In the Crimson this morning, Sahand picks up on the onion-husk style of complaining at Harvard:

You may have noticed: There are some people on this campus who like to complain.

[…]

Then there are those who complain about the complainers. […] They direct their patronizing misanthropy at campus “brats,” and come out looking somehow worse—brattier—than their targets.

Since Sahand himself is directing his patronizing misanthropy at the “brattier” brats who brat-ified themselves by directing their patronizing misanthropy at the merely bratty brats, I’m unsure where this puts him. Brattiest of brats? Hyper-brat? So bratty as to be bratless?

At the center of Sahand’s complaint is that the people who complain about complainers are the MOST COMPLAINIEST COMPLAINERS OF ALL. To keep this argument intact, it must follow that the original complaints stem from a root of legitimacy. But what if they don’t? Isn’t the proper response to illegitimate, petty complaints constituted of equal parts mockery and sarcasm? Shouldn’t we refuse to treat the petulant, unproductive whining of self-abrasive entitlement with even a signal amount of respect?

It’s not long before this bizarre argument goes down the long tunnel:

For these people, it seems that it’s the feeling of superiority over their classmates that matters, not actually considering anyone’s wellbeing. And who can blame them? It’s not as if they have to pay their way through college or anything.

Guh guh guh guh wha? Correct me if I’m interpreting this wrong: people who refuse to legitimate petty complaints about dining hall ipso facto don’t have to pay their way through college? Really? I’d be insulted by this if it wasn’t so patently erratic.

Humility’s a lost cause amongst Ivy League students, but what pathetic fragments of it remain are worth preserving. There are plenty of us who both have to work to be here and, consequently, feel rather lucky to have amenities to the extent we have them. It seems to me that it’s exactly the inverse as Sahand imagines it: that it’s those who don’t appreciate just how little we have to complain about, probably because the problems of their lives have been trivial, who make up the bulk of the whining class.