Perhaps Legacy Admissions at Harvard Are At The Bottom of This

I hadn't paid that much attention to the "Black Mass" stunt announced by the Harvard Extension Cultural Studies Club until it was called off, sort of.   Like PZ Myer's ersatz "Great Desecration" the stunt is supposed to center around the desecration of a consecrated communion wafer,  an act that is intentionally offensive to Catholics and what they hold to be sacred.   I strongly suspect that, whatever communion wafer is used when this kind of thing happens, it would likely not be consecrated.  I'm almost certain it probably wouldn't have been, just as I am almost certain that the one in Myer's stunt was not.  So we are left with the intentionally offensive act.

Oddly, for a bunch of Harvard students, supposedly representative of the cream of intellectual potential in their generation, the kiddies who commissioned the "Black Mass" seem to be upset that people who were intended to be offended got offended by their adolescent level attention getting.   Perhaps someone at Harvard should inform these kids that that's how giving intentional offense works.  You do something to offend, those you intend to offend are offended.  To pretend to confusion as to why they were offended by feigning an innocent desire to merely satisfy intellectual curiosity is a lame trick teenagers have been pulling for generations.   No, kiddies, by the time you're in college, it's time that you stopped pretending to not understand what you're doing.  Grow up.   Perhaps they only teach that at land-grant universities, these days.  Places that don't harbor the kinds of clubs that the Ivy League day care centers for the elite do.   The extension of adolescence well into adulthood, if not right through senescence is a luxury more common to those with too much money.

As is common with acts of intentional offensiveness, those marked to be offended seldom ask to be offended, in this case Catholics.   That so many on the pseudo-left are both delighted that they were offended while pretending to be outraged that they are offended only points to their immaturity, similar to that of the kids at the Harvard Extension Cultural Studies Club.   As a matter of political realism,  I'll point out that the Holy Hour held to counter the "Satanic" stunt was standing room only.   The planned for crowd at the "Black Mass" was never intended to be more than a few hundred at most.   It's a pretty stupid political calculation that needlessly offends more people than it attracts.  But such is the pseudo-left's political arithmetic.   I am pretty disgusted that, with the response of the "left" that leaves conservatives an open field to gain the good will of those so offended.

In my response to an article chiding the Catholic Church for its response, I said this:

Oh, for crying out loud, the central aspect of this, the organizing of the stunt by Harvard Extension School Cultural Studies Club was juvenile thrill seeking through that most superficial of cultural acts, being all naughty and transgressive by offending other people believed to represent some kind of oppressive authority. Well, what a surprise, an act that is intended to be offensive, offended an got all involved lots of attention. While there is a lot in this "eulogy" that is worth thinking about, one thing that isn't addressed is that of all of those involved, the Catholic hierarchy and laity, those designated as the offended, didn't choose to start the entire affair. I'm sure that the Cardinal and others would have rather spent their time on something productive rather than addressing an adolescent attention getting and thrill seeking stunt.

The real harm, the real violation of Jesus is done by the dogmas taught at the Harvard Business School, is Law School, other Harvard entities like the Kennedy School of Government, which oppress the least among us for the benefit of the class that goes to Harvard as legacy admissions, the ones who make Harvard's endowment so obscenely enormous while schools within easy walking distance or a quick subway ride away, those which try to serve poor people, are dying for lack of funds. The real violation of the Body of Christ happens by the preferential option for the rich that is taught at Harvard and other elite institutions, something which any group, Catholic or "Satanist" or even those within the Harvard community would not be wasting their time addressing and, heaven help us, actually doing something to help. And I'd include Boston College and Holy Cross among those who should look at who their teaching prefers, some of their product is as truly Satanic as the "Justices" and lawyers and government officials [not to mention businessmen and women, economists, bankers, etc.] who come out of Harvard.

If you want to read the exchange that led to with a few atheists, or, as I suspect, one atheist using sock puppets, the people who are blathering the most about this, online,  here's the link.

Update:   Allergy season, benadryl, the editing is the first casualty.  Sorry for the more the usual screw ups and overdependence on spell check to fix things to bad results.