The Village Idiot
Fictitious Alternatives
In 1453, someone forgot to lock Constantinople’s Kerkoporta Gate, enabling the Ottoman army to sack the city. In late 1862, a Union corporal discovered General Harvey Hill’s battleplans in a discarded cigar box, allowing the Union Army to halt the Army of Northern Virginia at Antietam. Although I neither smoke nor worry about Ottoman sieges, these mistakes unnerve me.
Like most amateur historians, I often spend my evenings scrolling through Wikipedia as my mind toys with counterfactual history. For me, our past is more than what happened—it’s also a matter of what could have happened. Omissions, oversights, and lapses in judgment; these are the plagues that comprise our history and render our imaginations vulnerable to an abyss of alternative worlds. What if someone had locked the Kerkoporta Gate? What if Hill had done a better job safeguarding his sensitive military documents? What would our world look like today?
The Human Face of Institutional Change
My parents were initially displeased with my decision to join the Army. My mother is a staunch pacifist who grew up hating Cold War America. Her friends were murdered by American-backed death squads, so her feelings for the U.S. military were ambivalent at best. My father was slightly subtler in his opposition. As the deadline for accepting my Army scholarship approached, he asked me to read “The War Prayer,” hoping Mark Twain’s words would turn me away from the butchery of war.
My father’s tactics failed, but not because I was ignorant. I read "The War Prayer." I knew about the U.S.’s crimes in Vietnam and Central America. I agreed that the occupation of Afghanistan was a poorly managed campaign of mistakes, a catastrophe only overshadowed by the largest geopolitical disaster of the twenty-first century—the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
What Gives?
Volunteerism at Harvard confuses me. On the one hand, I’m moved by the hundreds of Harvard students who so readily dedicate themselves to bettering the lives of others. The Phillips Brooks House Association represents the best aspects of Harvard, serving as a conduit for public service as well as a bridge between Harvard, Cambridge, and the Greater Boston community.
Yet I’m skeptical of how much good organizations like the PBHA can do. Most PBHA programs lack a quantitative analysis of their impacts; in other words, we have no idea how much long-term good (if any) they generate. But more importantly, PBHA seems focused on pushing Harvard students to volunteer their time instead of encouraging them to offer their most valuable resource to those in need—their money. The world would be much better off if well-to-do students pledged to give 15 percent of their summer or future full-time incomes to an effective charity, like Doctors Without Borders or the Against Malaria Foundation, instead of spending their summers volunteering at a foreign orphanage where their inexperience may harm—not bolster—the orphanage’s capacity for good.
A Love Like Whiskey
Last summer I had the privilege of training with the 25th Composite Truck Company at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. Towards the end of my summer stay, our platoon was tasked with moving a company of infantrymen to a training site situated along Oahu’s central mountain range. Normally the platoon’s lieutenant would accompany our unit on such missions; however, his wife was about to give birth, leaving me with a salty platoon sergeant to oversee six or so vehicles.
Not that there was all that much for me to manage (or ruin) anyways. Our platoon sergeant—like any platoon sergeant—was an experienced soldier with multiple deployments under his belt. His voice was biblical, his orders were law, and his mind was as sharp as his tongue.
Road Trip Romance
Novels and films typically sell relationships as rewarding romantic journeys. Consequently, we expect our ideal partners to simultaneously intrigue us, protect us, and develop us, all whilst preserving their envious physique (or for the less “superficial” among us, their personality.) On top of serving as our emotional caretakers and partners in crime, our significant others also serve as status symbols, reminding both our friends and ourselves that we’re someone worth loving and—more importantly—someone who’s loved. And yet, at the end of the day, all romances, to include my own, come short of meeting these societal standards.
This isn’t to say that my girlfriend hasn’t developed or protected me; throughout these past four years—five come April 14—she has repeatedly gone above and beyond to help me through my darkest moments. I’m not a cruel cynic seeking to prove that there’s no such thing as serious romantic love. But what concerns me are the fantasies we chase: pretty pictures that deliver nothing but disappointment.