Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Where Have All The Sartre Readers Gone?

Philosophy (of Sex, Love, and Friendship) class today brought home a few lessons about University life. The prof is a rather amusing man, who has a distinctly blunt way of phrasing things. The material is relatively enjoyable, but the prof makes it much more amusing - who would have thought Plato's Symposium could be amusing?

The first lesson is as follows:
  • In the words of my entertainingly blunt prof: "University is not where you go to become intelligent. University is where you go to become over educated". I was the only one who burst out laughing. This was just a perfectly apt way of wording what I've always felt about higher education. I once made the error of assuming people in University would be more intelligent, and would actually want to be there and want to learn. I was grossly mistaken. University is, generally, just the place where stupid people go to fornicate with other stupid people. Every now and then there are genuinely driven and intelligent people - but that is far from the general case.
The second lesson is as follows:
  • We're starting to look at Sartre's Being and Nothingness, so the prof asked if anyone had read any Sartre before. Assuming there are going to be other people, I confidently stick my hand up in the air. Out of a class of 100+, I'm the only one with my hand up. All eyes turn to me. It's so terribly sad - only ONE person in a 2nd year Philosophy course who's ever read any Sartre? What's wrong with the world?
I'm starting to feel like I'm the last sane person in a world of insanity. Technically, I guess that makes me the insane one.

Listening to: Babylon - David Gray

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