Day 3: Monday Oct 2nd
Well, the three bears never materialised and we’ve actually seen two other people in our building although they seem less engaging than most of the people we meet. Maybe because they, unlike us, are not on holiday; they are living ‘normal’ lives; making breakfast, going out to work, coming home, sleeping. Repeat.
It’s a beautiful day so we decide to walk to Harvard, about 3 miles: another cesspit of learning, art, literature and knowledge no doubt. First stop when we get there, the Harvard Book Store. Jane walks in and time slows down.
I see a book on ‘Surviving Trump’, consider taking a picture of the cover and then see a small notice advertising a talk and book-signing with its author, E J Dionne, here in Harvard tonight. It’s hosted by Michael Sandel, an American philosopher and writer who often broadcasts on BBC Radio 4 and who strikes me as a person who is always listening, always considering, always thinking, always questioning. I guess that’s what philosophers do but I suspect there’s little room in the current, collective consciousness for such unproductive pursuits?
Harvard is infectious too. I can smell opportunity, hope, history, power, excitement and possibilities in the air. And the smell of money and the privilege that goes with it. Mind you the smell of coffee is here too. In the lobby of the Science Faculty the range of ‘artisan’ coffees and teas is incredible. The latest thing (well, latest to me anyway) involves clear glass tea pots (I guess that’s probably an out-dated term now) which enables the consumer of said beverage to gaze thoughtfully at the infusion as it, well, infuses, before your very eyes, thus increasing the anticipation, the ‘pre-enjoyment’, enormously. Just go with it eh? When in Harvard.
The students walk purposefully from one building to another clutching their bundles of knowledge and possibilities in one hand, their infusions in the other. Knowledge and power; weapons of the future to be handled with caution. Not always used so wisely of course. Perhaps the elite do have a lot to answer for? But that’s not the fault of education or knowledge or ‘wisdom’ per se surely, just misuse of the weapons in the ‘wrong’ hands? Knowledge doesn’t kill people; people kill people etc. Who has the ‘right’ hands anyway? Vote for them.
Maybe it’s a tad naïve but JFK (Harvard graduate in 1940) seemed to wear his privilege, wealth and education with humility. Probably easier than wearing disadvantage, poverty and ignorance with humility it’s true. But no-one chooses their heritage or inheritance. He could have just lived the life of a rich young playboy but he chose to stand up for what seemed to be socialist, humanitarian ideas tinged with good old-fashioned US, individualistic entrepreneurship. He just never really got enough time to see how that might work. The US now has at the helm a more ‘typical billionaire’ (if such a creature exists) who somehow managed to corral the support of those classes who might in the past have voted for JFK. Go figure, as they say with such economy of words round here. Hopefully Michael Sandel and E J Dionne might shed some light on the darkness this evening? From almost everyone we meet on our trip we are to receive almost universal apologies for Trump. But I guess, to paraphrase Dorothy, when all said and done, this sure ain’t Kansas Toto.
We get the A back downtown to complete the Freedom Trail. We almost make it. Bunker Hill turns out to be a hill too far. I think we won that one? Depends who you ask. Lunch wins that particular battle today and we dine watching reports of the Las Vegas shooting on the TV. The ‘guns don’t kill people; people kill people’ debate continues. It’s a curious, circular piece of rhetoric that by continued use seems to have developed its own, unquestioned logic, avoiding deep scrutiny.
“…too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought..”… Hmm?
Back to Harvard at 7pm for the book signing: ‘One Nation After Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not-Yet Deported’ by E J Dionne, JR.
We take our seats in the First Parish Church in Harvard Square to worship at the altar of knowledge and learning. It’s an echo chamber without doubt and once again the rarefied aroma of the ‘educated’, the ones who are on the side of ‘right’ mingles with whatever that smell of old churches is: cold guilt, warm hearts, damp walls? I’m at home amongst these liberals and these views. I’m one of them. I’m comfortable here. But for some reason I feel the need to challenge ‘them’ too, to challenge the moral high ground that seems to be exclusively inhabited by the liberal left; the unshakeable feeling that ‘we’re right’. Cognitive dissonance is not that fashionable now, debate seems too polarised.
Messrs Sandel and Dionne deliver what we all want to hear and what we all know to be ‘The Truth’. We feel the comradeship of agreement. All except for one brave soul who heads up the queue at the Q&A session. He voted for Trump he says and a frisson runs through the congregation. I enjoy a good frisson; a good shake-up. His questions are met with intelligent, measured and thoughtful replies by the preachers. Little is resolved of course. We stand in line to have our book signed and have a chat with E J about Jeremy Corbin, Bernie Sanders and Brexit (which feels like some far-off dispute in toytown at the moment), and scratch our collective heads.
Walk back home. Wine, scrabble, aching legs. All still a bit surreal. Marvellous.