To: taskforce@andover.edu

I am deeply disturbed by your September 10 (2020) message to the Andover Community about the creation of the Anti-Racism Task Force. This message called for a carefully written response, which is why I reply so long after that date.

No, my dismay is not due to bigotry (as I use the term here, pertaining to pro-white prejudice and behavior derived from it) or to denial that racism exists. It does. White supremacy groups exist, and many or perhaps nearly all dark-skinned people have received insults due to their race. What concerns me is that the Task Force may be attacking a problem that, depending on how it is defined, has already been solved, does not exist at all, or is worthy of a response but inspires reactions that are harmful not beneficial.

When an authority such as a government or a school properly and constructively reacts to a problem, it does so with intent to effect a protocol to minimize its adverse consequences, or better yet a solution, with new or changed laws and regulations (government) or adjustments to curriculum and appropriate rules on how students and staff interact with one another on campus (school). Government laws and regulations already combat racism perfectly: discrimination by race is illegal and police brutality against dark-skinned people is already illegal and is prosecuted properly. There is nothing else for the government to do to react to racism.

But what of the bigots, you ask. The government can restrict behavior, but not beliefs. Bigots exist. If they are harmless, then they can be easily withstood or ignored. If not, then they can and should be arrested or otherwise stopped. Better to accept harmless bigots than open the door to tampering with beliefs. And bigotry itself can be discredited greatly if all anti-white and anti-male discrimination were to be erased, so that people of color and women (more correctly, people other than men) can be shown to succeed strictly on their merits and thereby all pro-white and anti-female prejudice can be shown to be absurd. That hasn’t happened: that obvious formidable challenge to bigotry was never used, preventably perpetuating the problem.

Major uproar when a dark-skinned person is attacked by police officers has a simple, though hated by the mass media, explanation. When black people get into scuffles with law enforcement or get shot dead during robbery attempts, there is an important difference of thought process to consider. We the law-abiding know that refusing to comply with lawful law-enforcement instructions is dangerous and so is robbery. When the other person has a gun, cooperation is vital. But in a fatherless household, female thought patterns reign. Male thought patterns rely on logic and exactitude, in which ordinary facts are supreme and feelings and their expression must be subordinate to them. Men fight more often and more vigorously than women, but the usual intent is to identify a winner and a loser and establish a hierarchy. Admitting defeat, admitting to being subordinate, tends to pacify male fighters. Conversely, the female thought pattern (unless tempered by a good upbringing including constructive schooling and good parents) relies on communication of emotion, in which the literal content of words is less important than the emotions thereby expressed. Fights, to females, are a form of language that comprises expressions of strong feelings without seeking of a solution to a problem, whether hierarchy-related or otherwise. The concept of dominant-subordinate is irrelevant. Use of props is legitimate in female-fight language. A gun is merely a tool to emphasize how strongly its user (a robber, for example) feels about something; the surprise when a gun is fired in self-defense is genuine. That's female thought processes run amok.

Education’s response to the racism problem?

First, the existence of racism on campus.

When I was a PA student, during my first year, the boy in the room next to mine was of African descent and bragged about how if he didn’t get his way then he could accuse those who interfered as racist. Prevailing doctrine defended his attitude. It’s easy and I think proper for Andover to impose restrictions on speech, including his, that is intended to denigrate or disparage or to claim personal privilege due to race or gender, if in so doing those restrictions permit speech that is impartial and factual when literally interpreted and causes offense, if at all, only because political activists say it should cause offense.

Ban on-campus racist speech. Enforce the ban. End of the on-campus problem. A task force can be called on to write the appropriate speech and behavior codes and to augment the history syllabus as I note below, but that’s all it needs to do for the on-campus issues.

Second, the existence of racism in society at large.

Teaching PA students how to react to the unavoidable emphasis on race and racial issues is important. But if the issues do not exist on campus (and they shouldn’t if appropriate rules are enacted and enforced), then the only thing to do in this context is to put the outside world racial issues in perspective and teach students how to react to them. What to do when encountering a bigot or receiving insulting remarks based on race (or gender, sexual orientation, etc.). How to counsel a friend, or a subordinate if one is in a supervisor job, who has encountered such remarks or racial discrimination. Other skills that are unfortunately necessary because bigots exist.

