"So [Harvard] has many of early-21st century America's strengths — but many of the country's weaknesses as well. Its diversity is skin-deep: like the country as a whole, Harvard is actually getting more class-stratified, not less so, both within the school and in how well the student body reflects the broader society. Its scientific successes have been balanced by drift and even rot in the humanities, which mirror the larger rot in American popular culture; its formidable clout is undercut by a deep insecurity about its purpose and it founding ideals; and perhaps most importantly, its unprecedented wealth has too often fostered a spirit of materialism, greed, and success-at-all-costs. Harvard doesn't "hate America," as one conservative writer once put it — it is modern America, with all the good and bad that being modern America entails."
--Harvard alum Ross Douthat, National Review Online,
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