based on the publisher's description I couldn't agree less with his assessment. Who cares about "the trumping of intellectual rigor by political correctness and personal ambition?" Things seemed, you know, rigorous enough. Not as rigorous as they could have been, sure, and maybe some other colleges and universities have more rigor, but Harvard (and, I assume, just about every other major American university) involves a lot more intellectual rigor than any non-academic pursuit I've witnessed. It just doesn't seem like that big a deal. I mean, no what's Ross doing? Writing a blog just like me. Where's the intellectual rigor in that?