There is nothing to do to fight racism other than teach how to react to bigots and appropriately add to history and sociology instruction. If defense against bigoted behavior were universally known and practiced, and if pro-white and pro-male discrimination were contrived not to exist (and discrimination in all directions too, I hope), then the problem of racism would not exist at all.

But there are social needs specific to people of African descent, you say. There are. Impartial study of human relations in their communities, with scrutiny of the female-based mindset that children encounter as they grow up, is important. So is the study of important dark-skinned people who contributed to our history, such as those who fought against the British during the American Revolution and those who fought for education of nonwhites during the 1800s. Incorporating such information into history courses, also facts about important women and their inventions, will help overcome any white male supremacist bias in what is taught.

Setting aside any anti-African prejudice within our society, I note that African culture includes considerable study and development of the art of rhythm. Western music is generally confined to binary series of beats, with a number of beats per measure a power of two, or a waltz 3/4 or foxtrot 6/8, in which the measures contain triplets. Also, there is only one rhythm at a time. In African music, there can be two overlapping rhythms or many more than two. The concept is interesting and may inspire PA students to pursue and compose, regardless of where the concepts originated. Also, the mancala family of games that is commonplace in Africa and among the Caribbean (transplanted slaves) is not only an important part of African culture, in some regions played only among the warriors and banned among the commoners, but an interesting concept in itself and shows promise among stroke rehabilitation when people have left-side or right-side neglect. Its use in stroke rehabilitation has been totally ignored, unfortunately.

Important in such instruction is the obvious major but underpublicized problem of atrocities that occur throughout sub-Saharan Africa, which have been properly challenged in South Africa (white leaders) but not elsewhere on the continent (black leaders). Having dark skin appears to give dictators permission to brutalize and torture, a doctrine that is very hard on the citizens of the afflicted nations who in turn don’t particularly care about the skin color of the oppressors but are desperate for relief. This bias in prevailing attitudes needs to be taught. It’s related to the permission that Muslims get to suppress and batter and disfigure women whereas the rest of us are properly denied permission to suppress and batter and disfigure them. Attitudes about race and gender, per mainstream media, have important contradictions. These need to be exposed so that students don’t grow up mentally warped by having to accept mutually exclusive principles, therefore the pain of cognitive dissonance, and consequently acquiring anxiety or guilt or other dysfunction.

They should also learn, as mentioned above, the thought patterns and consequences of female-dominant culture. The bazaar marketplace in Lagos, Nigeria, is controlled by women shopkeepers whose husbands do nothing. Bonobos, related to chimpanzees but that live in a habitat with no predators, have bigger females than males. Understanding these social dynamics is vital for the understanding of gender issues induced by female-dominant subcultures and consequent racial issues, real and illusory. Popular dogma represses any hypothesis that female thought processes are imperfect; this dogma must be vigorously challenged if our society is to last more than a half century from now.

Instruction on these issues is important, but it does not directly fight racism.

But what of the prevailing and persisting attention to racism despite the laws that ban pro-white discrimination, you ask. To answer that important question, I need a digression to breast cancer attitudes.

I proved that women’s-rights activists who agitate about breast cancer are irrational in a peer-reviewed journal at http://www.jpands.org/vol22no3/correspondence.pdf; I have received not only no refutation but also no rebuttal at all. My proof is the contradiction between the known effectiveness of iodine as a breast-cancer preventive and the failure of women’s-rights activists to spread the word of that effectiveness: the activists prefer a procedure (mammograms) that is painful, demeaning, and administered under penalty of potential death (rape!) and that does not reduce breast-cancer incidence to a simple, inexpensive, and effective way to reduce its incidence that does not have these disadvantages. Therefore, those who agitate about breast cancer are verified irrational and seek not a solution to a real problem, but something else: an outcome that they consider more desirable than what had previously existed, but not a decisive and final solution to the problem.

