Gadfly

"To provide undergraduates with a medium for free, creative expression," to "bring to a new audience . . .," "to suggest the way toward controversy . . .," and with each such credo the great Hindu Wheel turns ever so slightly on its axis and Wisdom Incarnate emerges in the form of a new publication around Harvard Square.

This time we are graced with a small monthly magazine, Gadfly, which proudly bills itself as "a magazine of criticism and controversy." Much in the manner of St. George and the Dragon, the editors of Gadfly hope, with five short essays and several "artsy" commentaries, to stimulate the sleeping masses, the great lithesome Blob which is our community.

In "Say Something About Students . . .," the first essay, section man Morton Levine complains that Harvard students are more concerned with originality than they are with scholarship. (If this be true, there are many, verily, hordes, who have wasted the best years of their lives in the stacks of Widener--studying.) In place of "an ethical commitment to thoroughness and an esthetic which values craftsmanship in research and writing" there exists "a straining for originality and chic."

The central theme of the essay is clear: "There is a dearth of self-propelled students in the local environment." Or, in other words, we are all too "other-directed" for our own good. "Other-directed," that is, to the point of being individually original, which, in the words of at least one professor in the community, is "a seeming paradox."

More serious than that charge, however, is the assertion that we are suffering from an Identity Crisis. What this is exactly is explained by Sara Dakin (co-editor of Gadfly) in her laboriously symbolic essay, "Pig." At the price of trying to write on six levels of meaning, and, after switching metaphors in midstream, she says, "All pigs wander through this limbo period, constantly asking themselves "Who am I?' and 'What is my place in the pen?' This. . . we described as undergoing an identity crisis."

"Where are today's non-conformists? Where are today's pioneers?" asks Brian Featherstone in his essay on "the apathy of the American student." And so it goes. Everyone sits around and says, "Well, that's the way the bubble-gum pops" while all the real questions remain unanswered.

Instead, one should be asking himself: "Why aren't I 'concerned'? Why can't I crash through frontiers? How is it I'm not chosen as a volunteer for space missions? Why can't I be an anarchist, blowing up airplanes, factories, and like that, and asserting my individualism?" In short, one must "come to grips" with "basic existence" and master reality through the Ideal. "Why can't I commit myself and become a non-conformist?" still remains the fundamental question of our sham existence.

The most polemical essay of the five, "Religion in Harvard" by Llewelyn Thomas derides "the neo-fascism . . . appearing everywhere on the American scene," the "capitalistic-based administrators" who run the University, Christian choir-singers who sell out on their faith for two bucks a throw, and concludes with an affirmation that "the number of blobs at Harvard is infinite." No doubt this will prompt at least one 'Cliffie to prod her roommate with "See, I told you, we should have gone to Ohio State where men are really men."

With the exception of Julius Novick's article in extended praise of Christopher Fry's The Lady's Not for Burning, and Paul Riesman's essay on "mentally fat professors," the quality of the writing in the first issue of Gadfly is surpassed only by a mediocre Gen. Ed. essay. Also included in this issue is a short piece in French, which, after reading, I leave for the more esoteric to interpret, and an enigmatic scrawl on art and Ezra Pound written for a very special "in-group" to discuss over their Turkish tea at the Cafe Mozart.

After decrying the apathy of the Harvard student, as if there were something inherently bad about being apathetic, all the contributors to Gadfly offer us is their two-bit philosophy for our thirty-five cents. Therein lies the true tragedy of the magazine, for it is all too apparent that these undergraduates, so eager to say something, really have nothing at all to communicate. The reader has the feeling of having traversed a hog wallow only to be informed that he is dirty.

Perhaps the only real offer of assistance comes from a letter printed as Correspondence. In exaggerated terms, the letter calls for a return to "constructive" things, i.e., "pep rallies," "active participation in social clubs," "joie de vivre" and like that stuff. We should give up our search for "aggressive outlets," our traces of "residual bitterness" and "sibling rivalry" for a more "healthy attitude." However, the answer to that challenge is simple: So, who wants to be "healthy" in a sick society?

In the end, Gadfly will probably die from that which it seeks to cure: student apathy. Whether this is good or bad seen in light of the Big Scheme of things, frankly, I don't know. The guy at the Spa who sold me my issue of Gadfly said that he had sold more copies of it than he had of Playboy. But I'm not worried. Anyway, I can always sublimate my desires and adjust.