Getting an Earful

I saw Ralph Nader speak last week.

O.K., let's settle down, let's get a grip. I know many are angry about Ralph Nader, about how he effected the 2000 election, etc. I bet my father, if he reads the blog, has already smashed the computer screen upon reading his name.

I have no interest in rehashing that past history. And when I set aside that problematic dimension of his career, I see Nader as an amazing man who deeply loves America, and has dedicated his entire life to justice. He very well have saved more lives than any single person in our country in the last 100 years. Really.

So last week he was at Harvard to talk to the Harvard Law Students. And if you CAN set aside all of his old baggage, he said some pretty striking things. Such as:

Harvard Law School “is filled with highly proficient drones.”

Harvard Law School “doesn’t ask any of the big questions.”

Harvard Law School “needs to be picked up by its neck and shaken,” because it's a “massive waste of human resources,” and the students will graduate and become “strategists and greasers of corporate power.”

Harvard Law School “is a puppet of the oligarchy.”

Harvard Law School “doesn't fight the ongoing lethal destruction of people and the environment.”

Additionally,

"The academic world needs to have an arm's length distance from the corporate world to retain its freedom and critical inquiry."

"Dissent is the mother of all assent."

"To know and not to do is not to know." (Chinese proverb)

"University curriculums are brilliant at denying reality."

So there you go. Whether you think the Harvard Law School is deserving of such commentary or not, it can be really refreshing (sometimes) to hear someone who doesn't bother to qualify anything he really thinks.

And I couldn't help but wonder what he might have said to the Ed School if he had the chance.