The activists seek attention to a problem, not a solution to the problem. Attention to it, if the hypothesis is accepted that the problem can never be solved, has these benefits:

1 Contriving to have the people actually or potentially afflicted by the problem as worthy of sympathy from the population at large, therefore privileged,

2 The bonding of people afflicted with the problem to each other to the exclusion of others, thereby dividing the population into an in-group and an out-group instead of uniting us,

3 The use of social compliance, including bullying and harassment that is justified by privilege, to suppress dissent, therefore

4 Due to the suppression of dissent, therefore of impartial scientific analysis, the formation of habitual thought processes that center on conformity and bonding,

5 Imposition of guilt on those not afflicted,

6 Exploitation of that guilt as a rationale to demand discrimination in favor of themselves and to demand money through various means (government benefits, donations, etc.), and

7 Creating and maintaining an emotional state of purpose, of commitment to a cause, of caring about something, of activity and being energized, not being totally satisfied and complacent.

Analyze the current race attention-seeking and compare its rationale with the concepts I outlined regarding breast cancer, and you will note that what the leftist activists seek is similar in all respects except literal content: contriving for privilege, bonding of like-minded people and forming cliques, social compliance to suppress dissent, thought processes of conformity (totalitarianism), use of guilt as a weapon, demands for money, and acquiring a motive for doing something instead of being socially inert.

What I have mentioned so far is the content of what is thought. Also important is the process of thinking and how it is distorted, beyond male-female differences.

Read and get engrossed in a well-written romance novel, and as you feel immersed in the story you will temporarily acquire the thought processes anticipated by its author. These thought processes are not the ones of impartial analysis, but include caring, compassion, or even sexual tension. Study in detail the works of Marcuse, Alinsky, and other leftist authors, and you will learn not only the content of what they explain but also the thought processes that are needed in order to understand that content. If such thought processes are emphasized continually, then a student’s mind is likely to form the habit of accepting such processes as legitimate and valid. The processes, however, violate the principles of scientific thought and logical reasoning. They demand presuming that various oppressed classes are worthy of assistance and emancipation through forcible transfers of assets and that ordinary capitalist economic theory and actual history of money and banking can be ignored.

Approve the study of racial issues without restriction, and Andover will begin contriving for its students to adopt defective thought processes; for a rational look at racial issues will effect the quick and obvious conclusion that although the problems of racial issues are big and not easily solved, the appropriate action steps are simple and the ongoing issues (white supremacist bigots, angry nonwhites who offer no specific demands that if met would completely satisfy them) can merely be noted to exist.

Attention to thought processes, not just content, is ignored in education generally, though to its credit not at Andover while I was a student there. There is no substitute for logical reasoning when making decisions about how to vote or what to do about one or another social problem. Postmodernist doctrine, based on the principle that no objective reality exists, must be accepted as valid before critical race theory or other trendy concepts can be thought of as anything except frivolous and nonsensical, which they are. Scrutiny of the underlying thought processes is critical in education. Playing “cute” as by importing instructors with fashionable and recent but untested belief structures is dangerous; see for example the actions of Jack Harris, my new-age biology instructor 1970-71, who saw a classmate assault me and reproved me as vigorously as him even though my classmate had important disciplinary issues and I did not.

Refuse to teach postmodernist thought, and those who teach what violates fundamental principles of science and logic will appear deluded or worse. Having destructive thought patterns appear to be evidence of delusion or psychosis is nominally unkind to those whom they afflict, but is a good deterrent to their being adopted.

An entire medical subspecialty, neuro-ophthalmology, is devoted to thought processes: in it lies the study of translation of raw visual data to what is consciously perceived and how it is interpreted. We need the equivalent of that subspecialty in terms of what is perceived generally in the context of interpersonal relations and the thought processes of its interpretation. I offer two examples of known defective thought-processes that have escaped the mental-health profession and should not escape you, not including the breast-cancer analysis I mentioned above:

First, a contributing cause of attention-deficit-hyperactive disorder. Make cognitive dissonance a significant part of a child’s life, and the child will infer, “Whenever I keep my attention on something, and follow the step-by-step chain of reasoning that it comprises, I encounter a contradiction, an instance of cognitive dissonance, which feels bad. Therefore, I will protect myself from that bad feeling by forming the habit of breaking attention frequently, so that I will never have a chance to reach the bad feelings of cognitive dissonance.”

Second, a contributing cause of autism. Impute attitudes and beliefs to a small child, and the child will perhaps protest and perhaps cooperate quietly. But the child may instead decide that his or her attitudes are unimportant and therefore shut down emotionally. Before dismissing my (yes it’s my) theory as wrong, note that mental-health experts offer no warning to parents and teachers about what happens if wrong and unverified guesses are made about a child’s attitudes and preferences—meanwhile no known behavioral contributor to autism has been described in mainstream media.

