Tailgating, Harvard Style

For those of you who weren't at The Game last Saturday, the real action wasn't on the field but in the parking lot, at the tailgate. As a transplant from the Midwest, the international home of tailgating, I have attended more than my fair share of these Saturday afternoon rituals. And yet, Harvard--as Harvard is apt to do--puts its own lavish spin on such events. Though most of the parties had familiar offering of hot dogs and beer, not a few were serving up a more decadent fare. There was champagne, pate and cheeses far more exotic than anything you'd put on a hamburger. Certainly, the festivities were just a bit removed from the likes that fans at Ohio State or MSU might recognize, but then again, this is Harvard, and if it does nothing else, Harvard teaches you how to enjoy the finer things in life, even at a tailgate.

The lesson is inescapable, and the effects are evident. Witness the shift in drinking habits. From guzzling beer at Pennypacker, students soon aspire to the rarefied air of Grafton and its sorely overpriced drinks. The same can be said for subtle changes in attire. Whereas sophomore year, the hordes of final club punchees tend to ill-fitting blue sport jackets that Mom bought them, by the time they are ready for interviews, these boys have become men and found their salvation at Brooks Brothers and Burberry. Indeed, from the ice cream bash Freshman Week to the champagne brunch that sums up senior spring, Harvard students slowly but ineluctably learn the requirements for living what we could call the "good life."

Insofar as Harvard teaches you the cultural accoutrements for the "good life," this lesson is harmless in its effect, yet when it imparts the belief that the "good life" is somehow a better life, the lesson can be harmful and is perhaps better left untaught. Fundamentally, there is nothing inherently "good" about the lifestyle that Harvard promotes. It is one lifestyle among many, and the only thing that distinguishes it from the rest is, of course, that most people can't afford it. The "good life" ain't cheap, and, after our time at Harvard, affording it can be quite problematic. You need money--a lot of money--to keep on living the "good life," and this leaves you with few career paths to choose from.

To see your classmates caught in the crux of such a decision, take some time out and visit the career fair. Certainly, some students come to Harvard already interested in business, but that doesn't explain the legions of seniors who are dying to convince the McKinsey interviewer that they want nothing more out of life than to determine the market demand for riding lawnmowers in Belize--certainly I can't imagine that too many of us put that on the "career interests" section of our college applications. Nevertheless, each autumn, many seniors come to the realization that Belize's horticultural tendencies can be deeply compelling. Indeed, when faced with the tradeoff between a six-figure debt from grad school and a six-figure salary from I-banking, you have to be honest with yourself about what you can afford to do with your life. And yet, what you can afford to do with your life depends very much on what you need from it, and the more time we spend at a place like Harvard, the more our needs tend to grow. Harvard gives us more than a taste for luxury; it tends to make us think that the "good life" is, in fact, the only life for us.

Yet when pursuing the "good life" comes at the cost of a sense of personal fulfillment, the price is steep. Many of the alums I ran into at The Game who are taking two years out to make some money before they go on to some venture "they really like" seemed very eager to move on. They hadn't given up on the "good life," but they were weary about its cost.

Moving on, however, is not as easy as it might seem. The "good life" is intoxicating, and like any other narcotic, its charm is not easily broken and its demands are increasingly hard to meet. It is no surprise that each succeeding reunion sees its alums driving better cars than the last, for if luxury is not ever replacing itself, it risks becoming mundane. To keep up with this lifestyle, we have to ensure that, whatever we're doing, we're able to finance its demands. But when these demands tend to hollow out any meaningful core to our lives, we should not only pause to reconsider those demands, but we should ultimately question the lifestyle they reflect.

John Paul Rollert '00-'01 is a social studies concentrator in Mather House. His column appears on alternate Wednesdays.