<p>Found this on auto admit . com and thought it was interesting.</p>
<p>Date: January 31st, 2005 12:57 AM
Author: NYCFan
Subject: Here's a moral tale that helps explain Yale's Harvard fixation:</p>
<p>Rivalries: Put Up or Shut Up </p>
<p>By Steven Friedman </p>
<p>Ignorance, I sometimes think, really can be bliss. Being completely ignorant about a subject gives you that beautifully naive outsider's perspective that someone wrapped up in and knowledgeable about a subject can't have. </p>
<p>I'm so ignorant about UC Berkeley -- no, I don't go here -- that I actually walked into the Bancroft Library the other day wearing a T-shirt that proclaimed "STANFORD UNIVERSITY." </p>
<p>At first I thought I was paranoid for thinking that everyone in the library was giving me evil looks. But the perfect truth of Woody Allen's catchphrase, "Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not after me," quickly proved itself true, as person after person pointed out to me that Stanford is UC Berkeley's mortal enemy. </p>
<p>This immediately reminded me of my university. Even before my freshman year at the University of Pennsylvania, I was continuously told that Penn's mortal enemy -- complete with our own version of the Big Game every year -- was another Ivy League competitor: Princeton University. So one day I e-mailed a Princeton friend to hear his take on it. </p>
<p>He laughed in his response. Even if it was over e-mail, I could still hear it. No one at Princeton knew we were "rivals" in any way, other than just playing a dinky football game against each other once a year. I realized what was up and quickly created an imaginary dialogue between our two universities and two other schools in the Ivy League: Harvard and Yale. </p>
<p>Penn, I've noticed, proudly declares to the world, "Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Penn are the four greatest universities in the world. So our only competitors are Harvard, Yale and Princeton." Princeton then replies, "What are you talking about, Penn? The three greatest universities are Harvard, Yale and Princeton. So our only competitors are Harvard and Yale." Yale then says, "What are you talking about, Princeton? The two greatest universities are Harvard and Yale, so Harvard is our only competitor." Harvard then says, "Ha! What are you talking about, Yale? We don't have any competitors..." </p>
<p>I witnessed this myself at the Penn-Princeton game, when Penn students chanted, "Princeton, you suck!" and the Princetonians just quietly stood there, as if to say, "Whatever you say, Penn." Later, I saw a Yalie wearing a shirt that read "Harvard sucks and Princeton doesn't matter." </p>
<p>And Princeton is right. They're a better school than Penn precisely because they have the quiet and honest confidence to be able to stand there and listen to us. And Harvard is better than Yale because they have enough quiet and honest confidence that they don't need to wear "Yale sucks" T-shirts. Because they believe it, they don't have to shout it. </p>
<p>The same seems to apply to UC Berkeley. Stanford, sincerely confident in its stature, doesn't need to scream its hatred for Berkeley from rooftops. Still, this doesn't keep them from doing the same to Harvard, by wearing "Harvard -- the Stanford of the East" T-shirts. We don't see any of these T-shirts in reverse in Cambridge, though. </p>
<p>The way to greatness, as Harvard has recognized, is not to tell competitors how much better you are than them. Instead, you must quietly and confidently work at being best. Harvard has internalized Margaret Thatcher's summary of such competition: "Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to say you are, you aren't." </p>
<p>Berkeley will truly triumph over Stanford the day when its undergrads stop saying how powerful they are, and instead, start believing it. </p>
<p>Steven Morgan Friedman, a senior history and English major at the University of Pennsylvania, thinks Berkeley is Penn's only rival.</p>