The teaching of race relations, as with the teaching of other subjects, calls for instilling not only factual knowledge but also the thought processes that underly a fair and rational analysis of the subject. Naïve delegation of race-relations instruction to haphazardly chosen teachers who happen to be interested in the subject is likely to effect disastrous lessons to Andover students. Making sure that those who teach the subject are willing and able to teach according to rational curriculum content is far more difficult than putting a Help Wanted sign on the Great Lawn. Some work is needed, but I think choosing those who do it is very important.

Not all of what students should learn is based on the fundamentals of scientific reasoning and logical analysis, you say. Right. Human relations is an important part of what children must learn as they grow up, and the process of forming friendships and engaging in romance and falling in love can never be explained with the icy precision of a computer program. It comprises legitimate thought processes and deserves proper respect, true. Skill in it is necessary when one person interacts with another (except in formal contexts). But the thought processes of human relations need to be taught too, for they can be learned wrongly. How to react to one’s feelings about someone of a different gender, or a different race, or when someone of a different gender or race is domineering, is important to learn properly. Peer pressure or an overbearing false friend can teach very destructive lessons; I think it’s a school’s duty to anticipate that danger and offer formal instruction to compensate for it.

I mentioned two years ago in various letters that the Brace Center has an excellent opportunity to preemptively instruct children on how to anticipate and parry potentially destructive romantic partners or future spouses. The Center’s emphasis then seemed to be singularly disconnected from the reality of that problem. By my standards, it did a dreadful job with the gender issue. I am horrified that Andover may try to impose a reaction to race that resembles that of its reaction to gender. The attitude at the Center seems to be to call attention to the issue of gender identity, which is not the same as trying to solve the various problems caused by gender differences and how genders are perceived. The entire emphasis of the Center seems to be an apology for female inferiority, which in turn I strongly oppose because women are not inferior. If the Brace Center is an example of how Andover reacts to social problems, then I can expect it to react similarly badly to the problem of racism. Eager to do my duty to the school and to its future students, and unable to give money partially due to a shattered career, I express my great concern here.

The instruction on how to perceive and interact with people different from oneself is part of the apparent mission of the Brace Center. The principles and thought process instructions in a properly designed course about race relations are very similar to those of gender issues, though of course the content is different. Incorporating race relations into the mission of the Brace Center, along with gender relations, would seem to be a very sensible decision. My sincere hope is that the Brace Center will adopt the task of teaching race relations and the process of learning how to analyze social trends and pressures impartially, meanwhile teaching the differences between male and female with clear instruction on how to avoid being abused by destructive relationships and racist supremacists.

We must remember that students who graduate from PA usually go to college, where they almost certainly will  encounter major leftist pressure to conform and to be indoctrinated. I chose a wrong college when I graduated from Andover, refused to conform with my attitudes, and was told by its dean of the faculty to drop out despite good grades. Had I been warned of indoctrination pressures and how to anticipate and withstand them, I would have survived there or better yet gone elsewhere. Instruction must be designed to anticipate destructive tendencies in higher education so that Andover’s graduates will successfully resist them.

The college placement director when I was an Andover student was later given the job of alumni relations. I mentioned that he would be in a great position to ask recent graduates for feedback about colleges, so that underpublicized meritorious colleges would be identified as such and disasters such as the one I attended would be exposed to seniors with appropriate fact-based vivid warnings. My suggestion was ignored, leaving me feeling disheartened about Andover’s true willingness to look out for its students.

If you read this plea and disagree, acquiring a wish to write a rebuttal of like kind and quality, then you are well on your way to helping create a good reaction to the current racism issues. I don’t know everything. But if you read this plea and acquire anger, a wish to attack me personally, then you are part of the problem.

Phillips Academy has a choice. Direct students toward impartial analysis of race and gender issues and toward demanding tolerance of people different from themselves, meanwhile teaching them to stand up for their rights whenever someone tries to cheat or disparage them due to dissimilar race or gender, or follow the trendy crowd and destroy critical thinking in the very children whose capacity to guide our society in future decades most clearly calls for them to not only preserve but also treasure their intellectual creativity and strength. Choose wisely, I beg.

Respectfully submitted,

Edward J. Harshman
PA ’73