As I mentioned in the last issue, I’ve always been interested in predictions and prophecies. If a philosopher can make accurate predictions about the future (as Nietzsche did), doesn’t that indicate that he understands the world? And if his predictions are inaccurate, doesn’t that indicate that his understanding is flawed? If an economist predicted the 2008 meltdown in 2006, wouldn’t that indicate that he had a deep understanding of economics?
A war has broken out between Harvard and the federal government. This war was predicted by Lloyd Blankfein, a Harvard alum and the former CEO of Goldman Sachs. Around July 1, 2024, Blankfein said to the Harvard President (Alan Garber) and to the head of the Harvard Board (Penny Pritzker) that
| Harvard is supported by the American taxpayer and has an obligation to make the case that the money is well spent, and is generating advances in technology and medicine.... Blankfein warned that Harvard was six months away from “confrontation with a recharged, Trump/Vance-inspired set of Congressional committee chairs and staffs.... Enjoy the quiet moment,” he wrote, signing off on the email. |
Team Trump wants more than “advances in technology and medicine.” Team Trump wants conservative voices at elite colleges, respect for the classics, and less DEI. Team Trump wants political conservatism and cultural conservatism.
Harvard could have hired an outspoken conservative years ago, and that would have made Harvard a model instead of a target. But Harvard is cautious, risk-averse. At the slightest whiff of danger, Harvard speaks of “fear” and “safety,” never of “courage.” The only person at Harvard who stresses courage is Harvey Mansfield.
Harvard wants to hire nice people, kind people, people who build consensus. But as Goethe said, “the brighter the light, the darker the shadow.” If you hire people who don’t have a dark side, you exclude the best philosophers, scientists, and artists; you consign Harvard to mediocrity. Kindness plus consensus doesn’t add up to a great university. You can’t justify the existence of a university by saying “Everybody gets along.”
Shakespeare had a dark side. When he was 17, he killed a man with a sword; later he fought a duel that left him limping for the rest of his life; he quarreled with Philip Sidney over a tennis game. In a letter to his father-in-law, Shakespeare said, “Always I have, and I will still, prefer mine own content before others.” Shakespeare had an edge, he wasn’t a nice person, Harvard wouldn’t want him in their English Department.
Goethe lived in a more refined age, a less violent age, than Shakespeare, so his dark side expressed itself in subtler ways. Goethe said that he had “known a man who, without saying a word, could suddenly silence a party engaged in cheerful conversation, by the mere power of his mind. Nay, he could also introduce a tone which would make everybody feel uncomfortable.” Doubtless the man Goethe is talking about is himself.
Goethe’s light and dark qualities inspired ambivalent feelings in those who knew him. After Schiller met Goethe, he said, “it is a most peculiar mixture of love and hatred that he has inspired in me.”
An American philosopher once wrote, “His wife could light up a room, and he could darken a room, so if the two of them were together, chiaroscuro effects were achieved that reminded some people of Rembrandt, and others of Caravaggio.”
People with talent often have an edge. Their light and dark sides are in conflict; their negative impulses are controlled, but barely controlled, and not completely controlled. Mill spoke of, “great energies guided by vigorous reason, and strong feelings strongly controlled by a conscientious will.”
© L. James Hammond 2025
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