Harvard Rules: The Struggle for the Soul of the World's Most Powerful University Book

This is the message I get over and over when I've read about Harvard over the years. It's a place for ambitious, driven, and overworked strivers, among both students and faculty. And in the middle of it all is a lot of overbearing self-congratulation, patting of one's own back, and sneering at those of us who have fewer arms, legs, and neurons than those within the Harvard community.

Reading it, I was reminded of the quote erroneously attributed to Peter Drucker: "If you can't measure it you can't manage it." But in Harvard's case, as is the case with many centers of ambition, if you can't measure it, it's not worth considering. (I am particularly struck by the similarity of the attitude of the young John Nash in 'A Beautiful Mind'. He did not pursue whatever intrigued him, but only problems that would bolster his reputation, and win him fame. The irony is that the Nash Equilibrium, an idea he tossed out and didn't do anything with after, and which was forgotten for a long time, finally won him that fame.)

At Harvard, there is a certain contradictory attitude in their work ethic: when faculty at any university get tenure, they are required to produce nothing, they are simply freed to think and work on 'big ideas.'

But the undergraduate students are driven mercilously, and are only taught by grad students. (I do not know if that has changed since this book was written; I am open to hearing from those in the Harvard community.) Most of my best ideas occurred when I was half-asleep in bed, drinking my morning coffee, or having a glass of wine at night. The word 'school' is related to the ancient Greek word for 'leisure.'

So the book is a critique of Larry Summers, but in reality, it is a critique of the Harvard culture. Harvard was founded in the middle of the dishonesty (and even corruption), greed, exploitiveness, and sanctimony of the Pilgrims, who just knew they were superior to everyone else. That snobbism continued through the Brahmins of the 19th century and into today. Despite the movement from hereditary privilege to the peerage of an elite meritocracy, the snobbishness continues.

400 years later, those traditions seem to continue, and even expand.