An Anxious World, Contemplating a Fiery Extinction, Turns to…Harvard

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


It’s easy to make fun of Harvard (but why is it so easy?) — and it’s also fun, so let’s. As “malign narcissist” Kim Jong-Il poises a manicured finger over the nuclear button and all of humanity cringes in fear, the Harvard Crimson will not (will not!) be distracted from Topic Number 1.

This is a headline. A real one:

Nukes in Korea, But Eyes Turn To Harvard

And this is a real lead paragraph:

North Korea’s alleged nuclear test this week occurred deep underground in a mountain tunnel in the North Hamgyong Province, but in its aftermath, the world’s eyes are on Harvard Square.

Harvard is on this.

Harvard’s experts are in demand because the University’s extensive infrastructure, including the MTA Project at the Kennedy School of Government and the Harvard Negotiation Project at Harvard Law School, has been geared toward resolving the stalled talks and nuclear problem in North Korea since long before Monday’s approximately half-kiloton nuclear blast.

harvard.gif

Um…okay. (Heckuva job!)

So what should we think? What can we do? What does this all mean?

  • “This is what happens when you are long on heated rhetoric but short on consequences.” — Ashton Carter of Harvard’s Preventative Defense Project
  • “[I am] shocked but not surprised” — Carter again (we laypeople may be surprised, but only experts get to be shocked.)
  • “Despite the fact that [North Korea] has previously been warned, they disregarded it at a cost they were prepared to take.” — Graham Allison of the Kennedy School
  • “The next step should be to stop, take a deep breath, look the reality in the face unblinkingly, and recognize that the policy we and others have followed has failed.” (Allison again)
  • “One may consider a few sanctions, but those would be largely symbolic since North Korea is pretty isolated.” — Jeffrey G. Lewis, head of Harvard’s Managing the Atom project.
  • Next up: Harvard psychologists on Foleygate (“Clearly, this is a guy who’s into young boys”); Harvard literature profs on Orhan Pamuk’s Nobel Prize (“This will undoubtedly raise his profile.”); and the stars of the Kennedy School on the Iraq war (“We stay, we lose; we leave, we lose; Oy!”). Where would we be without Harvard?

    AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

    We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

    The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

    Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

    If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

    Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

    Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

    payment methods

    AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

    We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

    The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

    Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

    If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

    Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

    Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

    payment methods

    We Recommend

    Latest

    Sign up for our free newsletter

    Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

    Get our award-winning magazine

    Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

    Subscribe

    Support our journalism

    Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

    Donate