Quartz Crystals
Watch the Throne
Our own Widener is exclusive by nature and necessity. I can’t honestly complain: I don’t want to try studying while tourists mill around. But even for a registered Harvard student, Widener—like, let’s be fair, a lot of our institution—captures a certain restrictive ethos. You mostly go to Widener to do work that leads to your “qualification” in some set of skills. You use its resources in pursuit of knowledge that, even if that specific assignment is not intended to be groundbreaking, trains you in the tradition whose goal it is to produce original scholarship. In Widener and on campus in general, one cannot escape the sense of being educated, and that our learning methodically and relentlessly hones us toward a purposed specialization. Something would be wrong if we were to attend university and not feel that we were being educated. But I am wary of the sensation that our minds are being poured into channels through which they rush forward. Some narrow and accelerate to achieve laser-like breadth and power; some significantly shape the earth around them.
